Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 Camcorder owners, please help.

[hhamzeh]

Hi all,
I am considering to buy a Sony DCR-TRV350 cam because I have many 8mm and Hi8 analog tapes that I would like to convert to digital. I know that this Cam has a passthrou analog to digital conversion, but I prefer to play these tapes directly by the camcorder and digital out from firewire.

Some D8 camcorders can playback 8mm and hi8 analog tapes, can somebody confirm if sony DCR-TRV350 D8 camcorder has this "playback" feature" ? Thanks.

[FulciLives]

Hello

I am not 100% positive about this but I think ALL of the SONY DIGITAL8 cams will convert a 8mm or Hi8 tape to DV when playing it IN the DIGITAL8 cam.

As for pass-thru (using the analog A/V inputs) that is a feature that I think MOST but not ALL of the SONY DIGITAL8 cameras have.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[rsuave5]

yes it can and will play 8mm and hi 8 and you just put the tape into the cam and hook up the firewire and iy puts the digital file to your pc and looks great 720x480 not all sony cams will do this the trv 140 doesnt

it will pass through also! youll want a larger battery and memory stick i got a 4 mb stick with mine so i bought a 128 and ive had over 50 - 60 pics on it and had plenty of space left! i think id get over 200 - 300 photos on it! the battery lasts under a half hour with the lcd and 45 mins with lcd off. the best cam ive had and the people that dis the digital 8 format should be round up and squirted with cold water. i do lots of 8mm to dvd conversions sweet camera!

[mando]

Yes, it will play 8mm, Hi8 and D8. I have a DCRTRV310, and it does all that.




regards

[hoyboy]

I have a sony dcrtrv340 camera and it does all that you have asked about, D8 iks a good format however if you are going to be using it for a long taping session, it is wise to invest in a tripod as they are not the lightest cameras out there !

[hhamzeh]

Thanks all for the input.

[Rogue3]

I just bought this camera recently. So far I love it. So, for those out there that have used this to put video on DVD, what is the best method to capture the video, both D8 and Hi8?

[David K]

For capture - You need a firewire connection (USB is too slow, you'll get a pixilated mess). All the different brands of editing software come with a bundled capturing program (and there are some free stand-alone capture programs too.) It's best to get a capture program that saves as DV AVI type 2 (as opposed to Type 1) because you can open it in Virtual dub (Pinnacle and Vegas capture in DV AVI type 2). After you have it in DV AVI, then you're onto the wonderful world of mpeg encoding!

[Rogue3]

That is close to what I have tried, but i've been having some problems with the mpg encoding part. Also, how do you tell if it is DVAVI 1 or 2?

[David K]

The specifications of the capture program should tell you whether it is capturing in type 1 or 2. Some programs will allow you to select one or the other; some only capture in one or the other.

As far as I know, every mpeg encoding program will accept type 2, but some programs have a problem with type 1 (like TMPEGenc, although apparently there are ways of adjusting the settings to get it to work.) Bottom line: find a program that captures in type 2, it just makes life easier.

As for mpeg encoding, the first consideration is what your end-product is going to be. If you are going to make a DVD then you’ll probably be encoding at 720 x 480 resolution (NTSC) with a bitrate of anywhere from 6 to 8 megabites per second. If you are going to make a VCD or SVCD then you will be encoding to those specifications (lower resolutions and bitrates, etc.) Once you figure out what your end product is, you can follow up your research with the guides and forums on this site

[Rogue3]

Thanks David, that's some good info. My final output is widescreen dvd. I use the widescreen setting on the camera. I did a few trials early on and when I encoded it the picture came out with alot of lines in it, so I must have set the encoding prefs wrong (using tmpenc). I'll try to capture in dv-avi 2 and see if that makes a difference.

By the way, do you recommend exporting to mpeg with an application or just editing and encoding with a program like tmpenc or cce?

[David K]

I've never tried recording widescreen with my Sony TRV 340, since I do not have a widescreen TV, so I do not know first hand all the steps necessary to getting that correctly to DVD. TMPgenc should be able to output the right size, if you make sure to select the right output setting (16:9). Be aware that not all DVD authoring programs can deal with 16:9. Most of the cheaper ones cannot deal with 16:9.

If TMPgenc is accepting your AVI files, then it is not a question of type 1 versus type 2. Something else is causing the lines you mention. You do know that Camcorder video will show "interlacing" lines when viewed on a computer monitor. They will not be visible on a T.V. You can remove them by using a filter in Virtualdub, if you learn how to frameserve with virtualdub to a mpeg encoder.

Conventional wisdom is that one should do one's editing with an editing program, save to AVI and then encode with a stand-alone encoder, particularly TMPEGenc or CCE or Mainconcept, because the encoders that come with editing programs are not as good as the stand alone ones. If you have an editing program like Premier that takes a CCE plug-in you also get the stand-alone quality. Vegas uses a Mainline plug-in.

[Rogue3]

My latest experiment was capturing and editing with pinnacle 8 and saving as an mpeg and authoring in maestro (to get the 16:9). I did a sidebyside comparison (by changing the inputs on the tv) and the quality was virtually the same, however there was only one thing that bothered me. The DVD version was slightly more blurry. Not quite sure why. I know it is noticable when even my wife said it looked blurry.

Any tips on why it would be more blurry than the original?

[David K]

Mpeg is compressed so you will always lose some quality from the original. Try a different mpeg encoder. Use two pass variable bit rate encoding with TMPenc. Increase the bit rate as high as you have space on your disc.

[Rogue3]

Well, after doing some tests here's what I've come up with. I'm looking to see if these file sizes are normal or if I should be encoding them larger or what.

Basically, I did my editing in Pinnacle studio 8 and exported the DV-AVI file. I then encoded using tmpgenc (2 pass VBR 6000 min, 7000 avg, 8000 max). Here's what I ended up with:

clip 1: 4min 23 sec total 223MB mpg file (217MB m2v, 12MB mp2)
clip 2: 9min 7sec total 480MB mpg file (455MB m2v, 25MB mp2)

By my estimates (at 9 minutes per 480MB) I should be able to fit comfortably (leaving room for menus and extras, such as music) about 76 minutes of video footage per dvd. Does that sound about right?

[nufan292]

Just a little suggestion, you could probably drop the min bitrate by a lot, naybe down to 2 or 3000. And increase the max to about 9000.

[Rogue3]

Just a little suggestion, you could probably drop the min bitrate by a lot, naybe down to 2 or 3000. And increase the max to about 9000.

Can you tell me what that would do for me? Would the quality be better?