Dv to DVD questions

[Samadams30]

Hi,

I finally convinced my wife that we needed a Dvd burner after piling up 23 DV tapes and always watching them through the video camera on our TV. My boss is letting me try a copy of Pinnacle Studio 9. Also a copy of Adobe Premier, 6.0 I beileve. I have now created 2 Dvds of home movies shot on our digital video camera. Both were very "grainy" when watched on our wide screen TV. Then I remembered this site from when I bought a CD burner a while back. After searching for answers here for about a week I believe I am more confused than when I started, mostly about software.

1. Capture=data transfer. I get that part. So is Studio alright for capture? Or is there something better? I would like to know that I have the best settings.

2. For editing I like Studios setup although I hate the way they tease you with all the stuff you could pay extra to unlock.

3. Now these are my real questions. After editing the video I hit the create disc and magically a disc comes out of my computer with a movie on it. Is this the best way to go? I have read about codecs and who thinks what is the best. Do I just let studio do this or should I save it back to an Avi and then use other software to create the Mpg? What programs and codecs should I use?

4. If I don't use Studio to "Create Disc" my dvd burner came with Nero Express is this acceptable? I have yet to install this program so I am not familiar with it. Also when do I create menus? In Studio or the burning software?

5. Finally we have a wide screen television could this be causing the "grainy" effect and where does 16x9 come into play?

Thanks in advance for any help, I know these are alot of questions - Mike

[redwudz]

First and most important....How are you transferring? I would assume Firewire if your camera has that output. That is the best method. If you use Firewire, then WinDV is popular for a simple transfer to the computer.

The method I use is WindDV (Type 2 DV)>VirtualDubMod, (With the Panasonic DV Codec installed) then edit and filter as needed>Frameserve to TMPGEnc encoder>author with TMPGEnc DVD Author and burn.

If you are using Pinnacle and Firewire, sure, if it works for you. If you are using USB, don't unless you have no other choice.

You should be able to transfer an exact copy of your DV video to the computer. What you do from there would then effect the quality.

And since this is DV related, moving you to the DV forum.

[ktnwin]

Using Pinnacle Studio 9 to capture DV video, edit then convert to DVD should give you a decent quality DVD disc.
Here are a few things to watch for:
1) video length should be less than 70mins (more than that will affect video quality)
2) before make DISC, check the setting to make sure you select
DVD format, autofit, etc....
Whether you let PS9 burn the disc for you or let it generating a VIDEO_TS folder that you can burn with Nero does not really matter. I use PS8 to create DVD and I am happy with my disc (played on HDTV 65").
3) the ogirinal video should not include dark scenes. In digital video, dark scenes (or lack of lighting) causes grainy pictures. There is not much we can do about this. Just make sure you have plenty of lighting when shooting video. PS9 has some filtering features that can help but nothing beat good lighting.
Hope this helps.

The other method which is much simpler is to get a stand alone DVD recorder. The time to converts video tapes to DVD is significantly reduced.

[bits]

ktnwin wrote:

Using Pinnacle Studio 9 to capture DV video, edit then convert to DVD should give you a decent quality DVD disc.

I would recommend against capturing DV, do as Redwudz suggested, transfer the DV to your HDD using WinDV. Do not encode it on the fly, which is what capturing will do. Transfer (copy) your DV to your HDD and then drop it into your software of choice, edit it and THEN encode it to mpeg. Seems more complicated but it really is not and in the long run you will get a better result and less headaches.

[Samadams30]

So once I edit and create menus and titles and all that should I use Studio to encode or save it as an AVI and use other software to encode and burn. The bitrate available through studio is 7500 and after looking through this site I have seen people mention bitrates as high as 9800. I have a dual layer burner so I'm not to worried about space on the disc. The settings in Studio are very limited. Thanks for all your help, I'm slowly starting to get this. - Mike

[bits]

I have used Pinnacle Studio 8 and I personally do not like the their mpeg encoder. Pinnacle may have changed or improved their mpeg encoder in PS9.

My typical work flow; WinDV (type 2) to transfer DV to HDD --> Make chapters using Ulead Video Studio 8 or MotionDV, leave as DV Avi (Panasonic DV codec) --> vDTS to customize visual timestamps --> encode each chapter using CCE Basic --> create menus and author using TMPGenc DVD Author --> burn using DVD Decrypter. If want to lighten or darken a video clip I use Virtualdub and I do it as DV avi.

I am not sure how good the PS9 DV avi codec is but you could output as DV avi and then encode to compliant mpeg using CCE or Procoder or Mainconcept or TMPGenc. I personally like CCE Basic because you get great results and it is fast.

Another personal preference is that I use a high enough bitrate to justify using CBR (8Mb/s or so)

Keep your miniDV tapes and do not reuse them. Make duplicates of each DVD you burn. Use quality media and good burning software. Do not put sticky labels on your DVDs either.

You should at least try the mpeg encoder in PS9 to see if it is to your liking. Be sure to test view using the TV you intend to watch your creations on. Viewing them on your computer can be quite mis-leading. DVD RW discs are great for this purpose.