Are all downloaded files alike in terms of quality?

[nathanco]

I have a digital video handycam from Canon which uses miniDV tapes. Now, I wanted to download videos taken with this camera into my PC for eventual conversion to DVDs.

I use a firewire connection to download the video, via Pinnacle's Studio DV. The accompanying software allows me to download to the PC as AVI file, lets you edit and all sorts of fancy stuff, then you have a choice of output formats (AVI, MPEG, REAL). So it is a 3-step process: download, edit, conversion. Now, my question is.... when I download the file to the PC, no matter what my settings are, the downloaded file appears to be exactly the same resolution. So my question is, is there a way to improve the quality of this downloaded file? Or is the file as raw as it can get and is downloaded as it is? Is it the best quality I can hope for short of getting another digital camera?

Someone has told me that the raw file downloaded is as clear as it can get. Another person has told me that the StudioDV I am using is just a Firewire card with software from Pinnacle. The capturing is still being done by the chipsets in the AGP card or something. Supposedly, if I use a video capture card, the quality will be better. So who is right?

[Verbatim]

I have a digital video handycam from Canon which uses miniDV tapes. Now, I wanted to download videos taken with this camera into my PC for eventual conversion to DVDs.

I use a firewire connection to download the video, via Pinnacle's Studio DV. The accompanying software allows me to download to the PC as AVI file, lets you edit and all sorts of fancy stuff, then you have a choice of output formats (AVI, MPEG, REAL). So it is a 3-step process: download, edit, conversion. Now, my question is.... when I download the file to the PC, no matter what my settings are, the downloaded file appears to be exactly the same resolution. So my question is, is there a way to improve the quality of this downloaded file? Or is the file as raw as it can get and is downloaded as it is? Is it the best quality I can hope for short of getting another digital camera?

Someone has told me that the raw file downloaded is as clear as it can get. Another person has told me that the StudioDV I am using is just a Firewire card with software from Pinnacle. The capturing is still being done by the chipsets in the AGP card or something. Supposedly, if I use a video capture card, the quality will be better. So who is right?

Well I stop making vcds becoue if the poor grade in the picture but I find
that you want to max you screen size and the less editing the better. That may help.

[resnullius]

1 if you want a better quality image buy a better camera(i know that sux but that's how it is) 2 transfering a file through firewire from a dv cam is the only way to keep the quality of your original footage. capturing through a capture card is simply taking your digital footage making it anologue to be reconverted by your capture card... the less you convert a file the more of the original quality you keep. hope this helps.

[vhelp]

nathanco,

I do a lot of DV miniDV tape transfers to my hd via firewire.
And, after I convert (either vcd or svcd) quality is pretty
good. I got over the color space issue, though still some
minor issues with such. But, as far as your question,
basically the res. is 720x480. Some software will allow you
to set the resolution B4 U transfer to hd.

>> Someone has told me that the raw file downloaded is as
>> clear as it can get. . .
...or as clear as the DV camera is designed to, bla, bla, bla.
For the time being, 720x480 is as good as you'll get on your
pc monitor. It all boils down to HOW you encode your final
clips (vcd or svcd, svcd being the better of course)

If you encode you DV footage, using deinterlacing tech.'s, you
will more than likely have blocks due to the distortion of the
frames intermixing together (in so many words)
Best to encode w/out de-interlacing your DV avi file. You'll
get better quality (for svcd) in the long run.
Oh, and doing an IVTC doesn't really work (at least the methods
I've used so far) There is some studder in scenes from this IVTC
ing stuff that I can catch quite easily.

My DV cam is the Canon ZR-10 model. Yes, it is interlaced!!
...not progressive.

The capturing is NOT doe by your AGP card. Firewire is sending
or feeding the data from the miniDV to your hd!

-vhelp

[nathanco]

First of all, I'd like to thank you all for the enthusiastic response and the wealth of information received from this post.

Now, I have some additional comments / questions which I am sure someone out there (possibly you) can give me additional insights.

> I do a lot of DV miniDV tape transfers to my hd via firewire.
> And, after I convert (either vcd or svcd) quality is pretty
> good.

I've done some conversion myself onto VCD. Quality is not bad, but then, I am very fussy with quality, which is why a VCD is not really good enough for me. I have not tried SVCD but it seems that there are 2 disadvantages which were not that acceptable for me. One is that SVCD is not that compatible with most players, and secondly, the amount of time that can be stored in an SVCD is quite limited to 20-30 minutes I think. Thus, I have already decided to go for DVD and have bought a DVD burner for this purpose.

> Best to encode w/out de-interlacing your DV avi file. You'll
> get better quality (for svcd) in the long run.

I will try this out with the software I use.

> Oh, and doing an IVTC doesn't really work (at least the methods
> I've used so far) There is some studder in scenes from this IVTC
> ing stuff that I can catch quite easily.

Excuse me, but please enlighten my ignorance.... what is IVTC?

> My DV cam is the Canon ZR-10 model. Yes, it is interlaced!!
> ...not progressive.

So, is interlacing better for quality? Or progressive?

> The capturing is NOT doe by your AGP card. Firewire is sending
> or feeding the data from the miniDV to your hd!

> if you want a better quality.... transfering a file through firewire from a dv cam
> is the only way to keep the quality of your original footage.

Thanks. That is a very important piece of information. That means, the only advantages I get from a capture card is that I save some time and that I can basically convert my analog tapes.

I have one last question. My DV cam is PAL format, and so is my Studio DV. However, I would like to have the final DVD in NTSC (PAL flickers when played in set top boxes while NTSC doesn't; plus the fact that I need to make a copy for relatives who live in NTSC-dominated countries). What is the best way to go about this? I am thinking of downloading by Firewire to AVI (via Pinnacle's Studio DV), converting it to MPEG2 (using StudioDV's software), then using TMPGEnc to convert to NTSC. However, this means that the file would have to undergo 2 rounds of conversion, thereby resulting in quality loss (at least theoretically). On the other hand, I can simply take the AVI and use TMPGEnc to convert it directly to NTSC MPEG2. The disadvantage of this second method is that I would not be able to use StudioDV's fancy scene-transition features. Any comments or tips for me?

Thanks again.

[Verbatim]

I've done some conversion myself onto VCD. Quality is not bad, but then, I am very fussy with quality, which is why a VCD is not really good enough for me. I have not tried SVCD but it seems that there are 2 disadvantages which were not that acceptable for me. One is that SVCD is not that compatible with most players, and secondly, the amount of time that can be stored in an SVCD is quite limited to 20-30 minutes I think. Thus, I have already decided to go for DVD and have bought a DVD burner for this purpose.

If do not like the quilaty of VCD use mpeg-2. My DVD player plays mpeg-2. Lucky me? I do not even make cvds any but you shoulds be able to get a lot more time out of it and svcd should be able to do over a hour.

[vhelp]

Evening (late night) nathanco,

you're excused.

>> Excuse me, but please enlighten my ignorance....
>> what is IVTC?

InVerseTeleCine
skiny has it, that it takes a 29fps and in short, brings the frame
rate down to 23fps or something like that. I'm no tech-worder, so
you'll have ta 4give me on the exact phrase - perhaps someeles can
better explain it.

>> So, is interlacing better for quality? Or progressive?
Absolutely!

The process I use during my DV endeavers is a snap.
I just put a blank 60min. miniDV tape in and record from my
satallite or Apex AD-1500. THEN, when I'M ready, I proceed to
transfer (not download) via firewire to my HD. Just for the
record. . . I NEVER de-interlace (not anymore) I've ben doing
all my encodes (be it, through my analog caps, my ATW, or via
my DV cam via firewire)

I prefer to record to miniDV tapes cause I can capture via
firewire OR analog (my ATW card) and always get the same great
quality from the digital side of DV, and IF I don't like how it
came out 1st time around, I can always go back and do another
cap (analog or firewire, whichever I like or happen to want to
test out quality-wise)
If I were to use the passthrough route instead, then it would only
be a one-shot deal!!
I guess you could call what I have, a mini TIVO setup - - works
for me
So far, I have roughly 11 or 12 miniDV tapes. I do plan to get
more though. I ended up getting 3 for $21 at Walmart cause BJ's
was out of stock on their 6 for $29 deal.

I'm still learning and doing the trial and testing things with
my DV cam endeavers.

On another note, I did fine some new info/discovery in my DV
process (basically, i was incorrect about something I mentioned
in a prev. post - somewheres)

-vhelp

[nathanco]

Dear Vhelp,

Thanks for the info and for sharing with me your experience. I am also new to this (but not to video editing, as I've done a lot of editing since the early days of the Betamax and VHS... way back to the late 1970s)....

Allow me to comment further on the discussion.

> The process I use during my DV endeavers is a snap.
> I just put a blank 60min. miniDV tape in and record from my
> satallite or Apex AD-1500. THEN, when I'M ready, I proceed to
> transfer (not download) via firewire to my HD. Just for the
> record. . . I NEVER de-interlace (not anymore) I've ben doing
> all my encodes (be it, through my analog caps, my ATW, or via
> my DV cam via firewire)

It seems you are using the miniDV as a video recorder. Well, mine can't as it does not have input socket. And besides, I have the VHS for that.

> I prefer to record to miniDV tapes cause I can capture via
> firewire OR analog (my ATW card) and always get the same great
> quality from the digital side of DV, and IF I don't like how it
> came out 1st time around, I can always go back and do another
> cap (analog or firewire, whichever I like or happen to want to
> test out quality-wise) If I were to use the passthrough route instead,
> then it would only be a one-shot deal!! I guess you could call what I
> have, a mini TIVO setup - - works for me. So far, I have roughly 11 or
> 12 miniDV tapes. I do plan to get more though. I ended up getting 3 for
> 1 at Walmart cause BJ's was out of stock on their 6 for $29 deal.

What a coincidence. I also have about a dozen miniDV. But then, the tapes are quite expensive in my part of the world. I have to get them in HK (half price from where I am, but still expensive at around US$4 each at the cheapest).

I was thinking about the posts here yesterday and have some thoughts. I think for my case it is actually a matter of what is the best quality of conversion to MPEG2. You see, downloading to AVI from miniDV takes up about 14GB on my hard disk. Very taxing in terms of disc space. What I would like to do is keep something (without not much loss in quality) to convert the AVI to MPEG2 for eventual burning to DVD.

For that, 2 choices. One is transfer the info from mini-DV to AVI via Pinnacle's Studio DV, then output the file to MPEG2 for burning into DVD.

2nd possibility is to have a capture card which directly captures in MPEG2. Shortcoming of this is that I can't edit the MPEG2 and cannot work on the scene transitions that are possible using Studio DV.

But for all the above methods, I would need one extra final step to convert yet one more time from PAL to NTSC. If am afraid there would be loss in quality as I do more conversions, not to mention the long time it takes my PC to do the conversion (takes 2 full days for one hour conversion!).

Anyway, for the stuff you keep on miniDV, I suggest that you transfer the important ones to DVD ROM. miniDV are still tapes. Magnetic tapes. Thin magnetic tapes in fact. So it is susceptible to damage. One rewind is all it takes to screw it up if your camera is not properly maintained. I've just discovered 2 nights ago that the first 2 minutes of one of my tapes was slightly damaged... for no reason at all. There were scratches on the tape, and it shows as shifting big pixels and interruptions in sound. You don't want that to happen. So if you have things that are irreplaceable, DVD is where you want to to keep it. Not magnetic tapes. Those deteriorate over time, not to mention the risks of getting scratched in the most simple daily operations.