[color=red]Capturing DV tape to Hard drive?[/color]

[tghinis]

I have been capturing my DV video from my camcorder via a firewire port using Ulead Video 7 or mydvd software. Does it matter what software I use to capture my video to the hard drive. Does the quality suffer. If it does, what is the best way to capture video from my camcorder. I want to be able to capture edit and burn and get the same quality as is on the DV tape!

[Tommyknocker]

DV capture doesn't vary that much from program to program, since it is not really capturing, but data transfer, which always gives it good quality.

[ZippyP.]

I want to be able to capture edit and burn and get the same quality as is on the DV tape!

The capture won't affect the quality but the conversion to mpeg before burning definitely will. That's where you need to worry about keeping quality. Some programs are better than others, don't know about Ulead.

[bugster]

For best quality, capture the Video to DV-Avi. Edit that and save again as DV-Avi. Then encode that vide to a high bitrate mpeg-2 with a good standalone encoder. Select from TmpGenc, Mainconcept, CCE and others. Then author your DVD and burn.

[tghinis]

Thanks for all your help. I have one more question. I will do as you all have said but then does it matter what software is used for authoring and/or burning. Or can I use any software for this that appeals to me with equal dvd quality output!

[Craig Tucker]

The authoring and burning process will not effect the quality of the video. Authoring programs are generally selected due to the features they offer, ease of use and price. Two of the front runners at the moment are DVDlab and TMPGEnc DVD author which combine a good range of features with a reasonable price tag.