Managing Files-A Loss-less Plean for the Future and Beyond!

Its tough to compare composite transfer with digital transfer, since one is a string of digits, and the other an analog signal. I do know that when it comes to analog that a composite signal is not the highest quality analog signal out there. Composite is a single signal containing the chroma and luminance info. A component signal, which divides chroma and luminance into three signal will deliver a cleaner video output. How it compares to the quality of a DV codec, I don't know. Either way, if its coming into a computer, its going to be digitized by a codec anyway.

There are quality differences in codecs, though. The Microsoft codec is decent, but not spectacular. I prefer to use Apple codecs or the Avid DV codec. I hear really good things about the MainConcept DV codec as well. Of course, not all of these are free.

mark7's claim is technically unsound. It seems to work for him, but it simply not the way people should be working with digital video.