Capturing/converting failure

[Corey8706]

Hello everyone. New to this forum. I am having several issues with producing a decent looking video.
I am using a canon XH A1 to capture 1080 HD DV video. I then use windows movie maker to transfer the video via fire wire
(No issues here) Then we get to the killer part. It saves it as a high definition video that any other editing software
does not recognize dv-nasomething or another. So I have to use a converter. When converting it to another file so it can
be edited in my good software the quality is then destroyed. The video looks no better than an iphone capture, which makes
the green screen and chroma key look bad. Is there any suggestions how I can fix this? I hate to think I spent all
this money on a good camera, lighting, and green screens only for it to fail at the last step. Also, I have thought about
capturing live directly from the computer, but my mac (Where the good software is) has no firewire port, and I have heard
firewire/USB does not work.

Thank you in advance

[hech54]

Take Movie Maker out of the equation.

[Corey8706]

Do you have another suggestion, software wise? One that is free preferably.

[aedipuss]

that camera saves video on tape as HDV. 1920x1080 recorded on tape as 1440x1080 either as 60i, 30p, or 24p. you need to use a program like HDVsplit to capture the tape to your computer.

[johnmeyer]

HDVSplit is the usual program for capturing HDV tapes. Sony Vegas will also do this. While not free, they have a "Studio" version that doesn't cost much, and it will give you an excellent NLE for doing edits and other things with your videos.

[Corey8706]

Thanks for the capture software recommendation all, but I am still in the same boat. The file was saved as a .m2t file. My editing software (video pad) does not recognize it. So I will have to use a video converter. Will this not compress it and cram the quality out like before?

[jagabo]

Try remuxing the m2t file into an MPG container. AviDemux should be able to handle it. Leave Video and AUdio set to Copy. Set the Format to MPEG-PS. Save -- specify .MPG as the extension.

[pippas]

An alternative approach might be to convert your .m2t files into an intraframe intermediate format to work with in your Videopad editor? This will give you a high quality easy to edit format to work with. The only downside are the big file sizes, but as they are only temporary 'working' files, that shouldn't be a problem in the longer term ...

Converting to a format like Grass Valley HQX can give very high quality AVI files which Videopad should find easy to work with.
You can find the freebies necessary to do the conversion on THIS PAGE from my Slo-mo guide (you don't need any of the other pages).

You can then export your edited files from Video pad in any format you select - including HQX if necessary