View Full Version : Does DV Type 1 AVI to DV Type 1 AVI cause quality loss?


Jay Cowley
June 30th, 2005, 08:47 PM
I'm asking this question because I'm working with lengthy bluescreen files, and I need to constantly re-render files and I don't have enough hardrive space for uncompressed AVI.

If I capture DV ENCODER TYPE 1 (AVI) from my camera, and then edit/change the file and resave as DV ENCODER TYPE 1 (AVI) again, then open that up and change and re-render as same format....etc

I just want to know if there is much quality loss here. Is there any at all, or such a tiny loss it doesn't matter, of is this a for sure DON"T do, find a way to stick with uncompressed.

Thanks to anyone who can help me out with this question.

Kyle Ringin
June 30th, 2005, 11:49 PM
Basically, unless you are doing cuts only, a uncompress-recompress cycle takes place and this will result in *some* quality lost as artifacts introduced in the first compression cycle (ie in the camera) will be interpreted as picture data and will be compressed again - retaining these artifacts and introducing more.

Whether this constitutes a huge quality loss depends on the type of footage, what filters you have applied to it and your idea of what is acceptable.

If it is cuts only, there will be no recompression and no quality loss provided your NLE does this correctly (most will) and you haven't forced a recompress.

Jay Cowley
July 1st, 2005, 08:46 AM
I am applying filters to the video, so I guess what I want to ask is, What will the quality loss be like after adding filters, rendering to DV AVI, then applying more filters and rendering to DV AVI.

Will the quality loss here be extremely obvious compared to if I had used uncompressed AVI, or will it be so slight it won't really matter.

Dan Euritt
July 1st, 2005, 06:54 PM
you could get beat up pretty badly doing that... question is, do you have the editing experience and equipment to appreciate the extent of the damage... how about using an intermediate codec that is visually lossless, instead of dv? something that won't take up as much disk space as uncompressed.

also take another look at your workflow, try to eliminate the re-compression.