thecoalman - 9:06 pm on Jan 21, 2010 (gmt 0)

As far as I know SD camcorders that record to flash all use MPEG2 because it is the standard format for DVD, it's quite convenient if you want to get it to DVD. The larger data storage doesn't mean higher quality because they are still using the same format to record in. Having said that MPEG2 will never be the equal of DV.

DV is lightly compressed, each frame of video is stored individually. MPEG does not store each frame, it uses content from other frames when it doesn't change. That's why you can have low bitrate video without any movement and it will look great until you get movement and the macroblocks flare up.

Comparing DV converted to MPEG2 to a MPEG2 directly from a flash cam assuming everything else is equal will show negligible differences however here is a simple experiment you can try. Find a high quality DV sample with a lot of action.

1. Convert the DV to a 720*480 3000kbps MPEG2.

2. Convert the DV to 720*480 6000kbps MPEG2(which is typical for flash cam) then convert that to 720*480 3000kbps MPEG2.

Note that 3000kbps is entirely too low for that size resolution when using MPEG2. These are both going to look bad but what you're going to find is #2 is significantly worse than #1.

While a SD camcorder using flash may be convenient for the consumer for anything professional especially where you will be converting to a highly compressed web format you're going to want to start with highest quality format you can as a source.