Posted by sbt on 03/22/07 22:00

In article <1174589753.067623.156380@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, Cori
<cmashieldscapting@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 22, 11:38 am, Gene E. Bloch <spamf...@nobody.invalid> wrote:
>
> > These two methods are almost equivalent. However, the two devices
> > (ADVC, DVD recorder) will have different qualities of digitization. Try
> > them and see what you like best.
>
> Bob, THANKS for the information! It wasn't what I asked, but as it
> happens I do want to incorporate still images into some of my DVDs.
>
> Bill, someone else told me the Canopus would be higher quality and
> certainly on any footage I plan to edit, it has to get into the
> computer somehow. It's just that the Canopus seemed like an extra
> step if I have already transferred the same footage to digital via the
> Zenith. If the Canopus really is better, though, I shouldn't take
> chances on quality even despite the extra trouble.
>
> Gene, thanks for sharing your genius.
>

Cori:

Going from VHS to computer via the Canopus because you wish to do
additional editing will result in (possibly much) higher quality than
using the Zenith to encode and then doing a Canopus transfer, because
the conversion to digital in the Zenith includes a lossy compression to
MPEG-2, followed by an analog-to-digital transfer to your Mac (it
doesn't matter whether the content is stored in a digital or analog
form if you're going to use an analog output on the digital content!),
followed by another lossy compression after you do your editing.

What you need to be concerned with is doing as little as possible to
degrade your content on the path from original source to final product.
The more times you compress and the more times you have an analog
device in the loop, the more quality you lose.

So:

Assuming that you are limited by having originally analog (VHS)
content, your least damaging path is to have only one analog transfer
and one compression.

Thus, if you don't need to edit, either "all-in-the-Zenith" or VHS to
computer via ADVC followed by authoring on the Mac are roughly
equivalent "least loss" processes -- it just depends on which has the
best MPEG encoder.

If you do need to edit, VHS to computer via ADVC, followed by editing
(iMovie, Final Cut, etc) and authoring (iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Toast,
etc) are going to be your "least loss" solution.

It really isn't difficult to figure this stuff out so long as you
remember that the more you muck with analog and the more often you
compress, the worse off you are.

--
Spenser

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