I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the DV
output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder so
that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which allows
up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is better than the
quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that scale, what
quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality of the DVD
recorder to?

TIA,

John.

On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 10:56:54 +0100, "John" wrote:

I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the DV
output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder so
that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which allows
up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is better than the
quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that scale, what
quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality of the DVD
recorder to?

TIA,

John.

I would record at M1 ( one hour to a dvd ) that way you have highest
quality possible.

Blank dvd's are not expensive and i see no point in not recording best
possible.
Gary MacKenzie
Audio Visual Technician / Video Editor

"John" wrote in message
...
I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the
DV output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder
so that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which
allows up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is better
than the quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that scale,
what quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality of the
DVD recorder to?

TIA,

John.


There is no DVD-video compatible MPEG2 standard to match DV. Your trying to
cram 13gb per hr onto a 4.3 gb disk. You can store DV-AVI files as data on a
DVD, all 20mins of it!
You have to accept that you will lose some clarity converting to DVD-video,
but if your happy with movies on DVD you should be OK.

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

"John" wrote in message
...
I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the
DV output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder
so that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which
allows up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is
better than the quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that
scale, what quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality
of the DVD recorder to?

TIA,

John.


There is no DVD-video compatible MPEG2 standard to match DV. Your trying
to cram 13gb per hr onto a 4.3 gb disk. You can store DV-AVI files as data
on a DVD, all 20mins of it!
You have to accept that you will lose some clarity converting to
DVD-video, but if your happy with movies on DVD you should be OK.


Thanks for your replies Gary and John. I'm putting the movies on DVD because
no-one else in the family has any equipment capable of playing MiniDV tapes
but they all have DVD players so they can all have their own copies.

Cheers,

John.

"John" wrote in message
...

"John Russell" wrote in message
...

"John" wrote in message
...
I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a
Sony HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to
connect the DV output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone
DVD recorder so that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which
allows up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is
better than the quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on
that scale, what quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording
quality of the DVD recorder to?

TIA,

John.


There is no DVD-video compatible MPEG2 standard to match DV. Your trying
to cram 13gb per hr onto a 4.3 gb disk. You can store DV-AVI files as
data on a DVD, all 20mins of it!
You have to accept that you will lose some clarity converting to
DVD-video, but if your happy with movies on DVD you should be OK.


Thanks for your replies Gary and John. I'm putting the movies on DVD
because no-one else in the family has any equipment capable of playing
MiniDV tapes but they all have DVD players so they can all have their own
copies.

Cheers,

John.


I'm not knocking it. Thats how I show my Videos. Slap in your DVD and away
you go. Connecting up your DV camcorder to the TV is too much like setting
up an old 8mm Home Movie set up.

I think it's presumptious to assume people want to watch your videos by
having your camcorder already set up. Much bettter to wait for an opportune
moment to ask everyone if they'd like to see one, and slam in the disk.

"John" wrote in message
...
I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the
DV
output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder so
that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which
allows
up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is better than
the
quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that scale, what
quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality of the DVD
recorder to?

As a general rule, if you're planning to put your DVDs out into the wide
world, you should keep the bitrate as low as quality will allow, as that
will result in best compatibility. Recording at "M1" will yield a DVDR at
the highest bitrate that's allowed for DVDs, but such a high bitrate can
cause problems on many older players, and even some new ones.

Your source is DV material, which has already been compressed somewhat, so
you'll see compression artefacts anyway. It very much depends on the nature
of the footage, but a ballpark figure of 6 to 6.5 mbps is a good enough DVD
bitrate for DV-sourced material. If you drop much below 5 you will start to
see artefacts from the recompression (don't get me wrong - recompression
always introduces some artefacts - it's just that this is the level below
which they become noticeable).

Your M2 setting is the equivalent of 5mbps, so you're on the "cusp" - If you
have a lot of tripod shots with little action on them (e.g. wedding, school
play) you'll probably be OK. If you've got lots of motion, especially
"random" motion such as confetti, waterfalls, snow/rain and trees blowing in
the wind, you'll start to see artefacts.

Ideally, you could do with something halfway between M1 and M2. DVD media is
cheap - try recording some DV footage using M1 and M2 compression, and see
if you can tell the difference between them during playback. If you're up
for the experiment, try the same footage at M3, M4, M6 and M8 too and see at
what level you notice the drop in quality.

Such an experiment will cost £1.20 because you can get super-cheapo discs
for evaluating the recorder. When it comes to day-to-day usage, don't use
quite such cheap discs.

"G Hardy" wrote in message
...
"John" wrote in message
...
I'm very new to all this and I can't find an FAQ for this group so I
apologise if this question has been asked before. I've just bought a Sony
HC22E MiniDV camcorder and I'll be using a Firewire cable to connect the
DV
output of the camcorder to the DV input of my stand-alone DVD recorder so
that I can put my movies onto DVD.

My DVD recorder (a Philips DVDR725H) will allow me to record in various
qualities - M1 which is the highest quality and allows up to 1 hour of
recording on a standard disc, down to the lowest quality - M8 - which
allows
up to 8 hours on a disc. I've been led to believe that M4 is better than
the
quality of VHS and M3 roughly equates to S-VHS so on that scale, what
quality is MiniDV and what should I set the recording quality of the DVD
recorder to?

As a general rule, if you're planning to put your DVDs out into the wide
world, you should keep the bitrate as low as quality will allow, as that
will result in best compatibility. Recording at "M1" will yield a DVDR at
the highest bitrate that's allowed for DVDs, but such a high bitrate can
cause problems on many older players, and even some new ones.

Your source is DV material, which has already been compressed somewhat, so
you'll see compression artefacts anyway. It very much depends on the
nature
of the footage, but a ballpark figure of 6 to 6.5 mbps is a good enough
DVD
bitrate for DV-sourced material. If you drop much below 5 you will start
to
see artefacts from the recompression (don't get me wrong - recompression
always introduces some artefacts - it's just that this is the level below
which they become noticeable).

Your M2 setting is the equivalent of 5mbps, so you're on the "cusp" - If
you
have a lot of tripod shots with little action on them (e.g. wedding,
school
play) you'll probably be OK. If you've got lots of motion, especially
"random" motion such as confetti, waterfalls, snow/rain and trees blowing
in
the wind, you'll start to see artefacts.

Ideally, you could do with something halfway between M1 and M2. DVD media
is
cheap - try recording some DV footage using M1 and M2 compression, and see
if you can tell the difference between them during playback. If you're up
for the experiment, try the same footage at M3, M4, M6 and M8 too and see
at
what level you notice the drop in quality.

Such an experiment will cost £1.20 because you can get super-cheapo discs
for evaluating the recorder. When it comes to day-to-day usage, don't use
quite such cheap discs.


Thanks very much G. I'll definitely do some experimenting and see what
happens )

John.