Quality slipping!

[flvideo]

I used to use the 83 minute tapes and I had a a few stretch and that scared me. Nothing worse than shooting something and losing the tape. I had that happen a few times years ago. So what you are telling me is there is no way to burn a DVD without compressing it? So basicly the DVD you burn with your cassie is the only generation that is Digital and any others are of less quality? If I could feed the video out fire wire to my duplicators by fire wire they are going to compress it too. So now if I burn a DVD with the arabesk and then put that in the source drive of my duplicator and burn a copy I am compressing it twice?? I am sorry to be so dumb about this thing but When I originally bought the Cassies I was told there was no loss when I burned my program to DVD. Maybe I need to go back to the tape to tape editor. That seems like going in reverse. Bob...

[Jeanton]

Hi Bob

Are you still putting your footage in by S-Video cable or by fire wire? That could make a difference in quality aswell.
If you burn a copy to your duplicator hard drive (if it has a hard drive) you could keep that on the hard drive for as long as you want and burn extra copies from that.
But archieving is better on tape. You don't need to use 85 minute DV tapes just split it up in half and put a black scene in between and record out from that.
There must be some stops in your finished projects to make a clear cut and no one will know after you take the black scene out after importing it back into your editor.
From memorie you don't use the same DV tape twice so you must have a pile of tapes that you could use again.
I have been using mine over and over again.

As everyone says it will lose Quality when you use DVD for archieving purposes.

[Martyn]

When you duplicate a DVD you are simply making an exact copy of files so there is no further compression or loss of quality. However, there will be compression processes involved if you re-edit from a DVD.
Other options you might consider for archiving are to invest in a DVcam deck which will take 3 hour tapes, or to use an external Firewire hard drive. Of course Bogart machine owners have a big advantage in that they can use USB external drives (cheap ) with the new Store 'n' Share software.

[CKNewman]

A DVD will only hold about 20 minutes of raw DV footage, the kind that comes from your mini-dv tapes. It would take 6 DVDs to hold a two hour program of raw or uncompressed video. There are different ways to compress video (and audio) to allow more material to be recorded to disc. The most common for creating DVDs is MPEG-2.

Exactly how do you "load" footage from your master DVDs back into your editor

Are you using image processing on your footage that you didn't use when you edited a few years back

[flvideo]

I want to thank all that have responded to my problem. Craig I am using a DVD player to reintroduce the footage to the Renommee. What I do is put the introduction from the week idenifying that week and then I find the races I need for that partitular class and I put that in. The only thing I do to the reintroduced footage is ablack btweens weeks and a crossfade between scenes. The thing that I liked about the DVD was that is I can go right to that race and copy it. For years my end of year business was a nightmare because I had to physicaly go thru all those tapes thu out the year and find the race I was looking for. When I started mastering on DVD it made my life a whole lot easier. I think the DV-cam Deck would be cost prohibitive. I have to keep my cost down as much as I can. My customers are, for the most part, pretty strapped for funds. That being said, racers love to see them selves all the time. I would say every body that races has enough pictures of them and their car to fill a good sized album every year. Now I do still work too so thats good for busyness. 2 of the cameras I use shoot in DV-Cam but I have never been able to tell the difference between SD and DV-Cam except the tape cost is astromomical. Martyn I don't see the loss in quality till I put the footage back in the Cassie. So I guess they'll just have to deal with the quality they have and like it. I don't ever get complaints except when a DVD skips or the audio drops out and thats the disc most of the time. Thank You guys for your response. I started this business with 1 tube camera, and a VCR. I used the Camera to feed the VCR. Every copy I sold was a master and each a little different. That first camera had a Vidicon tube for the old timers that remember tubes. Vidicon took a good picture in good light but in low light it homed on the bright light and Streaked the light accross the scene. It looked terrible to me. I learned to zoom a little tighter an avoid the major streaking but I got plenty.They bought it though. I still sell to some of the familys now that I sold to then. 3 generations of those families. Its come a long way. Thanks agin guys. Bob...

[Charles]

Hi Bob
There is always Disc Transfer 20 minutes of DV quality per standard DVD or as the master is created in Arabesk use Kesbara to import the footage,quality is better than playing in through "S"

Disc Transfer quality wise is your best option,6 discs for 2 hours but you can print the disc with details,race day,driver etc.

[flvideo]

Charles you may have hit on it. I don't have a problem during the year. The copys I sell are of good qualty. The problem is at the end of the year when I have to have individual races to put on Disc. The way I have been doing it I am noticing some Grain. Its still not bad. Maybe it would behove me to put each class on a DV tape and at the end of the year I would have them. It takes so much time to go thru every tape I have shot each week and retrieve the races. I have sometimes 13 or 14 tapes from any given night. I edit those tgether for my production each week. I could take the time to dump the edited footage on to DV tape to keep for the end of the year. I also make a Hi=lite at the end of the year and That is all th spins and crashes for that year. I take all those crashes each week and put clips of them as an introduction. At the end of the year I take all those introductions and put them together for the hi=lite. Maybe I am getting too old and need to go to town and find a real job. LOL! Bob...

[CKNewman]

Why don't you try Ksebara and let us know if it looks any better?

[flvideo]

Craig I have never used ksebara. What is it and how do I use it? I was going to try a Firewire cable but I couldn't find one. I have to go to town this afternoon and get some media, so I will try and find a firewire cable. I Have seen the Ksebara option in the finish page but never had occasion to use it. I think I am going to keep my DVD master to make copys of the whole program each week and dump the edited races of each class on DV tape. Being I have to do that I may change the way I sell video. Sell each race in stead of the whole program. If you wil explain the Kesbara to me I'll see how that works. Thanks for your concern. Bob...

[BobC]

Ksebara loads footage from a DVD into your editing bin. It's a little better quality than playing it in from a dvd player.