Is regular old DV a decent intermediate codec (Mac)

Author: Octorox
Date: 25-Jun-2008, 8:52 PM

Author: Octorox
Time: 25-Jun-2008 8:52 PM (Edited)
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I'm in the process of getting files off a Video TS folder using MPEG Streamclip, into Final Cut Pro and eventually onto a new DVD. That being said, what should I rip the files to in MPEG Streamclip for editing? I'd like to have the least visible degradation of quality as possible but I certainly don't need huge lossless files. I just want something that can be edited in FCP and burned back onto a DVD with results similar to the original DVD. I'm thinking of using plain old DV, would DVCPRO50 be better? Would it be harder to edit? I know files on a DVD are already highly compressed so what would be the best format? Directly editing the mpeg 2 files probably wouldn't work too well.

Author: Moth3r
Time: 27-Jun-2008 3:49 AM
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DV or MJPEG are both suitable alternatives if you don't have the drive space for a lossless file. Not used DVCPRO50 but logically it should be better quality than DV (twice the size), but should still be easy to edit as it's I-frame only.

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Author: Jaiman Tuckuh
Time: 27-Jun-2008 4:42 AM (Edited)
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I vaugely remember somebody was using MJPEG, on a Mac. Dunno if they used FCP. It can be set to lossless. I don't know the filesize. I don't know if Mac uses codec files that PCs do, like the Morgan Mjpeg Codecs. (Lossy Mjpeg looks horrible, but lossless is, well, lossless).

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Author: Octorox
Time: 27-Jun-2008 5:06 PM (Edited)
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Thanks. I guess uncompressed should be fine for me, since I have 1 TB of space. I'll figure out how big the file is after I've encoded it. I went with 10-bit uncompressed. I hope that's the best possible quality

Author: MoveAlong
Time: 9-Jul-2008 7:58 PM
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I would NOT recommend DV. The compression is horrible. I've used the Photo JPEG codec and edited in FCP my two "Story" releases. I chose it because it was the best looking codec that I could edit in real time on my old G4 iMac. I think the quality was excellent even after going to MPEG2. Photo JPEG set to max quality takes up roughly the same amount of space as DV and looks a ton better. Ideally, you should probably use SheerVideo (lossless codec, but $$). I wish there was HuffYUV on the Mac! Other than that, just experiment with some of the Motion JPEG codecs and see which one works best for you and your system.

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