On 27 Sep 2001 09:05:55 -0700, bcarwell@us.ibm.com (bob carwell) wrote:

>I am a newbie and am not sure what the most signficant factors are in
>improving desktop video editing quality, whether it be software
>editing
>and/or settings, hard drive, graphics card,etc.
> Could somebody give me tips, in order of impact on quality of my
>video output, of what I can do to improve.
> I have an Athlon 1.13 GHz cpu, Win98SE, 512 MB PC 133 memory, 40
>Gig 5400 rpm UDMA 100 drive and a TnT 32 MB graphics card, Ulead 4.0
>and Easy CD Plantinum 5.0 (which has video editing and video CD
>editing), and a Canon ZR30MC, and a generic firewire card.
> I see artifacts in the final video after rendering. Is this being
>caused by the editing software, graphics card, do I need a faster 7200
>rpm drive, or what ?
> Any specific suggestions in upgrades would be most appreciated.

Assuming DV transferred through FireWire from/to the
camera/computer and no rendering, there should be no
change in quality. For footage that is modified (filters,
transitions, etc.) and therefore must be rendered will
be changed by an amount that varies with the quality
of the DV codec used. Check out:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/original_vs_10th-gen.htm
and:
http://members.home.net/dgcom/MiniDV/DVcompressors.htm
for multi-generation render tests of various DV codecs.
Some are excellent; some poor - and some can be
substituted for the MS codec you are probably using
now. Hardware changes (other than the camera) will not
make any difference - but the camera can be the source
of many negative picture artifacts. If you are
compressing the video further to put it on CDs, you can
expect very noticeably reduced image quality...