Choose your CODEC carefully!
by Marshall Spight,originally posted to DV-L

> Now I've decided on the DV deck and the HDs. I need to consider
>the video card. Which ones seem to work best for wedding work? Firemax,
>DV300, EditDV, etc.?
> I've got a VX1000 and Premiere 5 on Mac G3.

Blind tests indicate that the Firemax codec is better for compressing happy images, whereas the DV-300 codec excells at compressing images involving sports or drama. (Although the new DV codec bundled in Microsoft's DirectShow is slightly better for melodrama.) All are equally good at comedy.

It's good that you have a Mac, because Mac NLE software, having been associated with "artistic type" people for longer, is better at editing up personal events such as weddings or parties. If you want to do mostly corporate video, use the Windows platform. (If you're doing corporate video for companies with more than 40 employees, or if security is an issue, be sure to use Windows NT for editing.)

Also, because of the slower pace of weddings vs. the hurly-burly corporate world, it won't be necessary to get "AV" rated drives. These are really only necessary for high-stress, job-related content.

If you hear anything criticizing 4:1:1 formats for reduced emotional bandwidth, ignore it. Because DV is a digital format, the full emotional content of the recorded event is transferred with NO LOSS. Even though betaSP uses more emotional bandwidth vs. luminance, you lose some of that emotion with each generation. I'd put a digitally edited wedding video up against the same video recorded and edited in betaSP, and the DV wedding would be more moving. I'd love to see someone do this test using the same camera head going to different recorders.

Marshall Spight