Why MJPEG editing may be a better choice
than DV (for now anyways...)  

Gidday. Time for some aggressive shit-stirring...

With all the recent talk, often overheated, about DV edit suites, it seems to me that we all need to take a deep breath and think about the Big Picture.

I think people are getting too worked up about the theoretical "uncleanness" of editing DV via MJPEG. Sure its messier in theory, but if it does the business to the satisfaction of my clients, who cares? Well, OK, that's not QUITE the whole story  -  I've got to be happy too, and feel confident that I'm achieving good creative results with the production process.

So far, I have been!  I've directed several programme now that were shot on DV and edited in MJPEG non-linear suites, including a Media 100 and a Speed Razor / Perception system. In both cases video went in via good old fashioned S-Video... and in both cases the results were excellent. As I write we are in the late stages of buying a DC-30+ based MJPEG system (check out the DV300 article to see why we rejected THAT card!)
 

To my mind the only disadvantages of editing DV with MJPEG suites are:-

• Possibly very slightly more expensive editing hardware

• Need a LANC timecode solution if you're likely to need to recapture (though in reality this is probably unlikely unless you're editing something huge, in which case you NEED MJPEG anyway, because you need the low datarates that DV doesn't support).

• Need a mastering deck with analogue inputs, rather than just using your VX1000 et al (this is probably the biggest disadvantage)

Oh, all right then...

• A VERY SLIGHT quality loss compared to pure DV editing

On the other hand, the advantages are considerable...

• More stable and mature cards, drivers and software interfaces

• Scalable data rates

• Ability to use material shot on other formats (e.g. BetaSP) painlessly

• Full framerate on-screen previews

etc etc etc....

A challenge... can anyone out there really, truly say that they're getting notably better pictures by editing DV footage on a NLE suite with, say, a DHR-1000 deck and a DV300, than they would have got on the same system using the same deck's ANALOGUE inputs and outputs through a DC30+ running at 4MB/sec?

REALLY?

What about after a VHS dub?
 

Looking forward to violent rebuttal...

Tony