DV advice

[rdkapp]

I consider myself computer literate, but DV illiterate. I just purchased a Sony DCR-TRV27 and I'm ready to capture, edit, and burn, however, my computer is only partially ready and I would like some advice on getting it completely ready.

Here are the pertinent specs and peripherals of my computer:
1. Dell OptiPlex GX110, 733mhz PIII, 256 mb RAM
2. PCI SCSI Controller - Adaptec AHA-2940U/AHA-2940UW
3. Boot Drive (C:) - FUJITSU MAJ3182MP (18.19 GB) [SCSI] (12.2 GB free)
4. 2nd Drive (D:) - WDIGTL WDE4360-1807A3 (4.29 GB) [SCSI] (1.58 GB free)
5. 3rd Drive (E:) - Maxtor DiamondMax 51023H2 (10.22 GB) [IDE] (5.99 GB free)
6. PLEXTOR CD-R PX-W1210S [SCSI CD-RW]
7. NEC CD-ROM [SCSI]
8. Operating system - Windows 98 SE
9. MGI VideoWave Version 4.1.969.0 [came with Dazzle DV Creator 80]

My first question involves a capture card. What is the best firewire card for the budget conscious (approx. $100). I know that Canopus ADVC-100 is a very highly recommended card, but the price is a bit steep. I would just like to know my less expensive options.

Second, and more complicated, concerns the quality of the different ripping formats. Right now, my goal is to transfer my home movies (8mm and DV) to CD or DVD. This will most likely expand in the future. I want quality, but probably something less than professional and I am wondering if I will be disatisfied with the quality of VCD or SVCD? Should I upgrade to DVD? If so, should I look for a SCSI DVD burner?

Third, on editing software, is MGI VideoWave a decent option at least for starters? If not, please recommend something good for the budget conscious.

Fourth, is SCSI beneficial in capturing and editing digital video? How do you recommend that I take advantage of it?

Fifth, I can clear significant space on both my 2nd (D:) and 3rd (E:) hard drives, however, do I need to invest in an additional hard drive and if so, should I go SCSI or IDE?

Any other advice you all can offer will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[D_Knife]

1 The canopus ADVC-100 is NOT a capture card - it converts analogue video and audio into a DV stream - you need a Firewire card to receive this signal - same when using your camera - Steer clear on the bottom end cheapo firewire cards and get something slightly decent - some are even bundled with simple editing apps (not sure on their use though)

2 I have abandoned VCD (Video-Cd) and SVCD and have moved onto CVD (Chinese Video Disk) - this will allow me to produce DVD compatible video files until I can afford a DVD burner. If you can afford to purchase a DVD burner then by all means go for it, however I'm quite happy with CVD quality. I doubt that you will find a SCSI DVD burner - and if you do it will be considerably more expensive than an IDE one and probably won't offer any real-world advantages.

3 Sorry can't offer any advice here

4 Yes SCSI has qutie a few advantages over IDE when it comes to video capture - mainly in the form of multiple writes and data streaming

5 this also works for the last bit of 4 - capture to your fastest drive

[TOMMO]

First of all, your PC is powerful enough to handle all aspects of the work you intend to do. The only benifit in having a faster processor would be rendering and encoding times.

I would recommend you going straight to a DVD burner. Skip the VCD and SVCD stuff and go straight to DVD. It is absolutely fantastic and takes no more time to prepare the footage. I am not knocking VCD or SVCD, both are excellent, but DVD is so good.

SCSI drives, well there are a lot of good reasons to use SCSI, its fast, it is solid, no thermal calibration required, but to be quite honest I have never used a scsi hard drive. They are expensive. I use IDE, 7200RPM with seek time around 8.5ms. No problems at all. It is a dedicated drive, no OS on it, reformat often to keep it in tip top all the time. Your current drives will not get much DV footage on them at all, you need to look at getting much more capacity.

The editing program you are talking about will prbably do you fine, although I have not really used it much, once you get into Premiere and similar, the rest are a little limited.. HOWEVER, the important thing is getting results, you can alway progress up once you get the hang of the process, know what you are looking for and then specifically get the required editing software. Keep things simple at first. It is no use having very expensive software, finding it hard to use and getting nowhere.

If you keep the source material on tape, you can always recapture, and edit later when more confident with other more powerful editing packages, AND YOU WILL WANT To I can almost swear on the fact.

The Canopus product looks good. Firewire is firewire, is firewire. No difference. Most of the difference is in the software that comes with the card. Mine cost £47 from PC World in the UK. It is the ADS Pyro basic, no difference in that card, except the software compared to the more expensive ADS cards. But when looking at the prices, check out the cost of the software alone, you can find it is quite amazing how little you actually pay for the sooftware.

Hope this helps.

[paulb]

I agre with the previous poster. Firewire is just the transfer medium and most all are good. I also have a Sony and have been doing the same thing you are for the last year. Going for DVD will allow you to share your movies with family/friends.

You will need more hard drive space. I recently captured marching band footage, and all of the clips, and main AVI files totaled 14GB. The resulting MPEG was 2GB.

I use Ulead Video Studio, but there are many good editors out there. Like others on this forum, I have not been happy with any of the MPEG output from any of the "canned" editing software. I capture using firewire to Ulead, Edit and add titles,transitions etc., write out one big DV AVI file, convert it with TMPGENC and burn to DVD using ulead. This forum has a wealth of information that I'm sure you will be back for once you dive into the process.

Good Luck.

[vandakeg]

You WILL NOT be able to do much of anything w/ the amount of disk space you have right now. DV is approximately 15gb in size for every 60 minutes of video.
It is also good practice to have a little more than that free, if you plan on editing. ie. If you have one 60minutes video, although it will only take up 15gb, you should have another 20gb free, b/c if you want to edit (add titles and effects, or rearrange clips) you're going to have to save that in DV format also... which means you'd need 30gb of space for 60 minutes of audio.

[rdkapp]

Thanks to all for your posts. The common theme in all of your posts is that I need more storage. I have a few follow up questions:

1. From vandakeg's post, the minimum storage space I need for capturing and editing 1 hour videos is 35 GB. I can probably get a 36 GB SCSI hard drive off EBay for approximately the same price as a 80 - 100 GB IDE (7200 rpm) hard drive. Will the benefits of SCSI in capturing video outweigh the additional storage (due to lower cost) from an IDE? An important variable here (I think) is that my SCSI card is a bit dated (1998) and will not be able to benefit completely from all of the advantages of today's SCSI peripherals (like the 36 GB SCSI hard drive). For example, my card should be capable of a maximum transfer rate of 40 MB/Sec, while the newer SCSI hard drives can transfer at 80 MB/Sec or even 160 MB/Sec. Thus, my maximum transfer rate will be 40 MB/Sec. Any thoughts? Has anyone had any problems capturing to an IDE hard drive?

2. Capture Card: D_Knife, the Canopus ADVC-100 cannot be used to capture DV? This website shows it as a Firewire card at $240. Is the ADS Pyro Digital Video a decent firewire card for $50? TOMMO, is that the same as your card? What software came with it?

3. Editing software: I forgot to mention in my initial post that I did get Pixela Image Mixer, the software that came with my Sony camcorder. Anyone have an opinion on it? How does it compare with MGI VideoWave? I have no problem starting with the software that I already have if it's decent.

4. VCD/SVCD/CVD/DVD: Since I purchased a fairly expensive camcorder, will be purchasing a firewire card, and most likely a new hard drive, I will probably wait on a DVD burner. I do intend to keep the original source on tape for future use. In the mean time, I think I will check out the quality of the others and practice my skills at capturing, editing, and burning. I intend to read more about CVD. D_Knife, can you tell me anything more about CVD or refer me to any other info on it (other than this site, obviously)?

Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and info. It was very helpful.

[yg1968]

1-For you, buying the ADVC-100 would be duplication given that your digital camcorder has a passthrough feature (which essentially does the same thing as what the Canopus does).

2- you need a firewire card and cable. I think that the Pyro card is bundled with a firewire cable and with Ulead Video Studio 6 (a useful program for editing DV and that is a lot better than MGI videowave).

3- On your digital camcorder's menu, you will need to enable DV out

4- You can capture using a number of programs such as DVIO or Windows Movie Maker

5- as mentionned before, an extra hard disk would be useful. I personally use a 60GB partition for video

6- the Pixela Image Mixer program only works for digital stills. In my opinion, it is a useless program

[rdkapp]

I forgot to ask in my last post whether a firewire hard drive would be a better option than an IDE or SCSI (with my current limitations)? Anyone have any experience with firewire hard drives?

[vhelp]

I know that Canopus ADVC-100 is a very highly recommended card, but the price is a bit steep. I would just like to know my less expensive options.

in short, if you get this, you wont regret it, BUT, as yg1968 had stated,
you already have this in the form of a "pass-through" feature of your camcorder.
However, based on my experience w/ my Canon ZR-10, I found that the ADVC-100
produced much better quality than my ZR-10 could (weather "pass-through" or not)

So, you may want to weigh that into your consideration while you rumble in
your decision making. At best, you could try both and judge quality.

Good luck.
-vhelp

[TheInformer]

rdkapp:

With the system you have, an IDE drive will work just as well as a SCSI drive for transferring DV video from your camcorder to your PC via firewire. My advice is to get the 80 or 100 GB IDE hard drive and use it exclusively for video editing. I have 80 GB of storage for that purpose myself and it allows me to do 2-3 hours worth of capture/editing with no problems.

BTW, I transfer the analog video from my VCR to my PC through a Sony DVMC-DA1, which is basically the same thing as the Canopus device.

[rdkapp]

I've got a great deal lined up for a Maxtor Diamond Plus 9 120 GB IDE hdd, but, as usual, it involves a rebate on a short fuse ($129 after rebate). I've also got my eye on a Western Digital 120 GB External Firewire Drive ($199 after rebate). Anybody with an answer on the firewire harddrive vs. scsi or ide? Please?

[paulb]

RD,

I personally have a Western Digital 120GB 7200 drive for all my video needs. the drive is IDE and I have never had 1 frame drop capturing from my camcorder through an inexpensive ($60-$70) firewire card.

[vandakeg]

SCSI is overkill if all you're worried about is vdeo editing and DV capturing. I haven't heard a whole lot from external Firewire drives, but it seems to me that you may have some problems since your camera is also Firewire.
If you're really worried about speed, your best bet for the money would be an IDE raid... although that wouldn't even be necessary.

[rdkapp]

Thanks to everyone for their replies. Every one of them was helpful. I've made some decisions (preliminary ones at least). I've decided to go IDE with my extra storage, however, I decided against the Maxtor in my previous post. I read some negative reviews about them (noise and inconsistent specs from the manufacturer). I will most likely go with Western Digital. WD and Maxtor are the most readily available locally, which is most likely where I will purchase, unless I find a deal on the internet that I cannot pass up. Also, I've got a $50 gift card at Best Buy. I am looking at the 80 GB and 120 GB WD Special Editions with 8 MB cache. They are getting rave reviews. The 80 GB is $139.50 and 120 GB is $199.99. If I was to use this drive exclusively for DV (except maybe 5 - 10 GB), is it worth the extra $60 for the 40 extra GBs? Any advice on this? If anyone bought an 80 GB or 60 GB and wished they had gone bigger, I'd like to hear why.

Next, I've narrowed my firewire card purchase down to ADS (Pyro Basic DV or Pyro DV 1394) and Pinnacle (Linx 1394 or Studio 8). Any feedback or preferences on these cards and the accompanying software? Thanks again.

[kitzj0]

I bought Studio 8 from Best buy for $19.99 AR for editing. Although there are alot of bugs with the software it has alot of features.I have seen it even cheaper on the internet. For the most parts, I have found workarounds for getting the job done.

I bought a generic PCI firewire card from CompUSA (even though I had two firewire ports on the front of the PC) for $29.99.

I bought a 120GB WD internal HArd Drive at BestBuy for $129 AR. Bought an external firewire case from Computergeeks for $45. Put the hard drive in the computer to format it then put it in the case. I have windows XP and have no problems getting the hard drive to work. No dropped frames in capturing Sony 340 hooked up to fireiwre card and capturing to firwire drive hooked up to the same card.

I also got a Cendyne 105 (Pioneere A05) for $169 AR from OfficeMax.

Also it is better to use windows 2000 or XP.