Captured avis look bad on monitor, but perfect on TV! Why?

[erdben]

So I just bought a camcorder (Sony TRV33), and tried to capture movie with firewire to my laptop. I tried Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premier 6.0 and everything I found on the internet for free. With all these softwares I got the same problem, when I play back these captured avis (with WINDVD or Windows Media Payer) it looks really bad, especially, when there is movement and sharp contrasts in the picture (when it's steady, it's quite good, but still not perfect).
BUT, when I played back the captured files from the Adobe premier through the firewire, to the camcorder, and then to TV, the picture was perfect on the TV!
I chose the best quality setups, read everything on the forum, but still could not figure out what's the problem!

Here is a captured image from my video, maybe it helps:

[Tommyknocker]

The reason you could not find the problem, is because there is no problem. Your video on your camera was taped to be played on a television, which uses a display process called interlacing. You computer sees this differently than your monitor. Look up interlacing for more detailed description.

If you want to play your video on your computer, you must de-interlace the video, but if the final product is for TV, do nothing.

[freestyler]

What TK said is correct. You could also play your video files in PowerDVD which actively deinterlaces the content. I firmly believe that interlaced video on a television looks better than progressive video on a computer monitor unless the video has been progressively encoded.

Proponents of progressive video sometimes fail to realize that almost no movies are progressively encoded.

[erdben]

Thanks! Yes, deinterlacing was the solution, but I still don't understand everything!

1. Video is still not as good as on TV! There is still some noise at the edges of the objects when they move! Is it normal? That's the best quality I can get on my laptop? Movies on DVDs looks perfect! What's the difference?

2. I'd like to put my videos on DVD. What should I do? Interlace / deinterlace? For example I have a software came with my laptop called Sonic MyDVD, which says it burns DVD directly from the camcorder, but it makes the same - interlaced video and looks ugly!

3. Which software would you recommend for capturing, editing then burning DVDs?

Sorry, if you have to answer these questions all the time! I'm just another Newbie!

[bugster]

1) This could be many things, including the codec used to play back. Some say the default MS codec is not very good for playback, though I find it acceptable. There are a couple of free DV codecs listed in the tools section you could try if you wanted to.

2) If the source is interlaced (DV is as you know) and your target display device is also interlaced (TV is), the leave to video interlaced. Do not de-interlace unless you absolutley must, it can introduce artifacts.

3) For 'capturing' DV, any app that will capture raw DV is fine as it is really only copying the digital data from the tape to the PC and storing it in an avi file wrapper. For editing, it depends how much you want to do. I use Adobe premier which is quite powerful but not cheap. Decide what features you want and how much you want to spend. For encoding to DVD compliant mpeg-2, many editing programs will do this, or you can choose a standalone encoder such as TmpGenc or CCE. More flexible than an integrated encoder, but more cost and less user friendly. Then author and burn. Again, many authoring apps will encode for you, then allow you to add menus and chapters before burning. The Ulead products (Moviefactory and DVD workshop) are very popular and I believe they have free trials available.

Hope this helps.

[flaninacupboard]

Movies on DVDs looks perfect! What's the difference?

Movies come from a progressive source, well suited to a PC display. Also, films are shot on expensive kit, and encoded with expensive kit. Your DV camcorder just isn't in the same league.

[erdben]

Thanks guys! Now I think I understand how it works, and I guess it means that I won't be able to get rid off that noise at the edges of moving objects. It's just a little disppointing I cannot really watch my videos on computer (I thought this is one of the advantages of DV).

[cooel]

There is another factor which affects the quality of a movie on a monitor or a tv set, " Persistance ". In the front of a crt there is the Phosphor screen, which the electrons from the guns strike to make them glow which gives us the light source. In a TV set this Phosphor screen is designed with a built in lag to reduce flicker, hence " persistance ". In a monitor which often has a much higher refresh rate (frame speed) the Phosphor is designed with no lag to allow a much higher resolution. However, when a video which was recorded at a low refresh rate is played on a monitor the errors can be seen, worse of course when there is movment.

Plasma, LCD and TFT screens do not have lag, though I understand the better ones have delays which can be switched on or off for monitor or television viewing.

[flaninacupboard]

Well this isn't strictly true.
Yes the phosphor on your TV glows for a short period, but the reason you don't see the interlace process is because of the method of scanning, not slow phosphor. If you set a PC monitor to interlace scan mode, the interlace lines would "disappear" without touching the phosphor.

TFT screens -do- have lag. current "good" screens have a 20ms lag (that's a 50th of a second. so if you're used to a nice 75hz monitor, they're not pretty) and newer ones have 16ms lags. I'm not sure about plasma screens, not really looked into them, but i expect they have slight lags as well.

The delay in the phosphor screen is carefully timed to decay just before the next scan of that line, so it does indeed reduce flicker.

[cooel]

Sorry, I was not trying to say this has anything to do with the interlace factor, which it has not. The interlace issue is by far the biggest issue, I only wanted to point out there are other factors, be it small, that make a difference between a TV set and a monitor.

[vhelp]

Hi all.

If you don't mind my throwing in more spagetti here

Another factor to consider is the CAM quality, and the most important of
all, AFAIK, is the LENS. I have the Sony TRV22 cam, and in comparison
to my Canon ZR10, The TRV22 out-performs the ZR10. Picture is so much
a tad bit sharper but more clearer/cleaner. I took outdoor footage yesterday
while it was nice and sunny out. I played on my TV set, and quality is great.
In fact, I'm DV'ing it now, as I write this, for testing and things. I'm using
the pass-through (direct firewire) approach via recorded prev. onto miniDV
tape.

So, I would also have to say, quality of CAM and LENS is another important
factor here too

But, isn't the TRV33 in the same catagory as the TRV22 family ??
Anyways..

-vhelp

[flaninacupboard]

i would think with a digital camera the biggest difference is in the CCD, no? i know a decent lens is important, and can make a big difference with film based cameras, but until your CCD is as good as a piece of film, surely the lens is less importnat?