Hi

Just a simple question. What would give the best picture quality, rendering to DV to PAL DVD or back to Tape?

Cheers
Mark

Best picture quality for what?

DV tape would give the best quality if you needed to re-edit latter as DVD is lossy, but it depends what you want it for.

Just a short film I have made via my Sony Digital Camcorder. Its about 20 minutes long. Rendering to PAL DVD is fine, its just that the picture looks more 'glossy' when rendered to DV tape. Cheers.

Rendering to tape will always have less compression vs rendering/burning it to a DVD. Rendering to tape is useful...especially if you plan to have it duped later into a digibeta for festival submissions.

This is a simple question, but the answer is a bit more complex. Here's my take on it:

OK - mostly the answer depends on what you want to do next? The answers you've already received underpin what I'm going to say and highlights a normal misunderstanding as to the point and purpose of the different formats and delivery methods.

DVD: A method of reducing the size of the video/audio streams so that they will fit onto a DVD platter. PLUS a delivery method of that same video/audio content so using a User Menu. This method uses a compression encoder to reduce the size of the digital content. In all respects you should regard this as an "End-Of-The-Line" process. Meaning, once produced for DVD, and although DVD files CAN be edited, they already have had, due to the encode, their digital information compressed, they have had their digital information compressed for the sole purposes of being decompressed for presentation to a decoding device LIKE a CRT TV. HOLD THAT THOUGHT!!!

Tape: A method of archiving video/audio that is readily available for future capture and subsequent editing.

Now, and here's the thing, ( here's the "HOLD THAT THOUGHT!!!" comment coming back at yah ) I bet you, I would be hard pressed to "see" the difference between a DVD and a Tape output on a, say, normal CRT TV. And this is the main reason I believe, we all too often get asked this question. The reason we would find it difficult to "see" a difference is that although tape is free from the compression and non-lossy quality for future editing, the methods by which DVDs are encoded and decoded are that clever that we don't SEE the digital "joins" in the process. And, quite frankly, that is how it SHOULD be. But not seeing the difference doesn't mean the methods of storage and presentation are the same. Asking the question "implies" an awareness that they ARE the same - well, they aint.

Put simply, Printing to Tape is a method for archiving for potential future re-edits. DVD production is for the purposes of presentation and the employment of a User Menu Interface. Both should LOOK the same on a standard CRT TV. And, BTW, I've never seen a User Driven Menu structure on a Tape? Well, I haven't? And, joking aside, that's a reason to USE DVDs over and above tape for presentation. Having said that, I have used tape as a method of presenting my work. But of course, it does NOT have the flexibility of the search and display of DVDs.

Just 'cos they LOOK the same don't mean they ARE the same. In fact they LOOK the same 'cos they should!!!

Simple question? Yes. However the answer has a greater need for unravelling than on first "view". Bit like the difference between Tape and DVD.

Now, and with ALL that I've said, with the new MEGA-GIGABIT discs that will be coming, soon, we should prepare ourselves for even further frightening methods of archiving that will allow us to store RAW digital footage on some form of "material" that will allow us to further edit/stream/re-edit and so on. There are many developments afoot that will make this and similar discussions appear both quaint and narrow, as seen from the future. Bit like Cassettes and CDs are to MP3 layers are now. I still have me vinyl!

Tape, and not too far in the future the same with "spinning" DVD discs, although far from being dead, are heading that way. And any future discussions will be about how can I create my 3-D hologram project for tera-bit streaming from my solid state Media Pack in my front room to my "display" wallpaper in my DEN!! - Yeah, I know, we've heard it all before. But this time I'm thinking years rather than decades.