Content Formats and encoding.

[samsc]

DV-PAL or DV-NTSC is three times quicker to decode than photojpeg.

DV-PAL has a compression ratio of 5:1

[Spam Butterfly]

DV-PAL or DV-NTSC is three times quicker to decode than photojpeg.

DV-PAL has a compression ratio of 5:1

And a data rate of 3.6Mb/s.
The fixed compression rate of DV PAL/NTSC a pretty good option. However, it's YUV, has a colour sampling of 4:2:0 (for PAL) and 4:1:1 (for NTSC). It's also a fixed SD size - 720 x 576 for PAL and 720 x 480 for NTSC.

Photo-Jpeg colour is better than DV and it has variable compression settings. It's a great off-line format, and content created in this codec looks very good if it's at 100% quality. Check out the Digital Juice footage we give out with Catalyst. However, it's pretty CPU intensive to decode it and it has a variable data-rate - certain 'busy' frames can take more cpu effort than others. I've heard of people using this in Medium Quality setting - which I think looks shit...

Motion-Jpeg A medium quality works pretty well with Catalyst... It has similar issues to photo-jpeg in the variable data rate stakes.

[peppe]

....Motion-Jpeg A medium quality works pretty well with Catalyst... It has similar issues to photo-jpeg in the variable data rate stakes.

Often you have to use MJPEG-A as everybody seems to always need the maximum of layers.With that codec you anyway can make bigger content then 720x576 (pal) when zooming in the clips.

I agree that medium quality is work pretty well, but when doing contents with gradients,you see the actual quality and that is not always what you want.
I prefer to do the "gradient stuff" in Photo-JPEG high quality when using it as max 2 layers and the rest in MJPEG-A medium quality.

[samsc]

Often you have to use MJPEG-A as everybody seems to always need the maximum of layers.With that codec you anyway can make bigger content then 720x576 (pal) when zooming in the clips.

I agree that medium quality is work pretty well, but when doing contents with gradients,you see the actual quality and that is not always what you want.
I prefer to do the "gradient stuff" in Photo-JPEG high quality when using it as max 2 layers and the rest in MJPEG-A medium quality.

you are right. you have to use mpjeg a or photojpeg when using larger or smaller movies than 720x576 or 720x480 - or odd aspect ratios or images like 1000x230 etc.

photojpeg preserves colour information better - but it is much slower than dv. and you will not be able to playback 4 layers.