Better quality Hi8 playback through Digital8?

[Sillyname]

Friends that I have gotten involved in a video project have Hi8s and we have tons of existing Hi8 footage. Will the video quality be higher if we play it through a Digital8 and out its ieee1394 jack? Are there any other ways to output through the Rainbow Runner without losing the quality? Does the Rainbow Runner do a better job at compression when it's not realtime? What I'm trying to say is, does it compress both fore and aft frames in comparison with the current frame when you recompress an avi?

Oh yeah, one other grilling question, since Quicktime is not a Video for Windows stooge, does it adhere to the 2 GB file limitation?

[Dr Mordrid]

As a general rule anytime you convert video from one format to another you loose something. In converting to DV you not only add a layer of DCT comression but you reduce the colorspace from 4:2:2 to 4:1:1 for NTSC, 4:2:0 for PAL.

This can adversely affect the quality of composited effects like bluescreening, titles or other overlays on software recompressed systems. For this reason I still use my Hi8's S-Video output and YUY2 captures for doing these kinds of effects on ananlog systems.

On an editing board like the RT-2000 things improve because of it's use of 4:4:4 RGBA in hardware to do the compositing, which gives much improved results for most effects. Still, it cannot do realtime bluesecreening using this feature.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 15 August 2000).]