Hi there,
AVI is a container or wrapper for a number of compression types
starting with RAW (no compression at all) up to a moderate level of
compression.
MOV files are highly compressed.
Probably without exception, any video editing program that you may
use will have to expand the compressed data in any region where you
edit the video. Whenever you compare video that was compressed with
video that has was not, you will always find that the compressed
video has lost some of the quality. If that compressed then expanded
then edited video is then re-compressed it will contain any flaws
created in the first compression together with any flaws created by
the re-compression.
The above sounds terrible, its not that bad, and in the first
generation compressed file it would take a keen eye to spot the
difference. The part that IS important is this....the more highly
compressed a file is, the more likely it is that errors (flaws) will
occur in the data stream when it is expanded for display purposes.
So, going back to the very first remark above.......as an AVI file is
likely to contain the least amount of compression, in particular
compared to MOV files then AVI is the format most desirable if you
are going to edit it.
All of the above involves an assumption, and that is that the same
video was used when compressing to MOV as was used to compress to
AVI. There is one more item that is worth taking into
consideration...the data rate. That is the amount of information per
second. All of the above can be turned on its head if the camera that
produces the MOV file has (for the same width and height picture) a
much higher data rate.
If the cameras have the same data capture rate (and assuming all
other considerations are equal) then the AVI format is the best. To
make the MOV format the best would require a significant increase in
the data rate. I would be guessing if I tried to put numbers to that
remark.
There is one obvious remark that I almost missed. MOV files cannot,
without first being converted to either AVI or WMV format, be used in
Movie Maker....The conversion to WMV is not a good idea because of
the flaws in the resulting video. WMV is a very highly compressed
format.
If it was my choice I would automatically go for the AVI format.
