Copying DVD Using DV Camcorder & Firewire Card

[VcdBurner]

By connecting the DVD player to DV Camcorder and downloading the movie from camcorder to PC via a FIREWIRE card we can copy to MPEG format. Then using NERO we can burn to a vcd/svcd. What is wrong with
this theory? Instead of going thru somany ripping tools.

Any loss on the quality of the picture. I am totally new to this ripping business. Pardon if it is foolish idea. :wink:

[resnullius]

well i think it's not necesseraly a bad idea you ill lose some quality but it should be minimal. alot of dv cams do have a macrovision block to stop ppl from doing that though

[kmiura182]

First of all, not everyone has a DV Camcorder. It's cheaper to spend $60 on a DVD-Rom drive than $800+ on a camcorder.

Quality wise, getting the movie onto a DV camcorder from a stand-alone DVD player vs ripping the DVD in a DVD-ROM drive in a computer is not the same. With the method you suggest, you are actually turing digital data (DVD) into analog (S-Video, component connection, etc), then back to digital (DV camcorder). Then the data is finally captured into the PC (or Mac).

By ripping the DVD, however, everything stays digital. You are extracting the files found on the DVD itself, then converting the audio and video into the accepted VCD or SVCD format. Less data is lost in the transition.

Think of it like making an mp3. One way you could do it is connecting your CD player to the "line in" on your soundcard, record the song as a WAV file, then convert this into an mp3. You are converting digital data from the CD into an analog sound, then back into a digital wav file. A more percise and direct way of making an mp3 is ripping the CD in your CD-rom drive and then converting the wav file into an mp3. Less, if any, data is lost getting the data onto the computer.

I may be completely off on this, but I think this is how it works

[EricB]

kmiura182,

You are right on. I have a digital camcorder but #1, it has macrovision detection, and #2, it would generate a huge file for a 90 minute movie that would be lower quality than the original digital files on the DVD.

Definitely rip the DVD.

[vhelp]

vcdburner,

depending on your DVD player, you may or may not be able to output it to
your DV cam (if you have one, i'm assuming you do, cause of the question)
I believe that ALL DV cam's come equipt with MACROvision circuitry
and will SHUT down your DV cam, as mine does if you try to capture your
DVD with your DV cam. I said mine does. But, i was able to cercumvent
my DVD player from this MACROvision and I am now able to capture DVD to
my DV cam. But, it's pretty much useless for this purpose, when you can
just rip YOUR dvd and encode it with great/excellent quality.

My goal was to capture DVD quality movies from my dvd to my DV cam cause
I was testing a theory with respect to my "color space" issue that has
ben plaiging many (or ALL) us DV cam goers! I was trying to see if it
was my miniDV recorded tapes that were producing the bad colors, but after
running several DVD movie capture to DV cam tests, I came up empty. The
DVD movie came out the same as my satalete captures, ...Bad!!

As to the quality you will get with the DV cam captured from DVD??
It's definately NOT as good as a dvd rip. Colors are way off. But, for
a newbie, you wont notice it. At least till yoiu stat seeing other peoples
work (their enocode) and wish you could get your's in the same quality.
Then, will you realise that your DV cam is not what it's all cracked up
to be - speaking of the DVD to DV cam capture route.
Even so, for something like this, your best bet or approach would be to
tape it to miniDV tapes, and THEN encode in pieces. Cause of the 4gig
limit, unless you have win 2000 or greater. But, still, I'd go the miniDV
tapeing route cause you can stop anytime, clear your harddrive and start
another more important project, and later you can try your prev. project
again from your miniDV taped movie. This seems to work for me.

Quality, again...
DV cams, DO give good quality, but the "color space" is a problem for most
people here. I may post a side-by-side pic of a DVD cam captured scene
here for people to see what I'm talking about (should time allow)

Ok, I feel I should share this one exception (experience)
I did a cap again, of "dogma" and encoded the badly "color spaced" clip
and after hours of Fning around with the color filters (Virtualdub
and TMPG) I was actually able to match the encoded VCD with the DVD.
I used BOTH my AD-1500 players for this side-by-side test. It does work,
but it's a HELL of a task. I should also point out that my encoding time
doubled and/or tripled due to the filtering of colors. Not worth it. AND, every capture project is different.
Not all the capture/encode test worked the same for each clip. I found myself
re-doing the "color space" filtering for different DVDs, AND, in some cases,
on the same DVD, I had to adjust the colors for different scenes. It was
a head-acke!! It's SO NOT worth it!! Is this what you wanna do? and with
every capture to DV cam? You're nuts is you do!! And, I'm not gonna even
share my filtering values, only to spare you the agony!!

So far, all my searches on DV color this and that has come up empty. For the
life of me, I don't know why they created such a codec for DV. I just don't
know why. Since color is so bad. All it takes in seeing what I'm talking
about is this, look at your TV, and look at your DV avi file (powerDVD or
winDVD 3.0) and watch both of them. You'll see the difference! Its bad.

Ok, I gave more info than needed, so i'll stop here.
-vhelp