8bit uncompressed or 10bit compressed?

[Stephan Schuh]

Which video format offers the better image quality: 8bit uncompressed or 10bit with a little bit of M-JPEG compression?

 

I want to digitize Betacam SP tapes for DVD mastering. For this I want to use a Decklink PCI card and do the conversion to MPEG2 by software (multiple pass) and not by hardware. My harddisc space and speed is a little limited, so I would like to use a lower setting than 10bit uncompressed. 8bit would be possible without compression, but of course the color resolution is then limited. But DVD standard is only 8bit anyway. With 10bit I will have to compress the signal at least by 1:2 with M-JPEG.

 

What do you think will look better on DVD? Which format is better for the MPEG2-encoding? Can you see a difference at all?

:blink:

Thank you for your answer!

Best regards!

 

schuh

[David Cox]

Hello,

 

It is highly unlikely you'll see any difference, because DVD is heavily compressed anyway. For example, the DVD uses 4:2:0 encoding rather than 4:2:2 and generally has a compression ratio in the order of 6(ish) to 1 anyway.

 

So my guess would be stick to the most convenient format.

[nchopp]

Agreed. I'd probably go with the 8-bit, just because tossing M-JPEG compression (however slight) on top of your future MPEG encoding will probably be a bit lossier than going with the (initially) "less" information in the 8-bit uncompressed.

[Walter Graff]

Agreed. I'd probably go with the 8-bit, just because tossing M-JPEG compression (however slight) on top of your future MPEG encoding will probably be a bit lossier than going with the (initially) "less" information in the 8-bit uncompressed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

8 bit will do you fine. you will not see a difference in 10 bit.