Captured footage looks worse than on tape

[ljCharlie]

I have read from a couple of forums and people seems to agree that capturing using FireWire will make an exact copy of the video from the tape to my hard drive. However, in my experience that is not the case. Even when playing the footage from my Sony HVR-Z1 to the computer through FireWire, it shows up worse than what is displaying on the little LCD monitor on the camera. The footage lost its saturation, contrast, and sharpness. The captured footage file shows the same problem. Why is it the captured copy lose so much of its quality during transfering from a tape to computer? How do I minimize this problem? Your help is much appreciated.

[zoobie]

We'll need more info to make a call. Wires? Card? Transfer? Software? Tell us all you know about your setup.

[ljCharlie]

I use 1394 firewire cable, Quadro FX 4400 video card, and Avid Xpress Pro. I'm not sure what you mean by transfer.

[troyvcd1]

When you view it on the computer screen your not going to see a good picture. Computers are progressive and camcorders are interlaced. Try to export to your computer and then export back to your camcorder and view it on the tv.

[edDV]

I use 1394 firewire cable, Quadro FX 4400 video card, and Avid Xpress Pro. I'm not sure what you mean by transfer.

I believe Avid Xpress Pro supports video monitoring through the IEEE-1394 port (like Premiere and Vegas). Connect the IEEE-1394 port to your camcorder and then connect the camcorder's S-Video out to a TV monitor. You will then see the real video quality as you work.

[rhegedus]

A better test of quality would be to encode and burn an hours worth of footage to DVD then watch it on your TV.

[ljCharlie]

Many thanks for the responses. I'm pretty sure that the quality on the tape is good because when I play it on that little LCD monitor on the camera and also on the TV, it looks good. I only see the decline in qualtiy during and after the footage has been captured. If I did not do color correction and just simply author to a DVD, the quality will certaily looks worse compare to the tape that's in the camera. The problem seems to lie between the firewire cable and the computer. If it goes through the computer than the quality automatically decreases especially contrast, sharpness, and saturation.

[edDV]

Many thanks for the responses. I'm pretty sure that the quality on the tape is good because when I play it on that little LCD monitor on the camera and also on the TV, it looks good. I only see the decline in qualtiy during and after the footage has been captured. If I did not do color correction and just simply author to a DVD, the quality will certaily looks worse compare to the tape that's in the camera. The problem seems to lie between the firewire cable and the computer. If it goes through the computer than the quality automatically decreases especially contrast, sharpness, and saturation.

Something is wrong. It shouldn't be happening.
Set up realtime monitoring to see what you are doing.

As a test, burn a test DVD without touching the video. If it has been altered vs the original, your Avid setups are wrong.

Next test, record back to the DV camcorder. If the video looks good, your MPeg2 encoder settings are off.

The system should be 1:1 transparent.

[harley2ride]

Couldn't it have to do with the card and firmware. I know I tried capturing with a gforce 4200, and then via an ADS Pyro firewire card, and an ADS PYRO AV/LINK. There is a big difference in the quality between the results from the ti4200, and the ADS products. Both ADS products gave far better results, with all other things being equal.

[edDV]

Couldn't it have to do with the card and firmware. I know I tried capturing with a gforce 4200, and then via an ADS Pyro firewire card, and an ADS PYRO AV/LINK. There is a big difference in the quality between the results from the ti4200, and the ADS products. Both ADS products gave far better results, with all other things being equal.

I've never seen quality differences between firewire transfers other than data drops caused by throughput issues. If your computer can keep up with the data flow then the transfer is transparent.