That being the case, is there any advantage to recording on a DVD as opposed to video tape (ignoring the facts that DVRs cost more than VCRs and that video tape is probably on its way out)?
They're both problematic, but in different ways: In the case of video tape, you're probably hurt by resolution. There's a great deal of variance from recorder to recorder, and you could fairly easily end up with a recording of only 300 lines resolution or so. And of course there's always generational degradation (tape to tape) with the noise buildup and loss of signal on each pass. Good equipment, good calibration and head cleaning can help. Recording onto a DVD brings up the problem of data compression. A DVD holds only about 4 gig of data, whereas the uncompressed video for the same amount of time may require 10 times that storage. In order to squeeze things in, 90% of the data are thrown away. This compression uses deep knowledge of human perception so as not to throw away anything "important". All in all, it works exceptionally well. But a DVR must do this compression in realtime, as the signal comes in. If you've done video on a PC, you've noticed that the best compression runs much slower than realtime. Good video compression on my dual G5 runs at about 3x realtime or so. All this means that the compression algorithm in the DVR is built for speed, not for quality. The places where you're most likely to notice artifacts will be in areas of solid color, with subtle gradients (nebulae?) and perhaps sharp points (stars or limbs of planets). And of course the clincher is that you're going to edit this video. That means you're going to uncompress the compressed video, edit it and then RECOMPRESS it. I use a converter that outputs files in an uncompressed format (a Canopus) that allows me to defer compression until after editing. You should investigate your converter to see if it can do this. You'll have to reserve considerable disk space in your computer, but it's worth it. You get better video, considerably better compression and only a single pass of compression. On a Mac storage for an hour's worth of uncompressed video and temporary storage to generate a DVD of the result will run 20-25 Gigabytes. MC Michael Carnes MichaelCarnes@earthlink.net home.earthlink.net/~michaelcarnes