Is MPEG 4 better than AVI in terms of video Quality?

Im considering to by the new Panasonic GS70 Mini DV camcorder. The only hitch is it saves file in MPEG 4 format & not the usual AVI? I belive one should buy the camera that saves in raw AVI to get the higest quality of Video.
So if i my camera Saves files in MPEG4 am i compromising in Quality of the video?

Yes. Perhaps the camera can also save in raw footage (uncompressed or some lossless compression scheme) at the cost of using FAR more storage. MPEG4 is a very “destructive” codec in the sense that a lot of the finer details are lost, while maintaining fair image quality (seen from a distance)- gain is that it takes up a hell of lot less space than uncompresed video. All professional recording always takes place with uncompressed or lossless codecs to maintain max quality until editing/publishing time. The question is what quality you need and whether or not the camera can be configured to save in uncompressed (I suspect it can).

(Btw an avi file can be any sort of codec. An avi file can easily also contain mpeg4 compressed streams (iv. divx))

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