8mm to dv to dvd conversion

[unstuck2]

Hi,
I just captured one of my old 8mm video tapes by using the analog video-in feature of my dv camcorder. The dv camcorder was conected to the pc thru firewire and I could make a real time capture using NeroVision Express to an avi file.
Great!
Except what I see on the PC screen has much lower brightness/contrast than what I can see on the original 8mm camcorder LCD screen.
Is this quality degredation to be expected in this sort of transfer/capture?Can I do anything about it? (like turning up the brightness on my video card?)
Is there a better way to get this transfer/capture accomplished?
thanks for the help.

[yamato72]

unstuck2, this is typical. You can poke around on the web and find out how to calibrate your monitor for what you're doing, or you can do some test burns to an RW disc and doublecheck before you go too far.

I thought the same thing when I got started but you are playing with quite a few variables when you go from source to intermediate device 1 (dv cam display) to intermediate device 2 (pc monitor) to your final playback device (TV).

I like my monitor brightness the way it is, so I "proofed" everything by doing some test burns to make sure the levels were acceptable on the TV screen before making the finished product.

[unstuck2]

that's just it. How do I change the settings so that I can get something "acceptable"? My capture software just has a record button, so I can't make any changes there. And soes changing the brightnes on my video card only effect the output on the PC screen, not the brightness of the actual capture. So I'm not sure how to improve things before proceeding.

[yamato72]

The point I'm trying to make is that you have to view the output on the TV to be able to make a determination about whether you even need to monkey with any of the levels.

If you were in a production house, you'd calibrate your TV and your monitor to an established spec and go from there. Unless you have presets on your monitor, though, that'll make everything else on your monitor look like crap.

I personally am used to video looking like crap on the computer screen (my source is Hi8), but that's okay because I've gone through the trial-and-error of finding the processing settings that look best when the finished DVD is viewed on my TV.

I really think you're getting too worried about your video seeming dark.

Oh-and I hope I don't get flamed for suggesting that you calibrate for your TV -yeah it's completely subjective but for home-grown stuff, I think if you've got your TV adjusted so that everything else you watch looks "right" to you, then you should be fine.

[housepig]

My capture software just has a record button, so I can't make any changes there.

get some capture software with some adjustment capability

and I'll second Yamato - withold judgement until you see the final product on a tv screen. get some rewritable discs and make a test disc, see how dark it is once it finally hits your dvd player... you may be pleasantly surprised.

[unstuck2]

well you were right.
I am pleasantly surprised. The end result does not look too bad at all. Just about the same quality as the original 8mm tapes.
Let's see now.....14 tapes to go..that's about 25 hours of video......25 hours to capture+50 hours to encode+25 hours to edit+25 hours to author/burn = 125 hours of work ahead of me! No way I can get it all done during my vacation. well maybe if I don't sleep......
Gee i hope my 80GB HD doesn't wear out before I am done

Thanks for all the help guys. The home movies are so much more watchable on DVD than on tape.

[housepig]

I think you'll find that the more you do it, your edit and author times will go down. your capture times and encode times are pretty fixed, but you will find that what used to take you 20 minutes in your authoring app now takes 5, and the edits you struggled with in your first project are now second nature.

So what will happen is you'll start making really elaborate menus and stuff, and it will take twice as long....

[willy_annand]

well you were right.
I am pleasantly surprised. The end result does not look too bad at all. Just about the same quality as the original 8mm tapes.
Let's see now.....14 tapes to go..that's about 25 hours of video......25 hours to capture+50 hours to encode+25 hours to edit+25 hours to author/burn = 125 hours of work ahead of me! No way I can get it all done during my vacation. well maybe if I don't sleep......

Well, if you batch the encodes up, you can get some sleep then or wait until you get back to work to sleep.

[yamato72]

So what will happen is you'll start making really elaborate menus and stuff, and it will take twice as long....

I have to agree there -the video for my current project is long-since finished but I'm having too much fun in DVDLab -I finally figured how to set up a chapter list menu so that the snapshot changes as you highlite each chapter. I'm also packing the free space on the disc with stills. My only complaint with DVDLab right now is that you have to copy and paste... each... individual... item... between menu pages instead of group-selecting and pasting. Otherwise, there is little that you can't do to make your DVD look very polished.

[Paul_W]

I would wonder if the quality loss came from the software or hardware that you were using. My old analog 8mm videos still import in pretty good quality. Some are over 10 years old.