Something weird going on

[LPHYbrid76]

OK..I have been using a DVC 150 to capture TV Shows for awhile now and have been rendering them all week. I notice that occassionally there is some digital artifacting, or something like it, where the image goes digitized and blurry periodically. These are not present in the original clips, so I am wondering what I should do. I'm using the included Moviestar to render the videos. I tried Pinnacle Studio 8, but for some reason, it won't include the audio and I can't figure out why. I tried a Adobe Premiere, but it keeps crashing on me. I dunno what to do...plz help.

N E one got some freeware that might help? I'm really new to this kind of stuff

[qlizard]

Since you have Moviestar, you must be using the pre-Pinnacle version of the DVC150. Don't bother with Premiere, the Dazzle product is proprietary and won't work with it or really anything else. it is now owned by Pinnacle who have developed drivers to work with Studio 8. You may be working with old drivers which may explain the audio thing. Through effort you can get it working with Studio, although I haven't done it.

Do not use Moviestar! It is horrible. Either upgrade to the new Pinnacle drivers, or use the Dvxcel test utility to capture. it is a rudimentary little program you should have in your Dazzle directory. It gives you greater flexibility for how you capture. You can then dump the resultant .mpg file into whatever program you want for manipulation or authoring. I personally use ulead VS7 which does a nice job with the output. It will include LCPM audio which you'll probably want to convert to MP2 for space reasons.

[LPHYbrid76]

I already upgraded to the Pinnacle drivers, but the majority of the shows I have captured were all done on MovieStar using the Dazzle drivers. So, what do I do with all these captured TV shows I have (over 135 GB worth)?

I will use the Pinnacle Drivers and Studio 8 from now on, but that doesn't help me with the clips I already have saved...do I dump em and try again?

[qlizard]

I think you are out of luck with those captures if they have pixelation in them. They are already mpeg2 and any filtering, etc. would rerender them with loss of quality. Did you capture at full D1? what bitrate? actually, if i remember right, moviestar doesn't have these settings, so its hard to know. there is a chance that you were not capping at a high enough bitrate. also, do you have USB 2.0? if not, and you used the highest bitrate setting you may have been using too high a bitrate for USB 1.1, which I have also heard introduces pixelation.

[LPHYbrid76]

but then why is the individual clips from a show have no pixelization, but then there is pixelization when they are rendered?? I don't get it..

I basically saved myself the editing work and just stopped the recording before the commercials. I also did this to help with audio sync problems..should I just go ahead and redo the shows when they come on with the Pinnacle Studio 8 instead of the Moviestar?

[qlizard]

What do you mean by "rendered"? Typically rendering means the process of converting to mpeg2. The clips are already mpeg2 when you capture them. what program are you using to do this "rendering"? If you are capturing in mpeg2 and processing them further, you may actually be re-rendering them, which would result in loss of quality. Perhaps you should describe your procedure starting with the capture through when you notice this pixelation so I can be sure of what you are doing.

[sacajaweeda]

If the original mpeg captures are good, demultiplex them and convert the audio to MP2 or AC3 and use a better app to author the audio & video with.

[LPHYbrid76]

OK..guess I had better describe the scenario.

Take a one hour show like The West Wing. Instead of capturing the hour and editing out the commercials, I just hit record on MovieStar and when the commercials came up, I just stopped the recording...so what I have is basically 5 separate clips from one show...now, i thought that the render was to combine the individual clips into one...am I wrong? Is that what I screwed up in doing??? Should I just record one hour straight and then go and edit out the commercials??

[bottle-necked]

On those clips you need to set "IN Point" and "Out Point". I would drag them all onto the timeline 'in order of play'. Click on the first clip and rewind it to the beginning. On the left side of the view windows is a small slider, that is "In Point". Adjust that slider to the point in the clip you want to be the beginning. The slider on the right side of the view window is "Out point'. Slide this so it just cuts out the commercial. I think there is an apply button to click when done. Go to the next clip and do the same.

You will notice MovieStar is kinda touchy when trying to set in-out points.

When finished you can render this into one file on the "Produce" tab I believe it's called.

Those blotches? I don't know. . .

Good luck.

[qlizard]

I personally would stay as far away from moviestar as you can. Yes, I think it would be much easier to record the whole show then cut out the commercials. there are several tools that do this quite well and a couple of threads going right now that describe them. I like VS7 a lot, but pinnacle studio will do it fine too. Many people like womble mpeg2vcr the best. for freeware, mpeg2cut works but is a little quirky. If you are authoring to DVD, you could even use TMPGenc Dvdauthor (excellent and easy DVD authoring program) and cut out the commercials there.
Regarding your current clips, upon learning your procedure, they may be fine. If you've viewed them and they look good, you should be able to use them. They may have been reencoded when you combined them causing pixelation. i only used moviestar enough to determine it was no good so I can't tell you for sure. I would use another program such as VS or pinnacle to reassemble them and create the combined file. As long as they are all the same resolution and bitrate, and you don't change the output settings, it shouldn't reencode and the quality should remain intact (called "smartrendering" in VS, not sure what its called in pinnacle).

[LPHYbrid76]

I think you are out of luck with those captures if they have pixelation in them. They are already mpeg2 and any filtering, etc. would rerender them with loss of quality. Did you capture at full D1? what bitrate? actually, if i remember right, moviestar doesn't have these settings, so its hard to know. there is a chance that you were not capping at a high enough bitrate. also, do you have USB 2.0? if not, and you used the highest bitrate setting you may have been using too high a bitrate for USB 1.1, which I have also heard introduces pixelation.

I used USB 2.0....although sometimes it tells me that I plugged it into a Non-High Speed USB port when I know it is...But the clips I have are fine. As far as captured at full D1, I dunno what that means. Moviestar doesn't give bitrate, so I couldn't tell you. I tried Pinnacle, but I still have trouble with the audio...it just seems to be leaving it out for some reason..I posted the problem on the Pinnacle boards, but no response yet...maybe I should just burn some of the individual clips to CDs, send em to you and let you play with them. I am still so new to this. I'll try a few more times before I give up for a month or so.

[bottle-necked]

I dont' think I'd give up, I would uninstall MovieStar and download Ulead VideoStudio V7 like qlizard recommended. It's a far better program.

Give MovieStar to somebody you don't like.
Good luck.