Hi I am looking to purchase a camcorder that uses the mini dvd media. I realize that the minidv tape camcorders generally offer better quality and their output is much easier to edit to give more creative opportunities. However, I plan to use the camcorder for work with little or no requirements for editing but want the ease of creating hard copy dvds quickly. When I go on vacation I would like to take the camcorder along but then my "post production" needs are greater. Instead of trying to convert the output files to something that is editable I was wondering if an analog capture device (e.g. pci video capture card, or external capture box) can be used to capture the video from the camcorder's analog output jacks to create AVI files. (similar to capture from a vcr) I know it sounds convoluted to use a digital camcorder to go to analog and then convert back to digital but this strategy seems like a simple work around for the occassional times I may need to do it. My question is will it work or is there something wrong with this strategy?
Doing what you want to do will result in a great loss of video quality. You can always finalize the disc, in your your camcorder, and you have your movie, ready to play in any DVD player. If you want to do editing to that finalized disc, you can copy the contents to your hard drive, and use video editing software to edit the contents of that disc. There is no need to capture at all. BTW, always shoot your video at the highest quality that your miniDVD camcorder can be set to.
Thanks GrandpaBW, I was under the impression that MPEG-2 files needed to be converted to DV-AVI before it can be used with video editing programs and that the conversion is a difficult process. That is why I was looking for a quick work around.
No, .avi files are not DVD compliant. It is the other way around. .AVI files must be converted to DVD compliant .mpeg2 files, to play on a DVD player. Those compliant .mpeg2 files show up as .VOB files in your Video_TS folder on a DVD compliant movie.
OK, Can the .VOB files be directly edited by most video editing programs? Somehow I thought that another conversion is needed.
I know that Roxio EMC 9 and EMC 10 can take the .VOB files directly. If the software doesn't, you can try changing the .VOB extension to .MPG. That usually works.
