MiroDc30 Plus/Adobe Priemere5.1

[inkollusekar]

I recently bought miroDc30 pro plus from pinnacle systems, i sucessfully installed the software/hardware and even caputred the video in avi format. (480 x 480 Resolution). Now i need to convert this avi file into mpeg2 to make SVCD or mpeg1 to VCD.
How can i do that?
DO i need have any special software for that or Adobe can do it.
Any help is appreciated.

[jtor]

You'll need MPEG encoder. Check on HOW TO...CONVERT, and/or TOOLS on the left side of the screen. HOW TO ... CONVERT will tell you the steps and software/s you need, and TOOLS is where you get them.

Favorite here is TMPGENC.

[Ktranmd_99]

You can convert AVI to SVCD by followings:
- Use LMX premiere plugin (2.0suite).
- Use CCE (2.5 0r 2.62) plugin
- Use AVsynth as frame sever feeds the video to TMPGEnc.
I ahd tried the first and third successfully, but not the second way with CCE 2.5 plugin. The first method seems to be very fast compared to the third (at least 3X faster). But I prefer the quality of the third.

I have one question my own. What program/appl do you use to capture 480x480 AVI? I'm using Miro DC 30 Plus, and the s/w that came with the package only allows me to capture AVI with the following resolutions: 704x480 (CCIR), 640x480, 352x240.
Are U using the same driver which is posted at the miro.com
version 1.41a/1.42?

[inkollusekar]

How to get the LMX premiere plugin(2.0 suite), is it a addon which comes Adobe premiere ? Please advice on the thrid also as i have TMPGEnc12j.

How to capture 480x480 resolution?
I actually changed the capture resolution in the video capture settings. You can change the resolution by typing it in the text fields and uncheck the 4:3 ration field. Hope this helps. if not let me know i will some more details.
I am using the driver from pinnacle systems support download page.

[Ktranmd_99]

http://www.labdv.com/en/manuals/avisynth.php
http://www.geocities.com/aussie01au/SVCD.html
These 2 web sites will tell you more than you want to know about AVIsynth/premiere plug-ins, frame sever...... It's also tell you where to get s/w you need.

[Ktranmd_99]

Inko,
I'm using Mirovideo capture app. and it does not have the display 4:3 ratio as you mentioned. I either have a choice of 704x480, 352x480 or 352x240. There is no text field in the setting window. What capture proram are you using?

[inkollusekar]

Hi ktranmd_99,

Actually i used Adobe priemere5.1 to capture the video (480 X 480 resolution).

Step 1. By default the video capture settings video appears when you start the priemere.
Step 2. Select the video Settings in the drop down box.
Step 3. Select on video for windows or miro Mjeg 16
Step 4. Edit the frame size field and uncheck the 4:3 ratio
Click ok, you will notice that the capture window will resize itself to your resolution.

Hope this helps.

[Ktranmd_99]

Inko,
Thaks for the quick reply. Right aftet I posted the msg, I guessed and went to Premiere to play around w the capturing. The driver 1.42 is not working with Premiere 6.0 yet. Guess I have to wait until Adobe finds some ways to fix it or going back to 5.1 :<. Thanks again

[mas71]

Actually there is a Miro DC30 beta 2.0 driver available that works fine with Premiere 6 available at:

ftp://ftp.pinnaclesys.de/driver/pc/beta/DC30_Series_20_BETA2.exe

I have just about the same problem, even though I'm using Premiere I can only use the standard relolutions predefined in the MIRO templates. 768x676, 704x576 etc, and none of these gives the option to capture in 480 horizontal resolution, which is a problem since the resize operation to SVCD seems to be impossible to get flicker free with TMPGenc + AVISYnth or LSX MPEG Encoder is till get the flickers no matter what field option I use.

[Ktranmd_99]

It's funny. I have the Beta2 version installed and it did not have any affect on the capturing at all. I've got to try to de/reinstall the whole scoop again to see what going on. About the flickering issue, I do not have any problem using LMS2.0 suit whatsoever but Premiere 6.0, AVIsynth, TMPGenc. It does not matter the field order I set, I still got the flickering SVCD. The only way seemed to get rid of the flivkering is converting from 704x480 to 480x480 under microsoft AVI and then feed the video to TMPGenc via AVIsynth. But this way will degrade the video because of encoding twice. So far LMS 2.0 Premiere plug-in is the only way of encoding/converting from DC-30 plus AVI to SVCD I've had success - Still want to try with different options.

[mas71]

Hmmm interesting, about the flickering, if I set the upperfield, the flickering appears at the top of the screen, if I choose lower field the flickering is at the bottom. But the flickering only appears during sideways panning with the camcorder, If there is no major sideways motion the image is really good.
The typical problem appears if I have filmed a lanscape and is panning the horizon, then the trees flickers like crazy, is this the case for you too?

[Paradebh]

My mettod is: edit in premiere with normal size (640x480 or 704x480), frameserv to virtualdub with Avisynth, apply "deinterlace" and "resize to 480x480" filters, frameserv to TpmGenc or Cinemacraft 2.5. My final video looks great!

[mas71]

Do you de-interlace the video even if you intend to make an SVCD to display with a standalone DVD player?

I think you are right about the resizing thing but I would ask more of Premiere 6 being a $700 software, even if I use the resize-filter/effect in Premiere 6 the flickering wont go away and the filter seems to add another side effect, more blocky end-result.

It ius so annoying and I have software for more than $1000 and it can't even produce a flicker free SVCD. I have also tride to frameserve with AVISYnth to TMPGEnc but the flickering persists i´n the same manner as with LSX, conclusion it's the horizontal resizing that mess things up.
If I was able to capture with a 480 horizontal resolution the problem would probably go away.

[Paradebh]

Mas71, frameserve to virtualdub first, do the deinterlace and resize filter, and framserve to tmpgenc or cinemacraft. Don't use premiere deinterlace and resize.

[mas71]

I can export it with AVIsynth to c:\part0.sys
I can open it with Virtualdub and apply the filter
I can start the Frameserver in Vitualdub
But I can't open the signpost with TMPGEnc, I have tried naming the signpost .AVI and .AVS AVS works as far as to open the file but in the prieview window it appears a strange "parse error" renedered error message : )



<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-10-23 09:38:06, Paradebh wrote:
Mas71, frameserve to virtualdub first, do the deinterlace and resize filter, and framserve to tmpgenc or cinemacraft. Don't use premiere deinterlace and resize.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[inkollusekar]

In my opinion, even after spending $700 to buying this Adobe priemere software; we still need to depend on third party software to convert our capture video into VCD or SVCD.
I am really suprised that Adobe does'nt have any real decent software to convert our capture to vcd or svcd.

May be i am wrong, i think if we have very good capture card and other third party softwares like virtual dub and TMPGenc12j, we can create quality home videos without spending $400 to $1000.

[mas71]

Well I finally managed to produce som SVCD sample by using Paradebh's method, the result is really good.
Thanks for the tip.

It seems the bicubic resizing filter in Virtualdub is the key, isn't there a similar filter/effect plugin for premiere6, because that would cut the special steps and I could use LSX with it's higher speed.

[Ktranmd_99]

Inko,
Although Premiere 6.0 is suck, but this is not adobe's problem. Premiere is video/audio editting software not capturing. Every capture hardware company would/should be responsible for it's own card to work with popular s/w they choose. In this case, Miro/Pinnacle should be responsible to develop a well working plug-in for the P6. Obviously, they were not able to do it. In addition, Miro/Pinnacle driver is not developed to be complied with VFW environments. It even makes it harder to integrate the card to work with the third party s/w. I'll give a thumb down rating to both of these companies. For now, nothing much we can do, rather than keep waiting for a truly well built s/w regarding to capturing.

[CraigPCLE]

Just so you know, you don't need a VFW driver to capture inside of Premiere. In fact, using a VFW interface can decrease performance due to additional overhead required to make VFW calls.

Most products you find today are perfectly capable of capturing inside of premiere 6 and DO NOT have a VFW interface.

Craig

[Ktranmd_99]

Of course, you don'need the VFW to capture inside the premiere, because the Miro/Pinacle plug-in does not allow you to do that. Just so you know that does not give you any choices/options beside what Miro/Pinnacle plug-in allows you to have. Does not matter how you said the s/w still suck, Why limit yourself with a handicaped s/w

[CraigPCLE]

In this case, in my opinion, why not determine what features/options you need in an NLE product BEFORE you buy it instead of deciding after the fact and hope someone will write a driver to suit your needs?

If you say the software "sucks", that must mean you purchased it, or used it HOPING it would do what you want it to, instead of researching the possibilities before hand.

That's like me saying a power drill "sucks" because it won't let me drive a nail into a wall.

Craig

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: CraigPCLE on 2001-10-24 09:37:16 ]</font>

[Ktranmd_99]

CraigPCLE,
Could not agree more with you that always do research and pay for what you need or want to have. No argument.

"hope someone will write a driver to suit your needs". Definitely, we always want to have a better product, an improve quanlity in the product which a responsible company should do or care about their products. Please, keep in mind that no s/w is perfect, you always find big bugs, small bugs, minor inconvenience ....hopefully the company will improve the products, get rid of all the bugs (hopefully), modifications, enhancements.... as the time goes on....supposedly the company still holding on saling the products. But limitation is always going w everything, and the effort of improving products of Pinnacle/Miro, speciffically DC-30 plus, is way below my expectations.

* "If you say the software "sucks", that must mean you purchased it, or used it HOPING it would do what you want it to,". I'm still saying the software is sucks and I did not have to pay for it. Are you kidding me. $400 plus for a piece of trash. AVI capturing only,...not even allows me to capture all the res. I want....I definitely would not want to pay for 1/2 of it's price even if I were rich. A friend of mine bought a MPEG 1/2 capturing card and wanted to toss the Miro away. And I thought, well let give it a try to see how much the card can offer. Not much . I've never regreted spending time for this assessment. I did learn a lot to play around of the card. But truly, the company could do much better job in supporting the hw which they are selling, especially $400 plus a pop.

"That's like me saying a power drill "sucks" because it won't let me drive a nail into a wall." Sorry, although I've tried, I could not workship it as "power drill". Perhaps a "wallmart" type of hand drill instead, performing a basic function but with the price of "BOSCH".

[CraigPCLE]

"AVI capturing only,...not even allows me to capture all the res. I want."

If you are capturing video, you are limited to video resolutions, or multiples there of. You can't just capture at any old resolution you want to with ANY NLE product of reasonable quality that I am aware of. Again, this goes back to knowing what you want to accomplish before you purchase a product like this.

As far as AVI goes, pretty much every windows based video capture card that I am aware of uses some version of the AVI file format, version1 or OpenDML.. Even those that are capable of using .MP2 files such as the DC1000 and 2000, still give you better results when capturing as .AVI. This has to do with the way MPEG hardware has to deal with GOP's on the fly during acquisition, not to mention color sampling.

"But truly, the company could do much better job in supporting the hw which they are selling"

The DC30 is a card that's been shipping for over 5 years. In fact, the box still has "Pentium class PC with 32MG RAM" for system requirements.

In it's life time the DC30 has had support for now 4 different version of Adobe Premiere going back to version 4.0, NOT including the numerous updates and patches that Adobe has made available. It has had driver support for Windows 95 (First and second edition), Windows 98 (first and second edition), Windows ME, WindowsNT (3.1 to 4.0 up to service pack 6), and Windows 2000. I could go on to list the many Mac Operating Systems and versions of QuickTime, supported by the DC30.

What other kind of "support" were you looking for?

Craig

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: CraigPCLE on 2001-10-24 15:35:28 ]</font>

[Ktranmd_99]

These are 3 wishes that I like to see in Miro/Pin. s/w.
- Capture AVi files in different formats beside standards such as 160x240,240x320,....480x480.
Why does the third party s/w such as Premiere allow me to do that but not the Miro Capture Appl 1.41a, 1.42, Beta2?
I really don't care how they do it, but please show me there is an option. It really makes me feel the Miro s/w somewhat Adobe dependent. If I have to use Adobe for capturing, what is the point of having Miro Capture s/w. A $400 plus card got to work in conjunction w/ $800 s/w, it does not seems right to me.
- AVI size limitation. Please find a way to overcome this obstacle ...to support different OS's....something like AVI-IO for example. At least there is a way for users to capture video as long as they wish (what they can get from a capture card) and HDD capacity should be the only hw limitation . A $25 s/w can help a VFW based cards to do this, what stops $400 card doing the same thing.
- Support Win2K. Even with the new Beta2, I still can not get P6 to recognize video capture driver. Meanwhile I can not use Miro capture app. to capture 480x480 AVI.
These are only three problems which I'm having now. I'm sure you're aware of more problems that are posted everyday in Pinnacle DC-30 forum.
I well understood that this is a 5 year-old-technology card. I'm not asking for changing h/w, but very much s/w can be done to support users' need fruitfully.
I don't mean to poke the wound over and over again, but paying $400 is definetly not worth for such a card. I feel that I'm so lucky that I did not have to pay for it. For what I want to accomplish, a $100 card (such as 3 year old technology ATI Rage) can do everything Miro can do ...plus and plus other features. Beside it's codec is recognized by a free third party s/w such as virtualdub....let you choose any AVI res. options you want. By no means I applause for ATI products and support. They need to improve big time for their customers' support also. At least their product shows me that there is way for me to move around, to explore. Their s/w is not perfect either, but at least when I run into an dead-end, I can go to the forum, learn experience from other. But for Miro, DC-30 Plus, I can't because I do not have that option.
I don't want to mention about DC-1000/2000. It's out of my reach $1200/1800. About MPEG1/2 encoding, $100 card can give me a MPG1/MPG2 captured file too. It's not on the fly and the card can do the calculation/algorithm whatsoever on the chip or borrowing CPU's power and it does not bother me at all. The bottom line is it gives me results what I expect and can not get from $400 card.
This is the type of s/w support I'd like to see and I'd like to see it's happening in a timely maner. Not having to wait for 2 years for NT4 driver like in the case of Miro-DC30. I hope that you will bring up these issues to the Pinnacle CCB, hopefully they will do something do help out the end users.