Studio DV help and some questions - Please help advise

[nittany]

I have been using Studio DV to import from a Sony Digital 8 camcorder. I have no problems with that and editing the video. The problems and questions that I do have is when I try to make the movie. I have been creating an AVI directly. I have been using the following settings:
DV Video Encoder for compression
720 X 480, 29.97
Data rate = 3600 Kb/sec
Audio = PCM, 16 bit, 32kHz

First off, my question. Any advice on these settings? Will they result in the best output that I can get from Studio DV for VCD/SVCD? The video is messed up if I try to use the HuffyUV compression, so I ruled that out.

Second off, my problem. I tried to output directly to MPEG. I've tried SVCD and DVD quality. Everytime that I try to make the movie, Studio DV crashes with a page fault. Can anyone help with this? A question about trying this is, should I even waste my time trying to output to MPEG? I have read that Studio DV produces poor MPEG quality.

The version of Studio DV that I am using is 1.2.6.

Thanks

Thanks for any advice.

[nittany]

Hello? Anyone?

[jtor]

-your question-

The specs you mentioned are for DV AVIs. From my understanding, they are fixed, and quality is great already.


-your problem-

from experience, standalone encoders give better quality MPEGs compared to built-into editors. Suggest you Make File, in DV AVI format, then encode (using TMPGENC perhaps).

[nittany]

jtor,
Thanks for the reply. Any ideas on why my Studio DV crashes when I try encode directly from Studio DV to MPEG?

[ktnwin]

First off, saving back to AVI format (after editing) will take a long long time with Studio DV (even with a fast computer). It would be better to save Video back to DV tape then re-capture (2X instead of many many X).

Another problem Saving to AVI is it is limited to 4GB output file (even if you are using Windows 2000). If your video is longer than 18min30sec, Studio DV will hang at the 4GB limit !!!

Second, don't bother to encode to MPEG using Studio DV, the quality is horrible IMHO.

Those are my experience with Studio DV software. It's is a great one for capturing and editing though, just avoid its shortcomings.

[ugotnext]

You won't have the 4GB problem in Windows 2000 if you use NTSC. You might have that limitation if you use FAT32.

I just did a DV capture of a 90 minute movie. The file was over 26 gigs.

[nittany]

ktnwin,
Thanks for the info. Isn't the capture limited to 4GB as well? Actually, I was aware of the limit, but have not encountered it yet. Most of the video that I have created have been 15 minutes or less. What method have you used to get around the 4GB limit (if the capture is not limited to 4GB, then you already answered this)? Have you had any problems with splitting the video up into < 4GB separate mpegs and then have a 0 delay between mpegs in a VCD/SVCD? Just curious. If so, can you tell that there is a transition between the mpegs?

[jtor]

- 4GB limit; workaround would be (but no guarantees)

(a) use W2K, and change the capture drive to NTFS (as against FAT32 of W98 or whatever). not sure if StudioDV will work on W2K though.

(b) I'm not sure if this will work in your case, but MediaStudio Pro (and Video Studio 5) has the 'seamless' capture feature that basically captures in to separate files if your capture session exceeds the filesize limit. Again, I'm not sure if StudioDV card and the software/s mentioned would work together.

On that 'long long' time when you save to a file, that means the Studio software does not have a 'smart render' feature; which will basically render only the effects that you've planted into the DV AVI file when you edit. If VideoStudio 5.0 in (b) above works with StudioDV card, then you should be able to Make File faster. Or if you don't really care if you use so much DV tapes, then follow KTNWIN's suggestion that you output to tape first, then re-capture.

my 2cents.

[nittany]

Thank you everyone for the help and advice. This is a very annoying problem. I haven't had to deal with it directly myself since my captures from digital 8 can be easily split up, or they are less than 15 minutes usually. I will keep hoping for continuously improving support for video under linux. Again, thanks to all of you, this has helped me.

[ktnwin]

ugotnext,
I do not have problem capturing 2 hours of video to AVI file with Windows 2000 (I use NTFS, not FAT-32).
The problem is when you tell Studio DV software to save video to an AVI file. This software hangs after 18min 30sec or so (which is the 4MB limit of the AVI file). This is a bug in the Studio DV software and not the file system.
VirtualDub for example, can save to single AVI file larger than 4GB on Windows 2000 without issue.
By the way, StudioDV has smart rendering.