[jmcardle]

Although I fully agree with IMGluck's reasoning in his excellent post, I'm still a gadget boy at heart and want the JVC GZ-MG50 cos it's cool, funky and tiny (pathetic, I know) and only £465 from purelygagdets.com .

Question is, is MPEG2 really that difficult to edit (new baby en-route)? I don't fancy spending that much time cutting and pasting and if it is too difficult, I'll have to look elsewhere.

Any input (apart from hijackers ) welcomed.

[GarryF]

I don't think mpeg2 is hard to edit, most of the main packages can open it and output it, the argument is that dv is a lossless format, you can edit redit etc and not loose any info.

I doubt you'd loose much info if you opened up an mpeg and converted it to avi for editing, but since I've not actually done it can't make any promises

Sony getting good write ups for their new HDD cam http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Review.htm
google is reporting almost £800 though so a lot more than the JVC

[redsox_mark]

You can edit mpeg2 - it is just that dv is better for editing, especially if you are doing compex edits.

With the JVC HDD cams you have an extra challange though, they create special .mod files which not all mpeg2 editors will handle. Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 is one that does. Others might if you rename the files from .mod to .mpeg.

Mark

[senu]

Originally Posted by jmcardle

Question is, is MPEG2 really that difficult to edit (new baby en-route)? I don't fancy spending that much time cutting and pasting and if it is too difficult, I'll have to look elsewhere

Mpeg ( as stated above) is not difficult to edit. Pinnacle Studio ( works for some ) also edits it ( and the mod files)
Ulead video studio actually " smart renders".
Womble is a simple but effective mpeg editing software.
All the "mainstream" non- budget editors also take mpeg as input

The end PQ is what makes editing mpeg different as each subsequent render robs it of some PQ .
This is what "smart rendering " and Software like womble seek to addresss.
At any rate, for simple edits any PQ loss may be theoretical rather than obvious