DV to WinDV

[F50]

hi guys,

I transferred some video from DV to my computer via the 1394 connector and used winDV. I let the video run for around an 45 mins straight. But what i ended up getting is a whole bunch of smaller AVI files. Is this right, or should i be getting 1 large file. I want to encode it to MPEG2 for DVD.

thanks..

[dvd3500]

It is doing what it thinks is scene detection and chopping it up and/or is in compatibility mode and doing >2 GB chunks.
VirtualDub can open them all up automatically.

[redwudz]

Set Discontinuity treshold to 0 and Max AVI size to 1000000. (2). Click OK and go back to the main window and it should capture as one large file.

[F50]

you mean set it 1gig or 10gig? My file for around a 45min. video was like almost 10gigs. Does that seem right?

[pippas]

That's about right -- DV files take up about 13GB per hour.

[harmsway1976]

http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/33/59/

this explains it.

[F50]

thanks for the reply guys, really appreciate it.

[F50]

It is doing what it thinks is scene detection and chopping it up and/or is in compatibility mode and doing >2 GB chunks.
VirtualDub can open them all up automatically.

How? I downloaded virtual dub but can only open 1 AVI file at a time.

I want to be able to take separate clips and join them, so i can encode them to DVD using TMPGenc.

I tried ulead studio 7 SE and microsoft movie maker. I can drag the clips but when i save the file it dosn't save as an AVI. Just a project file. Can i encode those files?

[tmh]

When you "save" with most editing programs you're just saving the "project". You need to output to dv-avi to get a new, combined file. In WMM2 I think it's called "make movie" then you choose DV-AVI as the format. Keep in mind it will be a "type 1" file from WMM2 and will need to be converted to "type 2" for TMPG, as best I recall. Easy to do - check the tools.

Just follow the steps and what you're doing is "easy". Skip any and you're looking for trouble.

[LSchafroth]

It is doing what it thinks is scene detection and chopping it up and/or is in compatibility mode and doing >2 GB chunks.
VirtualDub can open them all up automatically.

How? I downloaded virtual dub but can only open 1 AVI file at a time.

I want to be able to take separate clips and join them, so i can encode them to DVD using TMPGenc.

I tried ulead studio 7 SE and microsoft movie maker. I can drag the clips but when i save the file it dosn't save as an AVI. Just a project file. Can i encode those files?

You should be able to open the first AVI, then use the append option on the FILE menu for the rest. if they are numbered you can select them all.

LS

[F50]

I looked at the "append" function in virtualdub and tried to use it but it keeps crashing.

Anyway, would there be a loss in quality when saving the file again as another AVI.

or would it be better to convert the whole thing to MPEG2 then try it using something like videoredo.

thanks..

[edDV]

If you can recapture, just set the Discontinuity Treshold to 0 on WinDV and you will get one file.

[thesnow]

moved

[GeorgeW]

Are you capturing PAL or NTSC?

[marksk918]

i'm getting the same thing. i transferred some home movies from vhs to minidv in two recording sessions. i used windv to transfer them from the camcorder to my hard drive via firewire and ended up with two large files and several smaller ones. i had the discontinuity threshold set to 20 (so it would detect the two sessions and yield two files) and the avi file size to 10000000. i'm not too familiar with the footage, but it looked like one of the smaller files was a portion of one of the larger files (i didn't have time to review everything). i can redo this and capture it as one large file (with threshold of 0) but i wanted the two different sessions as two files.

thanks!

[gadgetguy]

Setting the discontinuity threshold to 20 means that there has to be at least 20 second difference in the timecodes for it to be recognised as a seperate session. I would guess that smaller files that you think were supposed to part of a larger session were created because the camera was stopped for longer than twenty seconds, or there wasn't a clean timeline laid down on the tape. Either will cause file breaks.

[Baatfam]

So lets reverse the question. I want to have the file broken down into seperate scenes....(I find it easier to edit and assemble a DVD that way).
What do I set the discontinuity threshold at? 0 or 1? Or something else.

Thanks,
Bob T.

[marksk918]

Setting the discontinuity threshold to 20 means that there has to be at least 20 second difference in the timecodes for it to be recognised as a seperate session. I would guess that smaller files that you think were supposed to part of a larger session were created because the camera was stopped for longer than twenty seconds, or there wasn't a clean timeline laid down on the tape. Either will cause file breaks.

it was a new tape but i tried several times to record the analog input before i figured it out. i then rewound the tape all the way and did it in two sessions. would that screw up the timeline, even though i rewound the tape? during the transfer, i only stopped the camera once and that was when the first session ended.

So lets reverse the question. I want to have the file broken down into seperate scenes....(I find it easier to edit and assemble a DVD that way).
What do I set the discontinuity threshold at? 0 or 1? Or something else.

that one i know - 1. 0 will cause it all to be one file. setting it to 1 will pick up every stop made with the camera longer than one second (my first transfer gave me over 50 files when i set it to one).

[gadgetguy]

would that screw up the timeline, even though i rewound the tape?

No. The timeline is determined when the footage is originally shot. It has nothing to do with playback. Each frame of the video has a timecode embedded during recording. This series of timecodes constitutes the timeline. When you are "capturing" the video with WinDV it tracks the timeline of the recorded video and splits it according to the parameters you've set in the configuration. So you may have tried to "capture" in two sessions, but WinDV saw that there were more sessions recorded.

[marksk918]

So you may have tried to "capture" in two sessions, but WinDV saw that there were more sessions recorded.

i think i'm a little confused. when i figure out exactly how to capture the analog input, i rewound the tape. i captured the video from the first vhs tape (about 14 mins). stopped the camcorder. switched tapes in the vcr and started recording again. i let this go until the video was done, so i only recorded two sessions. i then used windv to transfer the contents of the minidv tape with the 20 second threshold so two files would be created.

[gadgetguy]

i think i'm a little confused.

Aren't we all?
I'm not sure how the timestamping is done when recording through the analog inputs on the camcorder as opposed to recording through the lens. I would have assumed them to be the same, but I have nothing to verify it. There is a filter available for VirtualDub that will allow you to view the timestamps of the DV avi on a frame by frame basis that should allow you to see how the camcorder timestamped the recordings. You could compare the segments and see if it shows a break in the timecodes.
Does your camcorder allow pass-through? I'd be interested to see if the same thing happens if you eliminate the DV tape. Others have suggested that you should lay down a continuous timeline on a tape before using it. They do this by recording the entire length of the tape with the lenscap on and a dummy plug in the mic jack. I don't know if this works, as I don't do it myself, but others swear by it so I pass it along.

[Dosdan]

In response to the question on how to load a segmented sequence of AVi files (e.g. file.00.avi, file.01.avi ...), install AVISynth, then create a text file containing

SegmentAviSource("C:\directory\file.avi")

Call the script file: whatever.AVS

And then load whatever.AVS in either VDub (I prefer VDubMod because its script editor makes changing, testing and specifing Trim ranges in AVS scripts very easy) or in Tmpegenc.

Note also that the sequence does not need to start from .00.avi. For example, I started a transfer session, aborted it and then restarted it. My second attempt was numbered from file.05.avi since file.00-04.avi already existed. I then delected file.00-04.avi. When I loaded the AVS script it automatically started in the lowest in the sequence (file.05.avi).