Good software that keeps compression to a minimum

[airjason]

First time poster - thanks for the help.

I have a camcorder that records in MPEG2 and When I use Windows Movie Maker to edit and save to dvd it records and saves in a more compressed format (WMV i believe)
If I just record to DVD without editing and leave it in MPEG2 the pic quality is much better. What inexpensive software or method would you recommend to keep the DVD in MPEG2 or as close to the original quality as possible?

[CWR03]

Cuttermaran is free and can edit without re-encoding at all, so there's no loss in quality. Most apps can't "cut in" on a non I-frame, so you may not be able to edit on exactly the frame you want.

[airjason]

it looks like cuttermaran only will open .mv2 etc file extensions. my camcorder saves the files as as something else, how can i change that or get the software to see it?

[Abond]

You better describe this "something else"... though I think it is vob.
You can demux the vob's to m2v (mpeg2 video elementary file) and ac3 (or maybe mp2) audio file with Rejig (File mode). Then load them in Cuttermaran.

[CWR03]

it looks like cuttermaran only will open .mv2 etc file extensions. my camcorder saves the files as as something else, how can i change that or get the software to see it?
Cuttermaran will open any MPEG-2 file - just type *.* in the path and it will display all files.