How to capture DV Cam using a firewire/DV/iLink card?

[poshanchang]

I read thru the
"How to capture DV Cam using a firewire/DV/iLink card." section at
http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture

Can someone please post detail information about
"How to "Capture" with a firewire/DV card using ScenAlyzer" ??

This link on http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture does not provide any instruction. Just provide a link to
http://scenalyzer.com/main.html

I downloaded and installed the software, but I do not know how to use it to capture through firewire (1394). I do not see a configuration for input source in scenalyzer yet.

Thanks a lot.

[web-keeper]

Once you have your Firewire card setup in your computer, start it up and confirm that you OS can see it.
(ie: in win95/98/ME/W2k check device manager, you should see it as a device).

1. Plug your camcorder into the Firewire cable, and turn it on.....

2. Launch the program you want to use (ie. Premiere, Video Studio, etc), it should automaticly detect you have a DV device connected and give you the option of using it.

3. Select the DV device and start capuring.

Note: Above all make sure the capture software you use is DV (1394) compliant, if not, find capture software that is.
FYI: I dont think you can capture DV with VDub..?

I hope this helps.

[Umen Pich]

I read thru the
"How to capture DV Cam using a firewire/DV/iLink card." section at
http://www.vcdhelp.com/capture

Can someone please post detail information about
"How to "Capture" with a firewire/DV card using ScenAlyzer" ??

Download the Ulead video studio - the trial version works 30 days. It is very good for DV capturing. Even if you use windows 98- it will split the captured files for you on 4Gb segments (about 18 minutes of noncompressed video) without stopping the capture.
In the same situation the stupid programs will just stop and pop-up a message "can not write to file" or something. This is because windows 98- cannot support files larger than 4Gb. With 2000/XP it is not a problem at all. But anyway, that prog. is good.

[poshanchang]

Thanks a lot. It works for me, but the quality is still not as satisfied.

Can VirtualDub do capture, too? That's a question to me, too.
I saw that there is a Capture AVI in the File selection, but I just never know how it can work for me. I always got error message.

Can VirtualDub capture DV thru. 1394?

Thanks a lot.

Po-Shan.

[Umen Pich]

Thanks a lot. It works for me, but the quality is still not as satisfied.

That's really strange !
Can you specify what do you see ?
Maybe the low quality comes from the player.
It is not surprising that such an uncompressed video will play choppy.

Can VirtualDub do capture, too?

I don't know, but I bet -- it cannot. I have a 1394 board installed and working but the virtualDub says - no capturing device, or something like that.
But all in all the quality of digital transfer doesn't depend on the software because during that transfer the quality doesn't change at all. That is the principle of digital transfer. It is the same when you copy a JPEG picture from your hard disk to the floppy - the quality doesn't change, right ?

[poshanchang]

Thanks a lot for your response.

"It is not surprising that such an uncompressed video will play choppy. "

Uncompressed file should not play choppy, right??

Po-Shan.

[Greg12]

Virtual Dub cannot connect to any WDM device, so no, you cannot use it to capture firewire. I'm sorry.

[Umen Pich]

Thanks a lot for your response.

"It is not surprising that such an uncompressed video will play choppy. "

Uncompressed file should not play choppy, right??

Po-Shan.

Yes, it sounds strange. Uncompressed video normally should play smoothly because it is supposed to require less cpu memory.
But in this case, you have a huge amount of data to be transferred - 3mb per second I think. So, when I compare playing the uncompressed stuff and the one with same pixel size but MPEG compressed, in the same player, for example MS Media player, the compressed video will look much better (smooth).