MPEG or AVI?
All too often, videographers and hobbyists make this appear to be a harder choice than it really is. Choosing AVI over MPEG, or MPEG over AVI, is a simple choice to make, and should take maybe 10 seconds to decide. Ask yourself this one question: Do you plan to do advanced editing* with the video? = If yes, then use an uncompressed (YUY2) or low compression (HuffYUV or MJPEG) codec using the AVI file format. Use this AVI to edit in your favorite editing program (like Adobe Premiere) and then encode to MPEG-2 (for DVD) or other desired final format. = If no, and you merely want to convert the video to VCD or DVD format, then encode directly to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2. You gain no benefits** by capturing AVI then encoding to MPEG afterwards. In fact, all it does is take more time. * Removing commercials and cutting away unwanted footage is NOT considered advanced editing. That is basic cutting and splicing of footage. You can do this with either AVI or MPEG without reconverting the video or har
