Tiggs

i have 2 dv tapes on the go, one i use to record stuff on then i put iton the pc and edit it before putting it back on a 2nd tape which i compile all my stuff on- i then go back to the first tape for more filming- often wiping over the old stuff.

will the constant copying effect the DV tape like a VHS tape gets messed up?

also- when putting stuff from DV tape-pc-tape-pc etc does any quality get lost or as its digital is it all ok?

T

dnb

Tapes will stretch and wear out eventually. However, you shouldn't see any significant degredation of quality - digital is quite noise tolerant. (Digi TV either works well, or it doesn't work at all in my experence!!) Although I haven't used digi tapes, I think you will find that they will very quickly degrade at the end of their lives, rather than gradually (as VHS)

Provided you aren't compressing and decompressing the video stream using a lossy comression technique (eg. MPEG or motion JPEG)when you transfer things between the camera and PC, you won't lose quality.

Sorry if this is a bit brief. I have to do some work now

Tiggs

makes sense- the stuff on the pc is stored as HUGE .avi files so i assume that not much compressing is going on
???

T

mannyo

Like yourself, I use a couple of more expensive tapes to master record, I use the ones with built in memory, and despite extensive use these tapes still record like day one. It maybe difficult to tell if the tape is degrading like you can with vhs.

I dont think you get any loss when transfered CAM > PC > CAM because its digital all the way and the recording is transfered byte for byte.

dnb

I can't remember what (if any!) compression there is on AVI format. If anything at all I think it could be lossless compression. (I really don't remeber...)

Byte for byte transfer will have no quality loss, however it depends on what sort of editing that takes place after transfer...

Can of worms if we're not careful - there's a lot of variables.

SL2

It is stored in DV format in the AVI. It is compressed but i believe every frame is stored unlike mpeg2 and the like.