Recording to a external hard drive.

D

DamageX

Member
Hi again!


I was wondering if anyone knows if the picture quality will increase if using a external HD to record to? Will there be less compression? I noticed that the DVX100 footage looks great when hooked directly to a monitor and viewing but when viewing from a miniDV tape it looks lower res. I was wondering if using a HD is a way of getting around compression.

Also, any recommendations for a cheap external HD for recording with my DVX100? Thanks so much in advance!


Best Regards,


Mark
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

There will be no differene, as there is no way to escape the compression. And the idea that the image looks better live vs. off tape is true of other types of cameras (especially analog) but not of DV cams like the DVX100 -- what you see "live" is after compression and color sampling decimation, just like what you see on tape.
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

I have noticed this, too. Using a Sony TRV19 DV camera, while I was recording my footage from the camera onto my harddrive in Premiere, the images looked good. Steady and sharp. But when I opened the AVI file after finishing the import, I noticed a somewhat less quality picture in my footage. Lines were not as sharp as what I had been looking at in the preview box while importing.

Also, is there any advantages to external harddrives using firewire as opposed to USB 2.0? On my laptop, I only have one firewire slot but 3 USB 2.0 slots. So, I am kind of limited to connection types of externals. I am just hoping that there is not a difference in the two. For my last project, I used a 120 gig USB 2.0 external. Would the quality of my footage been better using a harddrive that used firewire instead?

Thanks,

-Andy
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

[quote author=AndyBloxham link=board=Events;num=1082494799;start=0#2 date=04/20/04 at 14:34:11]I have noticed this, too.  Using a Sony TRV19 DV camera, while I was recording my footage from the camera onto my harddrive in Premiere, the images looked good.  Steady and sharp.  But when I opened the AVI file after finishing the import, I noticed a somewhat less quality picture in my footage.  Lines were not as sharp as what I had been looking at in the preview box while importing.
-Andy[/quote]

First Question: what kind of monitor are you using; and is it the same for recording and editing?
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

I'm using my laptop monitor, an 1400x1000 SXGA+. The preview box is in Premiere, when you see your footage while it's recording onto your hard drive. When you play the footage from the DV tape in the camera to the computer, the images are sharp. The AVI file of what I just recorded from my camera, with no compression, is less sharp. In a sense, it looks like the difference between an image that has used anti-alias, and an image that hasn't, if that clears up my situation any.

-Andy
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

Well, I don't know the details of Premiere, but many systems dedicate fewer resources to the image display while capturing than while editing (to prevent import problems). So indeed, it may be anti-aliasing later, blending frames, who knows. I'm assuming that your recorded AVI file is indeed DV format... and even so, there may be different DV codecs (or codec parameters) during capture and playback...

The only other thing it may be is that perhaps you're configured for capturing in some type of low-res fast-editing mode (like FCP's OfflineRT)? Does premiere do that?
 
Re: Recording to a external hard drive.

In order to get a true idea of what your footage looks like before/after capture, you need to view it on a broadcast monitor.  As Barry said, there is no difference in the image before/after capture for DV cams.  ullanta is right as well, in that many NLEs show footage at a lower quality so that editing in the NLE will be faster.

As far as using a USB2 vs. Firewire drive, if the drive is the same, there will be no difference. These are just two interfaces, they both move the same data. They have no effect on the image quality of the captured footage. However, if the drive inside the external enclosure is not fast enough, you may experience dropped frames during capture and editing.
 
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