how to capture into smaller size file with high quality

[orangeman1]

hello im a noob....can u help me.....i want to capture from my miniDV to my pc and i have been using ulead video capture to do that....the problem is that the captured file was too big and i cant find any setting to make the size smaller....then i use win movie maker and the problem was solved as i can set the size of the file that i want...but the quality is not very good....so the question is 1)is there any ways that i can capture into smaller size file with excellent quality...and 2)is it possible for me to turn my minidv tape into something like the dramas that i often download(nice picture with only 360Mb for 45min)....thank you

[guns1inger]

DV is a constant, at around 13GB per hour of footage transfered. DV transfer is a file/data transfer exercise, not a capture exercise, so most applications simply transfer. If you intend to edit, this is the best option, as DV is designed for editing and does so very well. That said, you have a large HDD, so what's it full of ?

Yes, you probably can get good quality for a small file size, but not a capture time. To achieve that level of quality will require 2-passes with the correct settings, and will be slower than the real-time transfer that DV requires. The material you are referring to would have been encoded with either Divx or Xvid as the codec, not the Windows Media Video codec that WMM uses.

[edDV]

Basic tradeoffs for camcorder material are quality and editing ease vs. time consuming compression with quality tradeoffs.

Are you shooting your own material? If so keep it at high quality until you finish editing.

If these are just TV recordings, you might want to consider a hardware encoding capture device like a Hauppauge PVR (MPeg2) or Plextor ConvertX (MPeg4).

[orangeman1]

if i have transfer my DV into my pc...is there any ways that i can compress the file into smaller size

[mats.hogberg]

if i have transfer my DV into my pc...is there any ways that i can compress the file into smaller size

That's the general procedure - Transfer the DV video to the computer, edit, and as a last step, do the final encoding to your target format. (Keep it in DV format until last step.) For DVD, that'd be mpg2, for Windows computer playback wmv, for "general purpose" computer and (some) standalone playback XviD or DivX...
There are plenty of guides under CONVERT left for DV to ...

/Mats

[edDV]

if i have transfer my DV into my pc...is there any ways that i can compress the file into smaller size

That's the general procedure - Transfer the DV video to the computer, edit, and as a last step, do the final encoding to your target format. (Keep it in DV format until last step.) For DVD, that'd be mpg2, for Windows computer playback wmv, for "general purpose" computer and (some) standalone playback XviD or DivX...
There are plenty of guides under CONVERT left for DV to ...

/Mats

Exactly. The burden is on you to decide what you mean by "quality". If you never intend to edit or filter the material further, you can use higher bitrate levels of extreme MPeg4 techniques (e.g. wmv, XviD, DivX, H.264) and still have it look good on certain types of displays. The cost is encoding time and accepting that the compression is irreversable. You will never be able to get it back to DV quality.

Two good reasons to keep DV material of long term value (e.g. family camcorder tapes) in DV format is for long term conversion to future TV standards. For example DV format can be upconverted for acceptable 1080i HDTV presentation where highly compressed MPeg4 can't. Another reason is to allow full editing and filtering flexibility for future generations. Consider that the children of those babies on the tape will be editing with 2050 and later technology.

If however, you are talking about TV captures that can be easily replaced with a future HD DVD purchase, then there is no reason not to compress until they still look acceptable on your current TV. That is the strategy of those following the wmv, xvid and divx guides.

The cost of such MPeg4 compression is extremely long computation times. Over time, hardware compression hardware will increasingly take the load off the CPU. Realtime hardware MPeg2 encoders are widely available currently.

[vhelp]

..
The cost of such MPeg4 compression is extremely long computation times. Over time, hardware compression hardware will increasingly take the load off the CPU. Realtime hardware MPeg2 encoders are widely available currently.

Pricely !! You have mainly external-type Hardware MPEG devices; like those
in the form of little boxes (ADS, Hauppauge, etc) and also, you have those
DVD Recorder devices (units) that do the same thing. These all give fairly
good -to- better resulting MPEG videos after real-time conversion, quality.

But, there is only one area that needs to be slightely addressed. Quality,
in terms of VBR vs. CBR modes.

With these devices, despite the fact that they are hardware, (though, does
not mean the final destany) they are still limited in terms of how far one
can go with "tweaking" performance out of these (dvd recorder or other)
devices.

And, between these two (dvd recorder or other) you have two basic forms of
encoding methods.. VBR and CBR.

When using VBR, you are basically taking a chance with your MPEG hardware's
ability to reproduce with final quality. VBR is basically a, "fit me on one
disk" methodoligy, with best quality at this mode. The problem with this,
is like this.. if you have TWO hours of video vs. ONE hour of video, and you
select the final destination mode of VBR for *these two* video programs, which
one do you think will result in better quality using vbr ?

The obvious answer, is the ONE hour source !!

calculating bitrate per modes..
It's simple to do without actually doing anything - encoding'wise. Just use
a basic calculator and run the video specs to it and review the AVERAGE of
bitrate reported for each. And, the one with the largest AVERAGE bitrate
will be you winner, in terms of maximum quality for vbr or cbr encodes.

Here are some "CBR" and "VBR" examples:

** CBR - 1 hour - 192k Aud - 9700kbit
** CBR - 2 hour - 192k Aud - 4800kbit
.
** VBR - 1 hour - 192k Aud - 9603kbit
** VBR - 2 hour - 192k Aud - 4886kbit

Note, the above Bitrates for CBR are approx, from a tool I did some work in.
But the VBR are based off of this sites VH Calc tool, because it's aim is towards
2-pass encoding projects.

But as you can see, they are both very close in bitrate reporting.

Here is where you can make the proper determination factors:

When to use VBR..
If your goal is to fit the *complete* source's video to ONE media and with
relitivly good (maximum) quality for this mode, then use VBR. This will
allow all the video (whatever length) to fit on one disk, at the expense
of some quality.. and the longer your video length, the greater will be
the expense of quality.
As such, this would not be the recommended mode for things like, restoration
work or future transfer, etc.

When to use CBR..
But if however, your aim is for maximum quality, restoration, future
transfer, then the proper choice would have to be, CBR. If your source
happens to be TWO hours in length, dont' worry. Just use two disks for
the job. You won't regret it later.

By now, we come to realize that we (I) have strayed from the subject matter
some. I just thought it was important to share some of this info with
respect to the subject because it has some weight to it with respect to
quality vs. size, or whatever the real aim is for this member's inquire

-vhelp 3958

[orangeman1]

lol..thanks guys...i think now i understand the general idea...there is still alot for me to learn b4 i fully understand this thing but then there is no pleasure in doing thing without obstacle :P