How good are the DV formats compared to other formats?
DV formats are typically reckoned to be equal to or slightly better than Betacam SP and MII in terms of picture quality (however, DV holds up better over repeated play cycles, where BetaSP shows noticeable dropout). They are a notch below Digital-S and DVCPRO50, which are themselves a (largely imperceptible) notch below Digital Betacam, D-1, and D-5. They are quite a bit better than 3/4″ U-matic, Hi8, and SVHS. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is just barely video and 10 is as good as it gets, I would arrogantly rate assorted formats as follows: D-5 (10-bit uncompressed digital) 10 D-1 (8-bit uncompressed digital) 9.9 Digital Betacam, Ampex DCT 9.7 D-9 (Digital-S), DVCPRO50 9.6 DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO (D-7), Digital8 9 MII, Betacam SP 8.9 1″ Type C 8.7 3/4″ SP 6.5 3/4″, Hi8, SVHS 5.5 Video 8, Betamax 4 VHS 3.5 EIAJ Type 1, Fisher-Price Pixelvision 1 [I had previously placed D-2 and D-3 uncompressed composite digital formats just below BetaSP, lower than any of the component formats. My feeling
