USB generally works at a lower resolution, but if you can save it to your pc
as a full frame dv-avi file this will make no difference.
s-video I expect would be worse.
When the film is recorded to the minidv tape you have a dv file.
This is recoded to the pc as a dv-avi file, having chosen that as above,
this will match exactly the tape, and is a compression ratio of about 5.1.
If you capture as wmv then you will lose quality here as you ahve applied
compression.
When you save to mpeg2 for dvd you apply compression, you have to, to get it
to fit on the disc adn also to coply with the dvd standards. From the real
thing this is about a 20.1 compression, from the dv-avi file you can see the
size difference as one hour dv-avi is 13gb, one hour mpeg2 for dvd is about
4gb.
The quality of the enocder you buy and use will determine the quality of the
mpeg file. Generally the more you spend the better the encoder, the better
the result. You won't get hollywood using a cheap encoder, their's costs
many thousands and will do many passes, whereas we would use one which will
do 2 passes at most. The settings chosen also make a difference, so don't
try to put on more than about 1 hour unless you can use ac-3 encoding for
audio.
--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
www.myvideoproblems.co.uk
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com