Working on a project... could use some help!

[blazin3]

I'm working on a video for my son who is getting ready to graduate high school. I have all his birthday videos, about half of which were taken on my old Sony HC40 using MiniDV tapes. I'd like to get them onto my computer so I can incorporate them into the video I'm making for him. I've tried using a Dazzle with Pinnacle Studio for Dazzle and also VirtualDub to capture the video. Both of which work but work poorly. The video is quite choppy, and the sound is off for many seconds. I have standard A/V cables running from my camcorder to the Dazzle and then the Dazzle goes into my computer's USB port. Is there any way to use this setup to get decent-quality video capture? I have a Firewire cable, but my computer doesn't have a Firewire card. Might there be some sort of fancy cable that I should look to buy that would work better than the Dazzle? Or, might there some sort of Firewire card that can plug into a USB port? I pretty much only have USB ports on my computer. Many thanks in advance for any suggestions or help!

[Alwyn]

might there some sort of Firewire card that can plug into a USB port?

Nope, sorry you're out of luck. That said, there is a “Thunderbolt” cabling solution that will go from your camcorder via a couple of cables and then into a Thunderbolt port on your PC, which is a type of USB-C port. Check YT for ideas.

Ideally, you would do a Firewire transfer. Are you geeky enough to fit a Firewire card into your PC?

If so, do a search here for Firewire cards. Win 10 and above is a bit finnicky; I just fitted a Startech 2 port PCIE card and it only works sometimes. It's got a Texas Instruments chipset which has been recommended here but I have since found this, which suggests a VIA chipset for Win 10:

Note: You may have people tell you that you need a Firewire Card or IEEE 1394 card with a TI chipset. That is not true anymore. I have tested over a dozen Firewire cards and the cards with the VIA chipset, like shown below actually worked better than the cards with the TI chipset. The TI chipset are found on the more expensive cards, but they don't seem to work very well in Windows 10.

If none of that is an option, you'll need to stick with an analogue workflow.

Is the video playing properly in the camcorder's viewfinder?

The issue is finding the link in the workflow that causing the poor quality.

First, instead of the yellow composite cable, use an S-Video cable for the video from your camcorder into the Dazzle, or any other analogue USB digitiser.

Can you do a short capture and post it here as an attachment (VideoHelp will accept to a 500mb file). We can then have a look; it might reveal some clues about the problem.

Ideally, it should be in an AVI format; what format are your captured videos coming out in? Use Mediainfo to analyse your files; open your file in Mediainfo, then go View>Text, copy all of the report then paste it here.

If you have audio sync issues, try capturing with AmarecTV. Guide and notes here:

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/12986-amarectv-virtualdub-inserts.html#post86872

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/video-capture/12740-current-capture-device-3.html#post84654

Make sure you’re capturing at 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). You’ll need to set up a lossless capture codec if you haven’t already done so: Lagarith is the easiest. Just run the EXE installer and then you’ll be able to select it as a codec for the capture. Hopefully, Pinnacle Studio will be able to read the Lagarith files.

If that doesn’t yield an improvement to a satisfactory level, then you might have to look at a different digitiser or workflow (desperation: DVD recorder then import the DVD to your computer for editing).
When’s this due by? I’m thinking delivery times for different bits.

[blazin3]

That said, there is a “Thunderbolt” cabling solution that will go from your camcorder via a couple of cables and then into a Thunderbolt port on your PC, which is a type of USB-C port.

Consider me not techy. Would a Thunderbolt cabling solution work with my computer? I have a Dell Optiplex 7450 AIO. Here are the ports on it: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000131650/optiplex-7450-aio-visual-guide-to-y...more%20rows%20.

Ideally, you would do a Firewire transfer. Are you geeky enough to fit a Firewire card into your PC? If so, do a search here for Firewire cards. Win 10 and above is a bit finnicky

Possibly, but would it even fit into mine 7450 AIO? I'm running Windows 10, by the way.

Is the video playing properly in the camcorder's viewfinder?

Yep, plays just fine in thew viewfinder.

First, instead of the yellow composite cable, use an S-Video cable for the video from your camcorder into the Dazzle, or any other analogue USB digitiser.

My cable has both the composite ends and an S-Video end. I had this same issue 2 years ago for my other son, and never got things figured out. I am almost certain I tried my current method with the S-Video end back then with no better results, but I'll give it a try here today.

Can you do a short capture and post it here as an attachment (VideoHelp will accept to a 500mb file). We can then have a look; it might reveal some clues about the problem.

I sure can. I'll get one posted today.

Ideally, it should be in an AVI format; what format are your captured videos coming out in? Use Mediainfo to analyse your files; open your file in Mediainfo, then go View>Text, copy all of the report then paste it here.

I'm looking at ones I've gotten before, and I'm seeing various - not sure why. I see mostly .mp4 though.

Use Mediainfo to analyse your files; open your file in Mediainfo, then go View>Text, copy all of the report then paste it here.

I'll do that today.

Make sure you’re capturing at 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). You’ll need to set up a lossless capture codec if you haven’t already done so: Lagarith is the easiest. Just run the EXE installer and then you’ll be able to select it as a codec for the capture. Hopefully, Pinnacle Studio will be able to read the Lagarith files.

Sounds difficult, especially the Lagarith piece. Might need to dig into this one later.

If that doesn’t yield an improvement to a satisfactory level, then you might have to look at a different digitiser or workflow (desperation: DVD recorder then import the DVD to your computer for editing).
When’s this due by? I’m thinking delivery times for different bits.

The grad party is July 1st. Would the DVD recorder method produce good results? At first glance, they look kinda expensive.

Thank you so much for all this info! Let me get to cracking on all the follow-ups I need to do.

[Cornucopia]

If you are working with an AIO (all in one) you are out of luck, as those do not have room for expansion cards. They are barely workable when it comes to ram and ssd upgrades.

Try other avenues (buy desktop unit w features existing, or room for cards)...


Scott

[blazin3]

Attached is a quick sample clip I just captured using VirtualDub. VirtualDub seems to work better than the Pinnacle for Dazzle. Certainly less overhead. I tried using the S-Video, but it didn't work, it just captured a blue screen. So, I went back to the composite. This time it actually did a little better - it seems to only be off a second or so now whereas it used to be off 2-4 seconds. At any rate, I'd appreciate any suggestions you may have. Here is the data from the status bar of VirtualDub after capturing this video:

554 frames (0 dropped), 18.530s, 0ms jitter, 0ms disp, 613314 frame size, 338166K total : 1.0001702

And here is the MediaInfo info:

General
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Format settings : BitmapInfoHeader / WaveFormatEx
File size : 337 MiB
Duration : 18 s 852 ms
Overall bit rate : 150 Mb/s
Frame rate : 29.970 FPS

Video
ID : 0
Format : YUV
Codec ID : YUY2
Codec ID/Info : YUV 4:2:2 as for UYVY but with different component ordering within the u_int32 macropixel
Duration : 18 s 852 ms
Bit rate : 147 Mb/s
Width : 640 pixels
Height : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2
Compression mode : Lossless
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 16.000
Stream size : 331 MiB (98%)

Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings : Little / Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 16 s 915 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 3 072 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 96.0 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 6.19 MiB (2%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 46 ms (1.38 video frame)

[pandy]

IMHO Cornucopia advise is best - just go for old notebook or desktop with embedded firewire - they should be cheap or even for free - i still have my IBM T400 and W500 both are equipped with firewire - to capture DV natively this is probably best option - based on the https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Firewire_Port seem one of latest Thinkpads equipped with FW port is T530 - IMHO you can buy it for 100$ or less in working condition on ebay.
But there is many similar machines so not necessarily it must be IBM/Lenovo.

[Alwyn]

I tried using the S-Video, but it didn't work, it just captured a blue screen.

While we're thinking of other options, try again with the S-Video; you have to select S-video input in Virtual Dub. When you're in Capture mode, on the Video menu>Video Source>set to S-Video.

Lagarith is a compressed but lossless codec so your captured files with VDub won't be as big (your current codec is "uncompressed", resulting in huge files). Just run the EXE to install it and then select it in Video: Compression (once again, when in Capture mode). You might have to restart VDub to pick it up.

All that said, you should be able to quite a bit better, quality-wise, with a MiniDV/Firewire capture workflow.

[blazin3]

Update: I got it to work using S-Video. Thanks, Alwyn! I downloaded and installed Lagarith. The video file produced is much smaller, but it seems to cause issues with playback. The resulting .avi file opens in Media Player, but only the audio plays. I get a message that says "We can't play the video. It's encoded in LAGS format which isn't supported. You can still listen to the audio". Did I do something wrong?

[Alwyn]

The resulting .avi file opens in Media Player, but only the audio plays. I get a message that says "We can't play the video.

Microsoft fail. I haven't used Media Player for ages; I don't like the interface and as you say, it doesn't play all codecs. Given the LAGS codec is installed on your machine, it should do.

I use VLC Player for all my playing.

And remember, the LAGS file is only your capture master; you'll encode a copy to MP4 for general viewing and distribution, and Media Player will be able to play that (I hope!).