Originally posted by phantomDX
reply to post by MarrsAttax

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Had there been any degradation of the video while being digitized you would notice it immediately. Compression in general isn't a negative process.

Video compression refers to reducing the quantity of data used to represent digital video images

Most video compression is lossy — it operates on the premise that much of the data present before compression is not necessary for achieving good perceptual quality. For example, DVDs use a video coding standard called MPEG-2 that can compress around two hours of video data by 15 to 30 times, while still producing a picture quality that is generally considered high-quality for standard-definition video. Video compression is a tradeoff between disk space, video quality, and the cost of hardware required to decompress the video in a reasonable time. However, if the video is overcompressed in a lossy manner, visible (and sometimes distracting) artifacts can appear.

I assure you there is no better copy than the one you have seen. The quality was on par for early 90's 8mm. There was no noticeable degradation due to being digitized.

Had there been any degradation of the video while being digitized you would notice it immediately

Don't stop though I understand why you feel the need to question what I say.

Commonly used standards and codecs A variety of codecs can be implemented with relative ease on PCs and in consumer electronics equipment. It is therefore possible for multiple codecs to be available in the same product, avoiding the need to choose a single dominant codec for compatibility reasons. In the end it seems unlikely that one codec will replace them all. Some widely-used video codecs are listed below, starting with a chronological-order list of the ones specified in international standards. H.261: Used primarily in older videoconferencing and videotelephony products. H.261, developed by the ITU-T, was the first practical digital video compression standard. Essentially all subsequent standard video codec designs are based on it. It included such well-established concepts as YCbCr color representation, the 4:2:0 sampling format, 8-bit sample precision, 16x16 macroblocks, block-wise motion compensation, 8x8 block-wise discrete cosine transformation, zig-zag coefficient scanning, scalar quantization, run+value symbol mapping, and variable-length coding. H.261 supported only progressive scan video. MPEG-1 Part 2: Used for Video CDs, and also sometimes for online video. If the source video quality is good and the bitrate is high enough, VCD can look slightly better than VHS. To exceed VHS quality, a higher resolution would be necessary. However, to get a fully compliant VCD file, bitrates higher than 1150 kbit/s and resolutions higher than 352 x 288 should not be used. When it comes to compatibility, VCD has the highest compatibility of any digital video/audio system. Very few DVD players do not support VCD, but they all inherently support the MPEG-1 codec. Almost every computer in the world can also play videos using this codec. In terms of technical design, the most significant enhancements in MPEG-1 relative to H.261 were half-pel and bi-predictive motion compensation support. MPEG-1 supports only progressive scan video. MPEG-2 Part 2 (a common-text standard with H.262): Used on DVD, SVCD, and in most digital video broadcasting and cable distribution systems. When used on a standard DVD, it offers good picture quality and supports widescreen. When used on SVCD, it is not as good as DVD but is certainly better than VCD due to higher resolution and allowed bitrate. Though uncommon, MPEG-1 can also be used on SVCDs, and anywhere else MPEG-2 is allowed, as MPEG-2 decoders are inherently backwards compatible. In terms of technical design, the most significant enhancement in MPEG-2 relative to MPEG-1 was the addition of support for interlaced video. MPEG-2 is now considered an aged codec, but has tremendous market acceptance and a very large installed base. H.263: Used primarily foCommonly used standards and codecs

A variety of codecs can be implemented with relative ease on PCs and in consumer electronics equipment. It is therefore possible for multiple codecs to be available in the same product, avoiding the need to choose a single dominant codec for compatibility reasons. In the end it seems unlikely that one codec will replace them all. Some widely-used video codecs are listed below, starting with a chronological-order list of the ones specified in international standards.

H.261: Used primarily in older videoconferencing and videotelephony products. H.261, developed by the ITU-T, was the first practical digital video compression standard. Essentially all subsequent standard video codec designs are based on it. It included such well-established concepts as YCbCr color representation, the 4:2:0 sampling format, 8-bit sample precision, 16x16 macroblocks, block-wise motion compensation, 8x8 block-wise discrete cosine transformation, zig-zag coefficient scanning, scalar quantization, run+value symbol mapping, and variable-length coding. H.261 supported only progressive scan video.

MPEG-1 Part 2: Used for Video CDs, and also sometimes for online video. If the source video quality is good and the bitrate is high enough, VCD can look slightly better than VHS. To exceed VHS quality, a higher resolution would be necessary. However, to get a fully compliant VCD file, bitrates higher than 1150 kbit/s and resolutions higher than 352 x 288 should not be used. When it comes to compatibility, VCD has the highest compatibility of any digital video/audio system. Very few DVD players do not support VCD, but they all inherently support the MPEG-1 codec. Almost every computer in the world can also play videos using this codec. In terms of technical design, the most significant enhancements in MPEG-1 relative to H.261 were half-pel and bi-predictive motion compensation support. MPEG-1 supports only progressive scan video.

MPEG-2 Part 2 (a common-text standard with H.262): Used on DVD, SVCD, and in most digital video broadcasting and cable distribution systems. When used on a standard DVD, it offers good picture quality and supports widescreen. When used on SVCD, it is not as good as DVD but is certainly better than VCD due to higher resolution and allowed bitrate. Though uncommon, MPEG-1 can also be used on SVCDs, and anywhere else MPEG-2 is allowed, as MPEG-2 decoders are inherently backwards compatible. In terms of technical design, the most significant enhancement in MPEG-2 relative to MPEG-1 was the addition of support for interlaced video. MPEG-2 is now considered an aged codec, but has tremendous market acceptance and a very large installed base.

H.263: Used primarily for videoconferencing, videotelephony, and internet video. H.263 represented a significant step forward in standardized compression capability for progressive scan video. Especially at low bit rates, it could provide a substantial improvement in the bitrate needed to reach a given level of fidelity.

Sorenson Spark: A codec that was licensed to Macromedia for use in its Flash Player 6. In the same family as H.263.

MPEG-4 Part 2: An MPEG standard that can be used for internet, broadcast, and on storage media. It offers improved quality relative to MPEG-2 and the first version of H.263. Its major technical features beyond prior codec standards consisted of object-oriented coding features and a variety of other such features not necessarily intended for improvement of ordinary video coding compression capability. It also included some enhancements of compression capability, both by embracing capabilities developed in H.263 and by adding new ones such as quarter-pel motion compensation. Like MPEG-2, it supports both progressive scan and interlaced video.

DivX, Xvid, FFmpeg MPEG-4 and 3ivx: Different implementations of MPEG-4 Part 2.

MPEG-4 Part 10 (a technically aligned standard with the ITU-T's H.264 and often also referred to as AVC). This emerging new standard is the current state of the art of ITU-T and MPEG standardized compression technology, and is rapidly gaining adoption into a wide variety of applications. It contains a number of significant advances in compression capability, and it has recently been adopted into a number of company products, including for example the XBOX 360, PlayStation Portable, iPod, iPhone, the Nero Digital product suite, Mac OS X v10.4, as well as HD DVD/Blu-ray Disc.

x264: A GPL-licensed implementation of H.264 encoding standard, x264 is only an encoder.

VP6, VP6-E, VP6-S, VP7: Proprietary high definition video codecs developed by On2 Technologies used in platforms such as Adobe Flash Player 8 and above, Adobe Flash Lite, Java FX and other mobile and desktop video platforms. Supports resolution up to 720p and 1080p.

Sorenson 3: A codec that is popularly used by Apple's QuickTime, basically the ancestor of H.264. Many of the QuickTime movie trailers found on the web use this codec.

Theora: Developed by the Xiph.org Foundation as part of their Ogg project, based upon On2 Technologies' VP3 codec, and christened by On2 as the successor in VP3's lineage, Theora is targeted at competing with MPEG-4 video and similar lower-bitrate video compression schemes.

WMV (Windows Media Video): Microsoft's family of video codec designs including WMV 7, WMV 8, and WMV 9. It can do anything from low resolution video for dial up internet users to HDTV. The latest generation of WMV is standardized by SMPTE as the VC-1 standard.

VC-1: SMPTE standardized video compression standard (SMPTE 421M). Based on Microsoft's WMV9 video codec. One of the 3 mandatory video codecs in both HD DVD and Blu-Ray high-definition optical disc standards. Commonly found in portable devices and on streaming video websites in its Windows Media Video implementation.

RealVideo: Developed by RealNetworks. A popular codec technology a few years ago, now fading in importance for a variety of reasons.

Cinepak: A very early codec used by Apple's QuickTime.

Huffyuv: Huffyuv (or HuffYUV) is a very fast, lossless Win32 video codec written by Ben Rudiak-Gould and published under the terms of the GPL as free software, meant to replace uncompressed YCbCr as a video capture format. See Lagarith as a more up-to-date codec.

Lagarith: A more up-to-date fork of Huffyuv is available as Lagarith.

SheerVideo: A family of ultrafast lossless QuickTime and AVI codecs, developed by BitJazz Inc., for RGB[A], Y'CbCr[A] 4:4:4[:4], Y'CbCr[A] and 4:2:2[:4] formats; for both 10-bit and 8-bit channels; for both progressive and interlaced data; for both Mac and Windows.

Mobiclip, a codec created by Actimagine, maximising mobile phone battery life when playing full length films on a smart-phone handset.

All of the codecs above have their qualities and drawbacks. Comparisons are frequently published. The tradeoff between compression power, speed, and fidelity (including artifacts) is usually considered the most important figure of technical merit.

The programming provider has control over the amount of video compression applied to their video programming before it is sent to their distribution system. DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and HD DVDs have video compression applied during their mastering process, though Blu-ray and HD DVD have enough disc capacity that most compression applied in these formats is light, when compared to such examples as most video streamed on the internet, or taken on a cellphone. Software used for storing video on hard drives or various optical disc formats will often have a lower image quality, although not in all cases. High-bitrate video codecs with little or no compression exist for video post-production work, but create very large files and are thus almost never used for the distribution of finished videos. Once excessive lossy video compression compromises image quality, it is impossible to restore the image to its original quality.

Originally posted by phantomDX

I never said HD was the same quality as film. I said that HD was the highest quality BESIDES FILM. You also took it for granted when you assumed incorrectly that HD is always sourced from film. Not sure where ya been but they have HD cams too and when you have a HD workflow which is using HD from shooting to finished product then technically it is superior to film. Ever seen SinCity or 300? HD from start to finish when a digital theater was the end product.

Originally posted by phantomDX
Compression in general isn't a negative process.

Originally posted by phantomDX

I assure you there is no better copy than the one you have seen.

Originally posted by phantomDX
Degradation and artifacts are two separate things.

Originally posted by phantomDX

HD is not of better quality than film when film is the source but is close enough for an almost unnoticeable copy. Yet when you keep a very strict HD workflow meaning the camera is HD, you light your set for HD. You edit in HD using HD editors and decks. you finish in HD and finally send your digital copy to a digital theater you now have have an image that exceeds film quality in detail.

Nothing about that is a contradiction. Maybe hard for you to understand but not a contradiction.