Working with DV...

[Dance4Me]

I never worked with the DV format. I'm building a new PC, a multimedia PC, and I'll be probably getting the Dazzle Hollywood DV-bridge. I'll be recording from both Satellite TV and a DV camcorder. I would like to ask a few questions, so I can get started easier . I'll keep them short, so here we go,

1) With a DV camcorder, does it transfter onto the PC in real-time or faster?
2) How do you cut out commercials with DV?
3) Roughly how long does it convert a hour of Mpeg2 video?
4) Is DV only captured at 740x480, or are there other options?
5) What's the easiest way to convert from DV to SVCD?
6) Is the SB Audigy IEEE 1394 firewire port good?
7) Can you capture directly to Mpeg2 from a DV camcroder, or only DV?

That's about it, thanks for the help.

[Riccardom]

I'll try to answer the points I'm able:

1) The transfer is realtime, some software (ScenalyzerLive) can do a fast pass in 5 minutes then you can choose what really transfer. Other like Pinnacle Studio7 can transfer the footage at a lower resolution than, after the editing, transfer only the relevant scenes.

2) With any AVI editing program. VirtualDub is fast and free, big programs like Premiere or VegasVideo are more user friendly and powerful.

3) It can vary a lot, from real time (1x) to 0,1x.

4) I know only the PAL (720x576) and NTSC (720x480) formats

5) Read the guides. The easiest is from your editing program like VegasVideo (you don't need huge temporary files) but the results are worse than TMPGEnc, frameserved or not.

6) I don't know it.

7) There some software (CaMpegRT and PowerVCR if i'm not wrong) that can convert realtime the input from firewire directly in an MPEG2 file. I don't know the quality.
Otherwise you can feed the analog signal to a capture card but I think it's a pity doing a D/A and an A/D conversions.

Hope it helps and sorry if I said something wrong.

Riccardo

[Craig Tucker]

Virtualdub cant open DV video, I use ulead video studio for DV video, and yes the soundblaster audigy is fine for dv transfer.

Craig

[Riccardom]

VirtualDub can open DV encoded AVI files on my PCs.
I don't know if it depends on DirectX version (8) or installed codecs (MainConcept)

[Riccardom]

the previous message contains the number 8 between brackets, not a smile.
Sorry i forgot to disable smiles.
Riccardo

[Craig Tucker]

If i save my avi's using the dv codec, which is about 3.5mb/sec, vdub wont open it, cant remember the exact error. So if I want to open my DV videos in vdub I have to save them using the Huffy codec.

Craig

[jtor]

my understanding is that virtualdub will only accept Type2 DV-AVIs.

[wumbus]

Install the Mainconcept DV codec and virtualdub will be able to read your type-2 DV files.