DV from camcorder to computer and mp2? HOW?

[overloaded_ide]

OK I did some looking and searching, but I aren't good with keywords and get everything that never applies

Just bought a new DV camcorder, how do I get from the firewire port on the camera into the computer and end up with an MP2 file?

First I don' have a firwire port, I thought I did, but the system boards I thought had it built on do not! My mistake, so I figure I'll get a PCI fire wire card, I can use it for other stuff too like drives later.

Now once I connect the cable from the camera to the firewire port, then what? I have been using ATI AIW card and the MMC 7.7 to capture VHS directly to mpeg2 files.

I was under the impression before that I go from DV camera to mp2 directly. But now after more reading not so sure? How does that work?
At this time I don't want to do any extra's, so direct to mp2 would be great.

The software that came with the camera is probably useless, it only mentions WIN XP and I use W2K pro! I'm not changing over either.

So any advice? Software needed, preferably free or fully working demo!
I have 30 days to decide if I want the camera or return for refund, so I don't want to buy anything to use it yet, like software!

It shouldn't matter, but my two main goals are convert VHS to DV through the camera, and the DV recordings I make.

Once in MP2 files I'll use Tmpgenc DVD Author to create and burn the DVDs.
Latter once I get all the basics down, I will be trying fancier stuff like motion menus, dubbing sounds, etc..
But for now I just want watchable DVDs, nothing fancy.

[Craig Tucker]

You will be transferring the file from your camcorder to your hard drive and this will be in the form of a DV AVI file. You can use DVIO for this and its free. You can then use tmpgenc to encode to mpeg2, I assume this is what you mean by mp2.

[overloaded_ide]

Yes, but I thought I could capture the DV as an mpeg2 file, same as capturing analog as an mpeg2 file. But DV being better quality of course.

I just read the NeoDVD webpage, I think it said it does this as well as directly to DVD. Unfortunately I could not find a download link for a demo, although it shows to be trialware in the tools section here.

I'll be doing alot of avi work on custom projects latter, but for capture and burn I don't need to do much so skipping directly to mpeg2 and a dvd author program works, most the time with VHS.

I made some very nice short video's in the early 90's from captured avi and lots of editing and adding sound tracks. Unfortunately, no way to get them off the system in those days, not even Cd burners! Some were almost profesional quality even, though just a hobby at home. I gave it up after I lost most of em in a drive crash.
I plan to get back into it now again, after I get all the burning and such figured out.

[Craig Tucker]

I doubt that it would capture to mpeg2 in real time and if it did I would expect the quality to be poor compared to transferring to an avi file then encoding with software such as tmpgenc.

[Richard_G]

You don't capture DV, you simply copy a data file from your camcorder to your hard drive. This is in DV avi format on your tape so that's what you get on your hard drive. You don't have any options to capture in different formats (like you do with analogue) because you're not capturing.

Once you have the DV files you can use whatever you choose to edit before you author and encode them to mpeg2 DVD format.

[overloaded_ide]

So you mean it's more like copying a file from disk to disk or restoring a tape backup type of thing rather than a capture?

That would make sence.

[Craig Tucker]

Yes you are transferring the video via digital firewire, not capturing like you do with an analogue capture card.

[overloaded_ide]

Ok.
So there should be no reason to lose sound either then right.
I have a bug somewhere. I did a DV capture with DVIO,

Silly me did not check the files or something. I got the 2hrs off the DV camcorder, Tmpgenc showed audio settings and everything, took 4 hours to encode (basically just covert to Mpeg2) with default settings except I think I set bit rate to 5,000. Tmpgenc DVD Author showed the sound settings also, but I noticed there was no sound when preview playing. So since it only takes about 10 minutes to make the DVD files I let it create them.

NO SOUND! AWWW

SO I back tracked and the DV AVI file has no sound! I was out of time, so I did it as an analog then quickly (about 4 hrs to playback, create disk and burn at 1x).

So yesterday I played with it a little. Using DVIO, 1st test had great sound, 2nd had none, 3rd had great sound again. What the hey??
I did nothing but start and stop. No rebooting the system or anything. Nothing else running, cept firewall anti virus etc.. normal stuff!
Camcorder was not touched except to hit play and stop!

Latter I was playing with analog to DV converting through the camcorder with VHS tapes. ALL the little clips had great sound.

So now I am wondering, if I do a 1hr tape if I will have sound? If I test it for a minute it might have sound in that clip, but the second time I start the capture I may lose it?

Could this be a system bug? When I had no sound in the AVI files, everything else like Mpeg2 I tried did have correct sound, then I went back and tried the AVI again and it still did not!

Also the Mpeg2 that was made with Tmpgenc from the DV AVI did not have any sound either, though all my analog captured mpeg2 files did!

This has me very puzzled! At this time I think it is working, but will it fail next time? Like on a 1hr DV tape capture or 2hr VHS to DV conversion??

Any thoughts apreciated!

Not too bad, but so far this foo foo cost me $15 for 2 extra tapes (because I couldn't erase the first 3 yet) and I ended up doing an Analog captured DVD for my friends instead of DV DVD. Original materials of course, about 9 DVDS and 3 VHS tape copies! AWWW, I wish I could burn tapes! 2hr DVD -r playback to record each tape! Well at least I know my DVDs work

[yg1968]

I wonder if your firewire cable (or your port) might not be defective. You can also try DVapp or WinDV to isolate the problems.

[overloaded_ide]

Oh yes, not that it make any difference, all this work I am doing and disks and tapes are all freebies I am giving away!
Not even charging cost of disks or tapes on this.
Just a fun project

And no, not porn. It's not quite that fun a project in the making

[tweedledee]

Hi, I had the same sound problem as you and I discovered that if I started the camera first, then started DVIO, it worked fine.
Do a small test to try it before wasting more time.

[overloaded_ide]

I'll try that.
Never paid attention to which I started first, pretty sure it was DVIO since I would think I could not capture the beginning if I started the camera first
I'll give it a try, if it fixes the problem I can always rewind and start again if need be.

Thanks!

[indolikaa]

I use WinDV for my DV.avi transfers. I never could get DVIO to even load on my machine.

In regards to the sound issue. Are you bringing the DV.avi file in as a Type 2?

[daint]

Hello

Someone told me about Ulead Videostudio 7 to capture directly into MPG2, and it works, brilliantly in fact. The quality seems a lot better than it did when I was capturing in avi (or dv) and converting. You might need a reasonably quick computer though. Im using a P4 2Ghz and it seems to work ok, takes about 2 hours to capture a 1 hour dv tape, but the software takes care of it all, so you can just leave it alone.

I would definitely give it a try

Rob

[overloaded_ide]

I'll have to give Ulead a try again. I tried it for capturing and DVD authoring from already captured files, but all I had was problems with it.
I have changed somethings on my system, maybe it will work better next time

[overloaded_ide]

OK this isn't making any sence, what could be wrong?

I started my camera, started Dvio, captured 2 minutes, played back the AVI and sound was great!

Rewound the tape, did a 30 minute capture, NO SOUND!!
Ok, tried again! No sound!
So I even rebooted my system, in case the video player could have caused some type problem after the first capture. Still no sound.

First capture great sound, then never again any sound!
Also My camcorder is playing the sound fine through the built in speaker, so it's not like a bad audio head in the camcorder, if DV even has those?

Camcorder is Canon ZR60, Belkin firewire, Dvio, W2K, and everything seems to be working great exceot the loss of sound!

Thanks for any help!
I will try to get another program. At 3k downloads speeds, sometimes thats hard here.

[overloaded_ide]

I got windv and I have the same problem.
I got DVapp and although it shows the preview and is supposedly capturing the file, when I stop and look in the folder it should be saved in It is not there. The preview did have sound everytime, but only tried a couple times. At least I know the sound IS getting to the computer durring preview!
So why would my .avi not have sound most of the time, but one or two do?
It does not come and go durring the capture, it's either the avi has it or it does not!

[turk690]

To overloaded_ide, since you are going to get into this in a deep way I suggest getting a dedicated capture/NLE/encoding program. On one of the setups I'm currently using I use Adobe Premiere 6.5 that came bundled with an ADSTech Pyro Platinum Firewire card, the whole lot costing $260 off videoguys. Premiere has decided to stick with the Windows VfW architecture which produces type-2 DV AVI files when capturing. Type-2 DV AVI files will work with all other NLEs, but the same thing can't be said for type-1. When a capture program is freeware it's likely it indeed just moves the data off your DV tape onto the HDD and that's type-1, and you need programs specifically intended to deal with type-1 to hear the audio. Even then it's still unpredictable: some DV AVI files I captured with MediaStudio 6 had no sound EVEN opening within that very same program, and they likewise can't be opened by Premiere, or opens but with no sound. What type-1 and type-2 DV AVI are can best be explained further from other sites you may want to see; it's essential you know exactly what they are, how they differ, and as you find out, one main thing is about how sound is handled.

[overloaded_ide]

Yes, I am getting into this a bit deep. Unfortunately I can't spend another $260 towards this project, at least for a long while yet.
And the camcorder is giving me banded lines at times, so I got to find a fix for that. Its in analogue captures from the camera also, so that's a camera problem, vhs captures don't have this problem.
So I have 2 big problems, no sound, bad lines.
There might be camera settings of some type to correct the lines problem?
Maybe similar to shutter speed??