Poor quality capturing - capture card?

[Sloppy Jallopy]

appologies if this sounds like a very basic question but I just haven't found a satisfactory answer anywhere.....and i really have spent days trying to research this.

I am using premiere pro to capture footage from my sony dcr-hc30e camcorder. wen i view the image while it is being captured it looks great. however, once it is captured and i view it on anything (premiere pro, winamp etc.) the image seems to warp wen there is any movement of the camera or subject being filmed. It is like loads of little black lines apear on the edges of everything when there is movement. while this doesnt look too bad on small monitoring screens, it looks absolutly terrible on full screen monitors or tv (i have imported to dvd and tested it on my dvd player). even if i capture and then record back to dv tape there is a loss in quality.

i think this all points to a problem in capturing.

I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 graphics card. Do you think I am having this problem because i still need a capture card? I am transfering using firewire.

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

[wwjd]

It sounds like the DV avi file, which is what is on your miniDV, is being re-encoded by your software app as it is being captured. I use a freeware app called WinDV for TRANSFERRING my DV avi files to my hard drive. What you want to do is make a copy of the DV avi on your miniDV tape on your HDD. Capturing usually implies some sort of encoding, which is not what you want to do with DV avi.

WinDV is a very simple bullet proof app that can not re-encode your DV avi, which is why I use it. Once the DV avi file is on your hard drive you can then bring into your software app and work on it there. One hour of DV avi is about 12.5GB of HDD space.

[redwudz]

If you transfer DV from the camera via firewire to the computer, you are getting an exact copy of the DV file that is on the DV tape. There is no capturing involved, just file transfer. If the tape or camera has no problems, then it would point to a problem with the computer, your firewire card or your cables.

Try WinDV for transfer to rule out software problems with Premiere Pro. Also try VirtualDub for viewing. You might need the Panasonic DV codec for this. It sounds more like a codec problem, but hard to tell.

Can you post a screen shot of what the problem video look like?

EDIT:wwjd was faster and I agree with him.

[Sloppy Jallopy]

Thanks for the help guys. i tried the WinDV app, but still have the same problem. i think i'll try a different cable/card....the firewire connection is actually on my audigy sound card, but i dont think that should make any difference. i'll borrow these of someone tommorrow and let u know how i got on.

thanks again though.

[redwudz]

From past posts on this site, using a sound card Firewire port or sometimes even a motherboard Firewire port can cause problems.

I'm not sure if that is the source of your problem, but it you have access to a PCI Firewire card, I would definitely give that a try. Or even try your camera on a different computer with Firewire in.

[Sloppy Jallopy]

good call redwudz....will check this out this evening after work.

[Sloppy Jallopy]

i've just found out wat it is on the net. it is interalcing. i've got to work out how to deinterlace it....am reading up on this now, but if anyone knows how to do this then that will help also.

many thanks.

[wwjd]

Interlaced video does look better on a computer monitor when deinterlaced BUT if the file is going to be burned to DVD then de-interlacing is not recommended. Also, de-interlacing will probably not have any effect on how dark the video looks. Viewing interlaced video on a computer monitor usually has slight but noticalbe jagged lines, especially when there is motion.

Have you been able to try a different computer/firewire port? Using the firewire port on your sound card may very well be causing you some grief. PCI firewire cards are fairly inexpensive and would be a good investment.

[redwudz]

If your video looks like the screen shot from this post, It's just interlace effects. Those shouldn't show up when encoded to DVD and shown on a TV.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1388694#1388694

If they do, there is something wrong with your encoding process. De-interlacing will lower the quality of your video as you are throwing away half of the video information.

If this is not your problem, a screen shot would help considerably.

[Sloppy Jallopy]

right people, thanks again for all your input.......i think i've sussed it!

i just burned a clip of my film and set the fields setting to lower and that seems to have done the trick.

it's actually quite embarrasing that it was such a simple thing, since i have actually spent days doing everything but that!

in any case i've learnt a great deal that i didnt know before about image capturing/encoding etc. which is great.

i'm gonna now burn the whole sequence i did to dvd and see how that goes....fingers crossed.

[MeekloBraca]

"I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 graphics card"

I have that same card. Does it do video capturing?

[Sloppy Jallopy]

i guess geforce card does, cos thats all i have. if you have that and a firewire connection u shud be good to go.

my dvd has come out great since i changed settings to lower field first then exproted!