video capture questions

whatever · Post by **whatever** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 3:24 pm

ive searched the forum and internet for an answer to my question and was unble to find one so i'll ask here.

im trying to capture some video from my sony dv trv-140 camcorder, connected to my computer via usb and burn it to dvd. I am using both nero vision express and roxio creator that came with my dvd burner, an NEC ND1100 A. when I go to capture video, it works, but its really low resolution and when I burn it to dvd, the quality sucks, nowhere near what it looks like on tape and no sound was captured. 1 hr of footage captured this way was 2 gigs, the burner is a dvd+r format so my max on a disk is 4.7.

so my question is, how do I capture in higher resolution to get the same quality as video and if so, am I only gonna be able to put 1 hr. of footage on a dvd? that seems wrong. do I need a video capture card? my camera is a digital video camera and ive read that with those you can do a digital to digital capture that keeps the quality high but how do I do that? there is a dvi port on the camera but the manual states that is for camera to vcr and only shows usb for camera to pc.

thanks in advance for any guidance!

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 8:14 am

First is your Hard drive a FAT32 file system? If so I think the file size limit is 2 gigs. I'm geusing that's the problem there. Win98 is fat32, win 2k can be either, and not sure about XP but I think it might be NTFS only. NTFS will let you have much larger files, not sure if there is a limit, it don't think so since I captured about 8 hrs one night when the timer in the program stoped working

2hr movie, 6 hrs black screen! I have 2K pro, boot drive is fat32, but I have my capturing drive as NTFS.
If you have fat32, you should be able to capture a 2 gig file as many times as needed, then add them in the dvd authoring program to get one dvd. So capture 1hr, then the next hr.

I use and ATI AIW card, so I don't know anythng about usb, firewire, or DV from camcorder yet. But are you using some type program to capture? You might have a setting for bit rate or something like I have for mpeg 1 and mpeg2 captures, or maybe the program is converting from DV to mpeg or something like that. Like I said I don't know about capturing DV, but I would look for those type settings.

I would geuss your captured files should be mpeg 2, so you probably have settings you can change.
720x480, 8,000 bits, varible bit rate, 48,000mhz audio ect...

The higher the bits usually the better the quality, but much larger files! For the VHS captures I been doing I been using from 4,000 to 6,000 depending the amount of time I need to record, and I can't really see that much difference myself in quality. But, thats capturing VHS so that's the best quality I will ever get, just VHS.

I tried nero vision express. I did not like their dvd authoring program myself, but it could just be the way I captured my files. Haven't tried Roxio at all. The only thing so far that works well for me is Tempenc DVD Author! 30 days free, fully working demo then something like $60-$70 to buy. It only creates the dvd files to the hard drive, then I use nero to burn em. Personally I like the program and will probly buy it in a week or so. I'm using it free for now.

As far as sound, I'm sure you have checked the recording volume levels in the windows sound mixer, and selected the corect source for recording? I don't do USB, so I don't know which that would be. Try em all

I had a problem with a capture program once that kept defaulting to wave source when it needed to be line in as source. Do you need a seperate audio line from your cam corder to the line in jack on your sound card by any chance?
Can you watch the video as you capture it? If so, do you have sound then?

An excellent site is http://www.dvdrhelp.com for about anything related to capturing, editing, authoring, playing DVDs. Lots of info about tools, howto guides, hardware ect.....
If you haven't been there yet it's all about dvd and vcd recording.

Hope something in this post helps ya.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 5:54 pm

Are you SURE you don't mean Firewire instead of USB? As far as I know you can't transfer video from a DV camcorder via USB except for short clips from the memory stick.

Irregardless, you must use the Firewire connection to get good quality digital tape dumps. Your camera would not have come with a Firewire cable - they make you buy it.

Additionally, your computer may not have a Firewire port, although you can find a PCI firewire card made by Belkin for under $45.

Ultimately the quality will be greatly affected by what type of DV to DVD software you use.

One of the simplest that also makes very good quality DVDs is MyDVD and that's what I use: http://www.mydvd.com/

It's not the most powerful or professional, but it works well and it's easy to use.

As mentioned above, it's imperative you have a drive formatted for NTFS to use as your video dump drive, otherwise you'll run up against FAT32's 2Gb file size limit.

The link CatonKid provided is an EXCELLENT site with lot's of guides and tutorials.

whatever · Post by **whatever** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 3:12 pm

thanks for the tips guys!

I use winxp pro on my main system, 2k on my network drive. I checked and all of my drives are NTFS.

I never thought to check my recording device in sound. I have that set to mic for teamspeak, so ill have to mess around with that.

my camera has an ilink port, 4pin which I think connects to firewire. I have an audigy with a firewire port I could try using. would there be a difference between using that or getting a capture card? I am using both easy cd creator dvd ed. and nero vision express. both only seem to capture 320x180 max which looks horrible on my tv after burning to dvd. i got an mpeg-2 decoder for nero but maybe you cant use that unless you have the firewire cable connected to the camera?

thanks for the links and tips for software to check out, ill do that!

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 5:01 pm

If you have firewire, there is no reason to use a capture card. Firewire looks 20 times better, plus you can remote control the VCR on the camcorder via firewire.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 8:51 pm

You may need to remember to check the recording source settings before you capture if your sometimes using other sources for other things

I was recording mike to Dragon Naturally Speaking, and line in to record casettes to mp3 before and then I was also capturing video. The capture card was connected to the sound card using the CD line so I could keep line in jack free. SO, naturally every so often I would forget to check when I first started and record an entire movie with the wrong audio source set and have no sound or static.

I did get funny results once. Had freinds over and was having a good time playing games, whopping and hollorin and just plain fun. I was capturing an action video at the time too, and the sound was set to mike

Turned out prety funny, though I had to trash it and start over

FP,
I'm gonna give mydvd a try too.
For stand alone video players what have you found to be the most compatible dvd-r disks?
I'm burning princo 1x -r now and all are working good in my stuff (provided I don't do something wrong)
Just let a new neighbor try a couple I made and thier phillips stand alone won't play them, said they just got a disk error message, They have a phillips, don't know what model though.
I sent the VHS tapes over for them to watch instead, thier waiting for their dish to get set-up so no TV.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 9:30 pm

Standalone units USUALLY work fine with any DVD-R or -RW disc.

canton_kid · Post by **canton_kid** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 10:32 pm

Maybe it's the way my disks are burnt? UDF 1.02

whatever · Post by **whatever** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 1:44 am

well, I went and got a firewire cable for my cam today and that seems to have done the trick. captured 1 hr of video in nero in 720x480 w/sound, 11 gigs, 2 gigs on a dvd. havent burned it to dvd yet, but im sure itll be fine.

btw, nero and easy dvd creator both kinda suck for making menus and so forth. not alot of diff options available.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 8:46 am

Easiest program I've found is MyDVD. It's a snap to make menus, and the video quality is good.

If you don't need to edit your video you can dump it directly to DVD, but you can also capture and edit.

I don't use the editor that comes with it though - I have a copy of Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video I use for editing (I have friends in the video biz).

http://mydvd.com/

RaT · Post by **RaT** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 5:55 pm

FP, do you have any experience with those "cheapo" firewire cards you can find on the net for $5-$15. i was thinking of getting one but if it ain't worth it i'll obviously go with a "brand-name" one.

BillyGoat · Post by **BillyGoat** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 6:11 pm

Vegas video is awesome in fact vegas audio kicks some ass too....
That being said, i will just sit back and envy those of you with a dvd burner and a dv cam

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 11:02 pm

Vegas and Sound Forge both kick ass. VERY expensive, but I used to work at a company that does video editing AND I have friends who own a recording studio

RaT: I would think any card would work okay, but for $30 I'd recommend getting a Belkin - they have them at Walmart and CompUSA. Belkin is a well respected company. You get what you pay for.

whatever · Post by **whatever** » Tue Jun 17, 2003 1:11 am

thanks for the tips FP, im looking into mydvd right now. doesnt seem to be much diff between the plus version and the video version which is 20 bones more. might have to use those others for now, gotta shell out 400 for the coming hockey season and throwing money left and right for the new baby is sapping my tech funds. I guess I could "borrow" it off one of my friends on winmx to see how I like it

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Jun 17, 2003 7:25 am

MyDVD 4 came with my Sony DVD burner, which I thought was nice.