Difference DV capture?

[Abas-Avara]

Hi, I would like to know if there is any difference in terms of quality between the capture programs?
I use Movie Maker to capture Digital8 tapes (cause it automatically rewinds and stops).
But now I want to use trough camcorder passtrough, I've done it earlier but Im not sure if there is a quality difference.
WinDV worked good but Movie Maker creates larger files.

In the last topic of my (audio sync) poisondeathray said Why don't you just capture from your camcorder with windv or vegas?

I want to know why is everyone using Adobe Premiere, WinDV or Vegas for capturing.

[JohnnyMalaria]

There'll be no difference - DV via FireWire is DV irrespective of the source.

The reason you may be seeing larger files with WMM is that you are converting them to WMV or some other format. With WMM you should just use its capture function. If you save the video afterwards, WMM will default to WMV format.

People like to use WinDV because it is very simple and does the job. With Vegas and Premiere, it makes sense to use the provided capture functions because they are designed to integrate with the main editing application.

However, it makes no difference *at all* to the content of the captured files whichever tool you use. They all use exactly the same Windows functions to do the job. Claims otherwise are nonsense.

One thing to be aware of is that there are two slightly different AVI formats used for DV - Type 1 and Type 2. The latter is for backwards compatibility with software that doesn't use the up-to-date multimedia framework within Windows (DirectShow). The quality is the same. You should always use the Type 1 unless you have a good reason not to. Things like audio sync have nothing to do with the capture but everything to do with badly written software that uses them (Premiere springs to mind).

So just go ahead and capturing through your camcorder in the manner you have used for your tapes.

[edDV]

As said, DV capture-transfer is a data stream to a DV_AVI file. Some DV capture programs, like WMM can also encode on the fly to some other format or convert during the save operation. For WMM make sure you "save as" DV-AVI or it will convert to WMV. That said, I'd still recommend WinDV because it is simple and fool proof. Perfect for pass-through capture.

Other programs have automation or batch capture features that are usefull for classic movie production work flows. Scenealyzer offers optical scene change separation (picture analysis) that is useful for TV or other pass through captures. Other programs separate scenes at time code discontinuity points. None of these features affect picture quality.

[Abas-Avara]

Thanks for the replies, now Im sure of it

[kimco52]

I use the capture routine in Premiere because that is what I use for editing. I don't care about rewinding the tape and in fact I prefer it not to. I use my camcorder for recording and playback. I use an external rewinder to rewind all my tapes. Saves wear on the camcorder heads.

I have been using Premiere since about 1994 and have not had any sync problems. I started with Premiere 4.2 and am up to CS3.

[vhelp]

What might lead to a difference (in output viewing) is the editor and decoder used during viewing. There are some difference in the display during capturing when using different capture softare, depending on using overlay or directshow, etc. Also also may depend on how you have your dv codec setup for viewing during capturing and later during editing..ie, if you have panasonic vs. the popular cedocida vs. a suite that contains its own or built-in, I think premier has a propriatory one. These are examples of possible difference in output quality, but input, as others have stated is the same..its just a transfer of data.

-vhelp 5206

[edDV]

What might lead to a difference (in output viewing) is the editor and decoder used during viewing. There are some difference in the display during capturing when using different capture softare, depending on using overlay or directshow, etc. Also also may depend on how you have your dv codec setup for viewing during capturing and later during editing..ie, if you have panasonic vs. the popular cedocida vs. a suite that contains its own or built-in, I think premier has a propriatory one. These are examples of possible difference in output quality, but input, as others have stated is the same..its just a transfer of data.

-vhelp 5206

When using a DV capture program such as WinDV, there is no codec in the path at all. The data goes straight to a DV-AVI file. A DV codec is only used for monitoring and this is usually done at low resolution to keep CPU load down.

When using a program like Vrtualdub, a DV codec is in the path because you are decoding the DV stream to uncompressed RGB or YCbCr.