How to transfer video from Sony DCR-TRV340 to DVD-RW?

[nathanaa]

My son is doing a video project for school. He is going to be using a Sony Steadyshot DCR-TRV340.

Now, I know my JVC MR-10 has a Firewire input port, and the TRV340 has a DV In/Out port, so I'm assuming I can output from the camcorder to the DVD writer onto a DVD-RW, then rip the DVD-RW to my computer. From there we can play with the video and try out some video editing software I've never used (he wants to put special effects, text, add audio, etc. - I've never done that, no idea how to, heh).

Anyway, in my recent move, I seem to have misplaced my owners manuals. I've never tried it before, but if anyone knows offhand the settings I need to use to transfer the video off of the camcorder and onto DVD I'd appreciate it. I mean, I'm guessing it's more than just "plug in the camcorder to the DVD writer, hit play on the camcorder and record on the writer". Or is it that easy??

Thanks for any help folks!

[thecoalman]

Skip the recorder all together, you'll be converting the video to MPEG which is pain in the ass to edit, quality loss etc...

Go get a pci firewire card (about $15) for your computer, from there it's a simple transfer. An exact duplicate of what's on the tape. You'll need about 14 gigs of free space per hour of video. Once on your computer you can convert to MPEG, author a disc or whatever floats your boat. :P

[nathanaa]

My computer for video editing and such is a laptop. It has a Firewire port though. I've got two external HDD's with plenty of space.

I've got TMPGEnc DVD-Author, but all I've ever used it for pretty much is for when I convert family videotapes to DVDs, I make menus and put backgrounds and such on the finished DVDs. TMPGEnc DVD-A has an "add DVD video", I think i can use that to author the raw footage into a disc (or am I wrong about that?).

Or would that not be a good choice if he/we want to try doing various editing-type activities? What else would be good to use for converting to DVD format and editing?

Any other thoughts or advice?

[thecoalman]

I'm not familiar with that product but it's an authoring application not an editing application. It may have minor editing abilities but won't have anywhere near the functionality of good editor. It may not even accept DV-AVI which is the format from the video camaera and probably has to be converted to MPEG before you can import it..... Somone familiar with it will be able to clarify that.

Ulead Video Studio has a very good editor and some minoring authoring abilities. You could make all your edits, transitions, special affects etc.... and export as MPEG from there and import into TMPGEnc DVD-Author to author the disc. As I said minoring authoring features, I've no doubt TMPGenc will offer more options.

[thecoalman]

My computer for video editing and such is a laptop. It has a Firewire port though. I've got two external HDD's with plenty of space.

You're all set to go then, you only need some editing software for the video you transfer. The Ulead product will capture the video for you but you can use anything, as I mentioned it's just a transfer. Even Windows Movie Maker, Windows Movie Maker will edit as well but it will only export DV-AVI or WMV. WinDV is another option for getting it to computer but any application will give you identical results providing you are transferring as DV-AVI.

[nathanaa]

Ok, obviously a noob-type question, but I might as well ask.

If I'm going to be converting to MPEG no matter what, why is it better to do so via software on the computer rather than by DVD writer? At the moment, I don't know how to do so using the computer, but once it's on the DVD-RW, I know how to do everything.

Well, not adding special effects and titles, audio, etc. So I guess that is going to be learned one way or the other.

But why is the one method superior to the other?

[thecoalman]

MPEG wasn't intended to be edited, you can using software that works well with MPEG but as mentioned above it's pain in the ass. You can avoid all the pitfalls by simply avoiding it. Working with MPEG has only one benefit which is that it saves you a little time. If your source is MPEG such as off a DVD then you're pretty much stuck with it but your source is DV-AVI. For best results you want to do as little conversion as possible...

You're work flow would be like this which can vary:

1. Transfer as DV-AVI
2. Import into an editor to make your edits, export as MPEG or DV-AVI depending on the software you are using. Video Studio will allow you to export as MPEG.
3. Encode to MPEG if you haven't already done so in step 2.
4 Import into authoring application to create your disc.

Note that the steps vary by what you are using but the golden rule is you should only convert to MPEG once and only once from the highest quality source possible.

Here's an example of what a single extra MPEG encode can do, bear in mind this is not real world example as the bitrate is far too low but was used to fully illustrate the point. Note how much more macroblocking is where the video was encoded twice:

DV-AVI-------->Directly to 3000kbps MPEG



DV-AVI>8000kbps>3000kbps