PCM Audio on Capture

[deb]

Hi,

I am capturing from Digital 8 camcorder (eventually for DVD) using Pinnacle Studio 7.

I see that the only way to capture is PCM audio, and from what I read here, that is not as efficient because it takes up too much room. In the studio 7 rendering options (for MPEG), they allow you to set the data rate for the sample rate of 48kHz (from 64 to 384 Kbits per second). Would this help this problem? Or should I try capturing into another program ?

Also, my camcorder lists a record speed as 12 bit or 16 bit. It came set at 12 bit, but I reset it to 16 bit. The books said that 12 bit was 2 stereo sounds and the 16 bit was one stereo sound and high quality sound. ???? What does this mean? Which one should I be setting the camcorder to?

Thanks,
Deb

[D_Knife]

The 12bit option is for additional stereo channels
you get a maximum of 4 audio channels
front left - front right
rear left - rear right

unless you have additional mic's installed with your camera 12bit offers no advantage over 16bit.
the number of bits in audio >eg. 4.8,12,16 bits is the digital granularity of the recording
the higher the bits the "smoother" the sound
if your target is AVI,VCD or SVCD then go with 44.1Khz - if your target is DVD then 48Khz is normal

[deb]

Thanks D_Knife. So the 12 bit is for regular stereo sound and a microphone, while the 16 bit is for regular stereo sound?

I thought that because it was 12 vs. 16, that the 12 might take up less room than the 16 bit. It sounds as though it's the reverse, is that right?

Do you know about the PCM - whether it's possible to capture in a program that will use another format? Actually, I'm not sure if the difference (in how much room it takes up) would be dramatic or insignificant.

Thanks,
Deb

[D_Knife]

I'm not sure about that.
I think that if you are recording in 12bit mode without a second sound sorce the DV stream is padded to match up - It should not be any smaller
Mind you even if you did get a smaller capture it would not be by much.
The audio is fairly minor compared to the video stream

I'm not even sure if apps recognise the additional audio streams in 12bit record mode - I haven't tried. I don't have very much access to a DV camera - yet!
We have one for loan at Uni - but mostly I use my own Hi8 unit - the waiting list for the DV is huge

[deb]

Well thanks for the info - I will stick with the 16 bit.

Just curious - how do you capture your Hi8 film? I notice that the DV capture is a little faded looking - I guess that's normal for DV. I've been looking into ways to compensate, but this is pretty much new to me, and everything takes a while to gather all the info and put it together.

Thanks again,
Deb

[D_Knife]

Haha - well my Hi8 material is a little faded as well - I cap with a Dazzle DVC 2 most of the time, but if I really need to customize the capture I use a Provideo pv951 ( just a BT879 ) with HuffyUV codec - dump this into Adobe Premiere and jazz it up that way

Either way I need to boost the colour saturation. Just about all the video editing apps have a saturation adjustment - but some are better than others.

[deb]

Thanks for the reply D_Knife - somehow I was not notified that I had a reply to read.

I wasn't aware that the programs had a saturation adjustment, so I never looked for one. So far, I've been capturing and editing in Studio 7(editing is a grand word for what I do - cut off the ends and the overlap in the middle if I use two tapes). I'll check it out, though I don't have any software as full featured as Adobe.

The faded color has been discussed in a lot of posts and some say you can't do anything and others have some pretty technical suggestions. I just wish if I knew that they worked before diving into changing the codec and framserving, etc. I never saw anyone post back and say what a difference it had made. Since you use the Huffy codec, do you think it makes a definite difference? (I don't know what the Provideo pv951 ( just a BT879 ) is - is this a capture card?)

Thanks,
Deb

[D_Knife]

Hi Deb,
sorry for the delays in posting - I have been away for a week on holidays!!
Just about all video packages have a hue/saturation/contrast/brightness adjustment in them - apparently it's an easy thing to do.
as for editing - hey don't knock the cross dissolve - it has helped me a few times

From your earlier posts it looks like you are "capturing" in DV format - this isn't really considered capturing since the DV camera is just transfering or moving the data across to your computer and wrapping it in a avi format. This means you can't change your capture codec - you must transfer in DV format - fortunatley DV format is good for most things!!
There is no real reason for you to try an capture in huffy - DV can do most everything huffy can.

Careful colour adjustments can make real differences - sutble changes are better then gross changes - also try not to use auto whitebalance on your camera if you can. If it supports it specify a colour balance settings - such as day / night / sport / tungsten - this will reduce the amount of colour modification you need to do post-processing

Frameserving and codec changing is not that difficult - but recompressing DV is not really recomended - I saw a web site where a guy had purposley recompress DV repeatedly to test it's limits after around 5 recompresses the picture was starting to deterioate.

Yes the Provideo is just a simple TV tuner card with a Brooktree BT 879 video chip on it - this is a very basic common chipset that supports a heap of video formats, they are cheap and many different brands that have exactly the same components can be found around the world.

I am considering purchasing a Canopus ADVC-50 or 100 - I can't decide yet. If you haven't heard of them they convert a anologue video stream to DV codec realtime - you then plug in a firewire card and your capturing DV video ! sounds pretty good and the reviews I seen all give them raves

[deb]

Happy 4th, D_Knife!

Hope you enjoyed your holiday.

I tried using the color saturation and brightness settings in Studio and felt that they were only OK. I wasn't sure how to set them; they were at 50% and I tried samples at 55% and 60%. Maybe I should try the TMPGenc adjustment. Actually I may be approaching leaving it as it is. Overall, I'm satisfied with the results. Except the time it takes to make the MPEG - 29 hours for a 2 hour mpeg. I wonder if the highest setting is that much better than the next down (I think they're high and very high, or something.)

I looked at the Cannopus 100 too, so I know the unit you are talking about. If this unit converts to DV, then is the output exactly the same as the DV output from the camcorder? Is it also compressed, so that the colors are slightly faded like the camcorder?

This is a really slow learning process for me - partly because the steps take so long but also because it's so new. I tried ripping a DVD - just to see if I could get the process down. Well I'm sort of mid-stream and bumbling around with it. Do you know anyuthing about Spruce-UP? I tried using that for my rip and it wouldn't deal with the audio because it was the trial version. But they don't sell the full version anymore. What is a good supstitute for that purpose?

Thanks for your help!
Deb

[D_Knife]

Unfortunately 4th of july, just like Halloween is just another day in Australia

If the colours look good to you leave them as they are

When encoding with TMPEGEnc - there is very little difference in picture quality in the encoding modes
I mainly use either normal or low quality (fast)
It will speed things up though - but 29 hours is very slow
How fast is your computer?

Is it also compressed, so that the colors are slightly faded like the camcorder?

I don't know, there are only two places to buy locally here in Brisbane and neither places have a demo model available

I have never used Spruce-up, sorry.
I have ripped a DVD using one of the ripping guides listed on the Rip page.
Also check out www.doom9.org for some very interesting ripping guides - they are very well written and have most of the required software free for download

I got a trial version of Ulead DVD Movie factory - it works quite well
worth a look anyway. You can even use it as a capture app - but I don't know how well it works in this aspect