DV to avi or other...

[npereira]

Hi all,

I have a JVC DV camcorder that we recorded our trip to DR. I have 5 tapes. I want to record the video to my disk drive then use a software to edit and create chapters in order to finilize and create a DVD movie.

What software should I use (free) to record the DV to my PC using IEEE1394 PCI firewire card I just installed.

Thanks for your help.

[EGrier]

If you have Windows XP you can use Movie maker that comes with XP. Or people have good luck with WinDv (free).

[tmh]

WinDV works fine for transfer via firewire. Others also work fine. DV is about 14GB per hour, so expect to fill up a lot of hard drive with 5 tapes! I'm not sure you can get decent quality with that much footage onto one DVD though.

Many encoders out there to go from DV to DVD compliant mpeg2. Editing in Dv is usually recommended unless it's just simple cuts. more creative stuff worlks better in DV THEN convert to DVD format.

[npereira]

I have Vista Ultimate

I tried recording using Nero Vision, but the files are WAY too big... I mean 500mb for 1 min.... I have aver 300 minutes to record... 5 tapes of 90 minutes

[JohnnyMalaria]

With Vista ultimate, you can capture using WMM, do your editing and the create the DVD. It's all part of the OS.

If needs be you can use Windows DVD Maker, too (part of Vista). It is rather slow but if you are only doing this once or twice, I'm not sure that's an issue.

There are websites for both:

http://www.windowsdvdmaker.com/
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/

Some may poo-poo these but I WMM occasionally when I need to do something cheap and cheerful.

[npereira]

Ok, I used WinDV and it works fine.
What's nice about it is that it creates seperate AVI files for the pictures taken with the DV camcorder.

Now my question is how can I extract the picture from each of theses DV-AVI files to JPG or PNG?

Thanks

[edDV]

Ok, I used WinDV and it works fine.
What's nice about it is that it creates seperate AVI files for the pictures taken with the DV camcorder.

Now my question is how can I extract the picture from each of theses DV-AVI files to JPG or PNG?

Thanks

VLC has a good frame capture. Find it in the "Video" menu. It respects currently set deinterlace mode.

[npereira]

tried this VLC, but isnt there anything better?

[thecoalman]

tried this VLC, but isnt there anything better?

Better as in? Quality?

If it's quality you're looking for forget it. DV is set resolution of 720x480(576 for pal). To put that into perspective its about .35 megapixel image (note the decimal point)

If you're looking for more functionality try virtualdub. You can export entire clip if you want but bear in mid that's 30 pictures for every second. Under the video tab go to framerate, selectdecimate by and use a number like 30. That will make it export every 30'th frame instead.

[npereira]

I'm finished with tape 1, now im doing tape 2, but for some reason, it does not cut into seperate AVI files for the snapshot taken with the camcorder like it did for tape 1... ? I cant see anywhere in settings that you can change this behavior, so im wondering why is WinDV not acting the same as tape 1...?