Newbie with capture quality issue

[Flight13]

I have a Sony Digi8 camcorder connected to my WinXP via Firewire. I have tried 3 different programs(Nero Vision Express, Windows Movie Maker and PowerProducer) to capture the feed(all set at highest quality setting) but get the same quality with each. While simply playing the feed to my computer the image looks great. As soon as I capture it the quality drops significantly(like 4th generation vhs). Best way to describe it is that it becomes grainy. I have no other programs running at the time. I even went through the whole process and finished a DVD thinking maybe it was just a low quality preview version it was showing me but the DVD looks the same. I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out here. I would really like to get these tapes to DVD with no quality loss. Thank you in advance!
BTW..(1.6ghz, 384mb)

[lordsmurf]

Back up, tell us all the steps and settings, one at a time. Sounds like your bitrate was too low.

[jimmalenko]

This "grainy" look ... is it only when you play the DVD on your computer, or does it happen when you play it on a settop DVD Player also ?

[sacajaweeda]

Interlaced scan lines maybe?

[Flight13]

Back up, tell us all the steps and settings, one at a time. Sounds like your bitrate was too low.

MovieMaker- Video Setting= DV-AVI(bit rate 25.0mbs, display size 720x480, frames per second 30, video format NTSC), Capture Parts of the Tape Manually, Show Preview During Capture is NOT selected.

PowerProducer2- Produce Movie Disc, DVD (NTSC, Highest Quality 8.0mbs), Capture DV Camcorder, Record, Automatically Transcodes.

Nero Vision Express- Capture Video, Record, Stop. Can't find any settings options.

This "grainy" look ... is it only when you play the DVD on your computer, or does it happen when you play it on a settop DVD Player also ?

It is when I play it on my computer as a file and also as a DVD on both my computer and Xbox.

Interlaced scan lines maybe?

I have no idea what that is...sorry, too new.

[Flight13]

I have now tried WinDV and Sony's Vegas Movie Studio trial. The quality of the capture is a bit better with these programs but still not identical to the original. What can I do to capture an exact copy of the original with no loss of quality?

[meridklt]

Hello Flight 13,

Appears we may have the same problem https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248522

Perhaps you could keep me posted if you manage to resolve the issue and I will do likewise. If you read my post I was of the opinion it may be my Firewire Card, which one do you have ?

Regards,

Keith

[Flight13]

Keith...
I too considered purchasing a new firewire card, but because the feed looks good in preview, I assume the card is functioning properly. It's only when it is beeing captured/recorded that I experience a loss in quality. I don't recall which card I have but I bought it cheap on Ebay. I've read though that as long as it is compliant, you shouldn't see a difference in capture quality. I seem to be getting the best capture with Sony's Vegas software demo...but it's still not an exact copy of the original. There is still a variance in color and a slight bit of bluriness. Although this capture is very good, it is not excellent.

[meridklt]

Flight13,

I too considered purchasing a new firewire card, but because the feed looks good in preview, I assume the card is functioning properly.

Not sure what you mean by preview, do you mean the very small screen some software has like Premier, cos that's so small for me it's difficult to see the final result until after saving the file.

Regards,

Keith

[Flight13]

Yeah the preview window is rather small but I can see the difference. Playing the captured video in the same small window is enough to see the difference. In trying out Microsoft Movie Maker, I noticed that after I capture the video I can play it and it looks good (from what I can tell) but not perfect, but as soon as you move it to the storyboard it loses more quality. You can view them in full screen at that point. I don't even care about editing these things, I just want exact copies and it's driving me crazy!

[meridklt]

Well I did go back and study them in that small preview window, and I can see mine are poor quality in there.