smart: I was thinking of shooting a full length picture on a mini DV and edit it on Final Cut Pro. Is the quality gonna be real bad on a big screen?How good is the quality of mini DV tapes?the quality of miniDV is certainly better than DVD. miniDV is an excellent format for producing programs that will be distributed on DVD to the consumer. if by big screen you mean theatrical release, then resolution will not be as good as 35mm motion picture film. if you intend to make a film print of the program, that will have to be 24 fps and there will be resulting motion artifacts. For true theatrical distribution, you would be best served by shooting original footage at 24 fps with an HDV camera. It is the same miniDV tape, but better suited for film conversion, and can be edited on final cut as well.How good is the quality of mini DV tapes?Many outside broadcasts are done with (yes) Mini-dv. Even though its not considered a professional grade camera the results are great. As JTV said make sure the environment is correct, lighting etc but that goes for any camera, and you will end up with a good quality video, providing you use a reasonable camera, cheap gives cheap results, as with any camera. Another plus with Mini=dv is that the video although still compressed is not compressed as much as the other camera formats. Compression=reduced quality more compression more reduction in quality. You do not say what camera you are using, so its not east to give you a 100% answer. Good luck RRHow good is the quality of mini DV tapes?Plenty of people have shot features using MiniDV. Of course, any format that is tape based (analog or digital) is limited by the amount of information that the media can store. MiniDV is a consumer grade format - it doesn't allow for as much information as proper DV or Beta or many other formats. That's the bad news. The good news is that with a good camera, you can make up the difference. For example, a film shot to MiniDV on a cheap camcorder with a bad lens and one CCD ship isn't going to look nearly as good as a film shot to MiniDV with a high end camera, with a good lens, 3-CCD chips, etc (good lighting, good audio, etc). My advice? Spend a lot of time on the script, story boards and shot lists - and rent or buy a high end camera for the shoot. Good luck!