8mm Tapes: Transfer via firewire or capture via AIW

[dukepac]

The guides and advice on this forum are terrific. It is much appreciated. I am definitely a newbie and would greatly appreciate some advice on how to get the best results when transfering my old 8mm video to DVD. This is for friends and family, not professional. I will not be "editing" the material, just cutting and splicing.

My hardware:
ATI AIW 9000
Sony Digital 8 TVR460 camcorder


My software:
Pinnacle Studio 9
ATI MMC 9.0
Nero 6 Ultra
Sony Vegas 5/DVD Architect 2.0.
Ulead Mediastudio Pro

Questions/advice on how to achieve the best quality DVDs

1. Transfer via the camcorder firewire or capture with the ATI AIW?
2. If with the firewire, save as DV or MPG-2?
3. If with AIW, AVI or MPG-2?

Thanks for your assistance.

[Capmaster]

Try both ways. Transferring through the camcorder will yield a DV file, probably with the "AVI" extension. This file still needs to be "encoded" and "authored" to DVD, which is MPEG2 format. This requires a lot of time, but the results are usually very good when you use 2-pass VBR encoding.

The other way is faster, and yields a file format which is MPEG2 and has the extension "MPG". This file needs no encoding, provided you capture into a DVD-compliant file (see guides to the upper left). But ..being real-time it is by definition a 1-pass process and some quality is sacrificed.

The only way to know what is right for you is to try a sample video using both options, and burn to a DVD. Then view it on your set-top player and see if the hardware version is adequate, or if you want the software encoding route. Pick material with plenty of action.

Use a high enough bitrate for your hardware capture to make it a fair test. Pick VBR, 720x480 or 704x480,and a video bitrate of, say ...5000 Kbps average, 9800 Kbps peak. Use those same bitrate values for encoding the AVI file to MPEG2

[wwjd]

My recommendation is to go with the firewire and simply transfer the DV
data to your hard drive. This will be an .avi file should be around 12GB per hour of video. However you should run a few tests between AIW and the DV cam pass through.

The reason I would go the DV cam route is that the anolog to digital conversion will be done external to your computer, which takes all of the load of your cpu. The reason I recommend .avi is that it is easier and less problematic to work with when editing. The data is compressed but not nearly as much as mpeg, hence when mpeg files are edited it sometimes results in video/audio sync problems.

When you transfer the DV data from your cam be sure you are NOT re-encoding it before it is put in the hard drive. The setting should be DV. A bullet proof way to do this transfer is use a freeware application called WinDV.

If you use your AIW to do the capture I would try capture it as an .avi.

wwjd

[Capmaster]

The reason I would go the DV cam route is that the anolog to digital conversion will be done external to your computer, which takes all of the load of your cpu.

What? You're confused.

Hardware capturing to a hardware capture card doesn't use the CPU to encode ...it's done in hardware on the card. That's the attraction of going that route as opposed to software encoding a DV file.

Encoding to MPEG2 from a DV file, on the other hand, requires hours and hours and hours of constant CPU time.

[wwjd]

Capmaster,

I have an AIW 7500, which I know does not have an on board chip set for encoding. When I look at the specs for the AIW9000 it is not clear to me that it has an on board chip set that does the encoding. If it does then you are correct, it should not put any load on the cpu but if it does not then it will.

wwjd

[vhelp]

I would try as Capmaster suggested.

But, the only thing I would worry about is the Noise in your captured video
from your Analog card ( your ATI AIW 9000 )
Speaking from experience, and IMO, I have yet to see a capture card that
can capture video from *any* source and output ZERO noise in the final AVI
file. I've been wrestling this for years. But most people use Analog
capture cards anyways, and incorporate Filtering steps in their process.
You might benefit from this yourself (depending on your choice) and should
you opt for the ATI AIW 9000 route, then your might benefit to some
degree, another users suggestion for DV projects, from Fulcilives that
was posted several times on this FORUM. Maybe Capmaster recalls the link

Going the DV route is a good alternative.., one because you eliminate any
Noise that might get cought during the Analog capture (w/ the AIW card) and
two, because you will not have any audio sync issues to deal with (which is
sometimes common w/ ATI cards (and others, in the Analog catagory))
.
Your DV will look sort of on the Bright side, but don't let that push you
into thinking its bad. It's not. But, you be the judge on that.
.
Your Analog will be on the Dark side (pending which CODEC you used
during your capturing, if you used any) else Darker even, if you
RGB'ed your captures. But again, don't let that fool you. Continue working
with the video (processing/encoding it)

Some notes on a few test runs I made this week ...

On another note, I did a few test runs w/ my 8mm cam this past week, and
with my ADVC-100 device, and what I saw was (IMO) nice grainy look to the
final capture (the scenes were low-light, hence the grainy'ness)
Having a good grainy effect to your video is actually a good thing. (I'm
not talking Noise) I'm talking about the low-light grain. This is
what people try their ut-most to filter out. And all they are doing
is distroying their "original" footage. It's always best not to filter
your DV CAM sources.. because these are footage from the lens, not some
thing that was already encoded from someone elses work and that might have
some noise in it (or noise that you or others feel is their)

The best thing you can do is run a bunch of test runs w/ both devices.
See which one *you* see as good video to work with. Never mind what we
think it will look, because we did not see your source
.
But, don't just stop at the capture stage. Go straight through to the end.
That's the the MPEG-2 encode. There is where you will decide which is
the best output quality.
.
So.., DO FIRST. Then decide

Good luck,
-vhelp

[dukepac]

Thanks for your kind advice. I'll test both/all combinations and see which looks best....