avi dv….is the same as DV

[Dave Schweitzer]

The compression is the same, but there are at least a couple other differences to keep in mind.
Since you didn’t fill in your profile I have no idea if you’re working in NTSC or PAL. My experience is 99% NTSC, so some of this may be incorrect for you.

1. the Avid DV codec is set to a 601 color space for NTSC television, with blacks at 7.5 IRE and whites at 100 IRE (using levels of 16-235). The standard DV codec uses an RGB color space – same as for computers, with levels of 0-255. This really isn’t much of an issue, though, since upon import you can tell Avid the incoming files have RGB levels and Avid will adjust the levels to 601. If you’re not going to broadcast, or if proper video levels are less of an issue for you than the way the video looks, importing with your import settings set to 601 will leave the levels alone and give you ultra blacks and superwhites. For some things this can look nice, but again the levels will be incorrect for NTSC.
2. Timecode will be lost in the import. If your other apps assign tape timecode to the DV upon capture it will be stripped by Avid, which assigns every clip the starting TC you have set in your General settings. The timecode can be modified once these clips are imported, but it may not be important to what you’re doing so if you need to know, just ask and some cowhead will walk you through it.