Real newbie with some real basic questions...please help

[mark1969]

Hi all

Please forgive my ignorance, i have some real basic questions that i need answers to so i can even make a start.(I'm a real newbie)

My computer is pent 3, 512mhz, 80g hd.

Yesterday went out and bought a qtec 510f, firewire pci card and i've got a sony digital 8 dcr-tr7000e camera.

All i want to do is take some video of the kids and burn it to cdr to play on my standalone dvd.

I am fairly familier with encoding .avi files using tmpg to make mpeg files and then burning but.......

Could you please recomend some easy use software that i can download from somewhere, and is it as easy as capturing the video onto your hard drive and then burning to disc,

What kind of file do they end up with when captured is it a .avi or a mpeg?

Is there a decent newbie guide anywhere cos I'm rambling.

Thanks in advance

Mark

[Tommyknocker]

I think Video Studio 6 is relatively easy. It captures, edits if you want, then burn to a VCD, SVCD, or DVD if you have the right burner.

[kuranuk]

Alright, first off, there are a few guides at the site, go here:
https://www.videohelp.com/capture for all of them, but I think what you're looking for is here:

http://www.carr-engineering.com/dvio.htm

This will take your movies from your digital camera via Firewire (IEEE 1394 is just the techie name, don't let that confuse you, =). You said you know how to convert AVI to MPEG, so I won't bother you with that, but in case you want another guide to familarize yourself with TMPGEnc more:

https://www.videohelp.com/tmpgenc.htm

Lastly, I think the easiest (free) MPEG->VCD software around is still VCDEasy. You may have one or two problems getting it to burn right the first try, but the software usually gives you instructions for how to fix it.

http://www.tucows.com/mmedia/preview/260392.html

Hope this helps!

[MachineMan]

If you have windows XP then you already have windows Movie Maker installed. Check the for a free update to ver2.0 on the microsoft support site. Use it to capture from your firewire device to AVI.
I use Ulead Video Studio 7.

[ZippyP.]

What kind of file do they end up with when captured is it a .avi or a mpeg?

You won't really be "capturing" to your hard drive, it's transferring DV video from the camera to your PC via the firewire port. The result is a DV coded AVI file that will require a DV codec to play,edit or convert. There are some demo's of editting programs available in the Tools section.

8)

[mark1969]

Hi All

Thankyou for your replies and advise, I have beenhaving a few trial runs using Ulead movie factory 2, I think I'm right in saying this program captures, converts and burns all in one, you don't have to worry about .avi files and converting in TMPG just capture and burn to VCD/SVCD, I also liked it cos you can add a slideshow to the same disc!!


Only thing is though Quality is CRAP!!! real crap, I've burned x3 sample discs SVCD real easy to do but the quality is much worse than a old VHS tape.

I'm kinda hoping thats not because I've got a crap capture card?
Do you get much better quality by using another program saving an .avi and converting in TMPG? Is that really the only way to go for decent quality?

I liked Moviemaker cos it was all in one and simple, will i get better results using a different software?

Thanks again for all your help.


Mark

[MachineMan]

I also have Movie Factory 2.0 but only have caoture from DV to VCD format. The VCD quaility is OK. With SVCD you should be able to configure some of the setting for better quality. You should be able to go up to 2500Kbit/s. There also is a quality setting that you could set to the highest but with a slower rendering speed. Im not sure what the VHS comparison settings are for (s)VCD.

[ZippyP.]

I'm kinda hoping thats not because I've got a crap capture card?
Do you get much better quality by using another program saving an .avi and converting in TMPG? Is that really the only way to go for decent quality?

If you're talking about your Firewire card, I don't think that should affect the quality at all. It's only an input port, the data in your camera is identical when it is transferred onto your computer's hard disk.

View your avi, the source quality is the most important thing when trying to get a good final product. I think you will be better off using TMPGEnc for your conversions over the all-in-one Ulead package. TMPGEnc's quality is proven.

8)

[MachineMan]

You could capture with Ulead to AVI file, then convert to correct format with TMPG, then put the coverted file nack into Ulead MF2 and make and burn your video. MF2 should not have to convert anything if the video is correctly set up from TMPG.