s-video better thn firewire?

T

trooperdog

New member
Ok, Im getting a head ache searching for what might not be there ...
Im a newbie and the more I know the farther behind I feel ..

question .. I have been using my camera as little as possible to output from ( bad I know ) however from what I was told _ fire wire is a type of compression and it appears what I have been editing is not so great. is s-video out better quality .. if you were to take media in from/to a card ( graphic )?

also I used the dv/ntsc compression in fcp ... I dont know if ,or can I bring in the media using the non compression option would be the way to go.?
 
while initially uncompressed definatly has it's benefits over compressed, tehre are a couple of other issues too.

Digital generally provides a cleaner bettrer signal than analog - especially if it's only lightly compressed digital. (Like DV)

So a well compressed digital signal is often preferabel to analog, especially when copying as you get genration loss.

But, if you are allready recoding digitally to a compressed format in camera (as you do with practically all digital video - even the very high end stuff!), then it makes most sence to keep that material in teh digital relm as the same file type without any conversion. Any benefits from analog transfer would be immidiatly lost.

So, if you are shooting DV/MiniDV; use firewire to get it to your computer [this is actually designed to keep it 100% DV all the way] and edit in a DV project and output to either a DV master file (thoguh you may of course want to also render out somethign smaller for online distribution of course) and print back to DV tape - with this process, the data on the final master tape will be EXACTLY that of the original source tape in the camera when you shot it - the highest quality that the camera can produce, with no loss.

- Mikko
 
im glad this question was asked cuz i shoot on dv but when i download to my computer i use the rca route. ive had a friend tell me that im loosing the digital, but i have axp with the mojo where its ins/outs are s-video and rca, but the mojo is connected to the computer via firewire, so my thinking is that at the end it still goes firewire cuz the mojo is an accelerator. im i right in this thinking?
by the way i use the rca method cuz i run my audio thru a board so i can monitor it better.
 
No, you are going through another unnecessary D/A - A/D conversion. The best route is firewire out of the camera and into the computer.
 
There are two broad phases (includes several sub-phases) of Production Workflow:
1-Capturing (includes ADC, compression and storage)
2-Transferring(includes signal-rate and external-storage)

1-Capturing is all about getting exposure either on Film or on CCD/CMOS chip. In case of Film the exposure is impressed on Film Reel and in case of chip the exposure is converted to digital, compressed using any of digital formats e.g. DV (SD) and stored onto magnetic tape in the form of bits (1's & 0's).

2-Transferring is all about getting the recorded footage out to an Editing-System either LE or NLE. In case of Film its LE. In case of DV, its IEEE1393 (Apple-Firewire or Sony-iLink) digital transfer to Computer System for NLE.

Analog to Digital or vice versa always involves generation loss. Also, compression among various formats or re-compression to the same format again involves in generation loss. In digital-production workflow we face generation loss only twice i.e. when chip is exposed to photons (analog) and converted to digital signal and when those digital-signals are compressed to a digital-format before camcorder storage e.g. tape. After that we try to keep the digital format as it is to avoid any further generation loss. This is also called 'Master Record' which is used to deliver you movie in various formats.

For a Digital Camcorder the Production workflow is ideally all digital from capturing to transfer. Composite/S-Video/Component are all analog output while IEEE1394/USB2.0/HDMI are all digital output.

In addition S-Video(analog) and Firewire(digital) has nothing to do with any kind of compression at all since they are transfer media.

Also, analog outputs i.e. S-Video/Composite are primarily meant for Field-Monitors or TV-out and using them as a transfer medium when the finest 400MHz digital-transfer medium (IEEE1394) is available looks rather ill-logical.


Hopefully this helps !
 
Last edited:
bilgami said:
im i right in this thinking?
Click to expand...
No, you're giving up a lot of potential quality going this way. RCA is the lowest possible video input you could be using. S-video would be better, but firewire is the best possible method you could use to import DVX or HVX (or any DV or HDV) footage.
 
"IEEE1394(Firewire/iLink) Transfer" includes audio and video both. So your wish is already granted greatly in-advance :)

You just need to create a project in FCP that matches your NTSC/PAL settings. This will give you highest quality possible. BTW I got 1GB/5min. footage on capturing the premium quality in PAL. This is space hungry operation.
 
bilgami...

why don't you use Firewire for your production connection, and then monitor audio (& video if you like) from the RCA outputs of the source (PC or Camera) in parralel to the production transfer?

So Cam to PC as firewire
and Cam to Speakers from Cam's RCA out.

- Mikko
 
how about capturing straight into a computer live? could s-video provide any better quality than firewire, if you capture to a better codec than 25mbps DV?
 
s-video better than firewire?

s-video better than firewire?

mikkowilson said:
bilgami...

why don't you use Firewire for your production connection, and then monitor audio (& video if you like) from the RCA outputs of the source (PC or Camera) in parralel to the production transfer?

So Cam to PC as firewire
and Cam to Speakers from Cam's RCA out.

- Mikko
Click to expand...

I do have that setup but I guess the word i should have used was manipulate the audio going into the computer. i use the audioboard for the levels rather than do the edits in avid i know its dumb but id rather ajust the audio on the fly.
 
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