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Capturing from DV Cam. Does using 8 bit uncompressed improve image quality?
Greetings,
Quick question. If I’m capturing DV Cam tapes, does it make any sense at all to capture at 8 bit uncompressed? Is the image quality any better then capturing as DVcam/NTSC?
Or, will I just get a bigger file that looks the same since the material on the tape is already in the DVcam format?
JP -
6 Replies
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You answered your own question. You may actually lose a little quality by removing it from it’s native bit for bit format and transcoding it to another. However, working in a uncompressed sequence will improve the quality of everything else. Titles, photoshop elements, jpegs, photos, animations, etc. They won’t ever get “better” in quality, but they won’t go down in quality all the way to NTSC DV.
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https://www.lafcpug.org/Tutorials/basic_chroma_sample.html
Shows an investigation I did into this subject.
As Bret points out, that if you do your final render in an uncompressed timeline, you will get benefits, however….
Although the DV codec does some bad things to images, and especially text, it’s no-where-near as brutal as what broadcast does to those elements. I’d say that if you cannot get your graphics to look good in a DV timeline, then they’re not designed to withstand the rigours of broadcast and should be re-designed. Moving to an uncompressed timeline will fix most things, but then you’ll only find out how badly they break after your programme has been broadcast, not before.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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When you say broadcast what do you mean? Are you talking Satellite, Digital Cable, Regular Cable, or Rabbit Ears? Many people don’t realize that the latter is by far the best quality. In fact, right now, I’m watching rabbit ears hooked up to a vcr, run into a PVM-204U! When you’ve got the ears just right, it blows away anything on cable or satellite.
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The issue is, I guess, you never quite know how the viewer will see the broadcast – they could even be in a foreign country and have seen it from a standards conversion. That’s why erring on the side of caution with titles and graphics is, in my view, desirable.
Certainly agreed that a decent analogue broadcast can be superb – pity they’re on the way out.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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Graeme,
So would you suggest still “finishing” in an uncompressed timeline, but checking it in a DV timeline or just staying in a DV timeline altogether?
-A
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Well, if you’re going back to DV, finishing in uncompressed doesn’t help. However, if you’re outputting to DigiBeta or DVD, then yes, finishing in an uncompressed timeline will help a bit. But that’s a pain to render in, and fills up your hard drive, so, I’d edit in DV, monitor in DV, make it look good in DV, and then bump to uncompressed at the end.
Graeme
– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects and Standards Conversion for FCP
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