how to capture dv video to divx ?

[jack_d12]

just came back from las vegas with my canon ZR25 dv camcorder and i'm trying to capture the video onto a svcd. what program do i use to capture dv video to divx ? i'm using ulead and they don't have svcd .. only vcd or dvd i've tried WinDV and that programs captures it raw 1 min was like 200mb already ...can somebody help me out ... i'm running winxp pro athlon xp 1.8 512mb 30gb (5gb free) so i need to find a easy and less space consuming way (divx) to capture my video.

[BJ_M]

you will reallly need a bigger hard drive before you can do anything ..

best way is to transfer DV and then convert to something else ..

[jack_d12]

how much space does the dv usually take up ? i have about 2 hours of footage ... ?? 1gb/hour ???

[BJ_M]

The DV standard of 720 x 480 video with 5:1 compression requires 3.6 MB/sec and 4.63 min/GB.

in compressed format this corresponds to about 9.5 minutes of DV format video per every 2 gigs ...

you would want 60 -100 gigs of free space for working files and conversion but you could get away with 40 free ..

this is how much i use on my editing system :
230-| Local Time is 1:08:53 AM 13/08/2003 (Eastern Standard Time)
230-| This server has been up for 472 hours,
230-| Drive:C:\ Total [32.03 GB] Free [15.86 GB]
230-| Drive:G:\ Total [111.79 GB] Free [27.14 GB]
230-| Drive:H:\ Total [111.79 GB] Free [11.48 GB]
230-| Drive:P:\ Total [34.18 GB] Free [34.09 GB]
230-| Drive:Q:\ Total [223.58 GB] Free [76.08 GB] RAID
230-| Drive:R:\ Total [223.58 GB] Free [32.92 GB] RAID
230-| Drive:S:\ Total [55.91 GB] Free [29.52 GB]
230-| Drive:T:\ Total [223.58 GB] Free [132.16 GB] RAID
230-| Drive:U:\ Total [223.58 GB] Free [225.17GB] RAID
230-| Drive:V:\ Total [223.58 GB] Free [10.11GB] RAID
230-| Drive:Z:\ Total [996.24GB] Free [534.78 GB] RAID

[apk]

I am fairly new to this also, I have been capturing fine but when converting to divx/xvid I get really bad quality (blocky picture). This is only putting 1 hour of dv footage to 700mb with a bit rate of around 1400 using Virtualdub. From what I have seen this should be plenty.
Any ideas of what I am doing wrong or how i can improve it?

[ZollyMonsta]

You can import dv footage into Virtualdub using a third party codec (I use the Mainconcept DV Codec - Demo myself). This one works fine for decoding, but if you encode with it you'll have a logo on the corner of the screen.

You'll still need other software however to get it onto your PC (I believe VirtualDub won't do this with DV footage).

It's best to just experiment with Divx bitrates to get the quality you're after (you can encode 30 seconds or so, and stop it and the file should play fine).

As mentioned above by another member, you will need more hard disk space too..

I've got 149gb raided together myself, plus another 2 80gb drives. Also, fast ones (7200rpm).

Cheers..

[apk]

I have tried different bit rates and it is at the highest I can get it and still make it fit on 1 CD, there must be something wrong as I encoded it straight to VCD from dv using TMPGEn and it is better than the divx (but still blocky -as expected with vcd but not with divx).
I am compressing doing both on "full processing mode" with audio 128kb mp3. Would 2-pass help? as i tried this- following a guide on this site and I got compression errors at the second pass????

[ZollyMonsta]

Seems strange you're getting the blocky-ness, let alone the compression errors. I've only just started playing around with the 2-pass encoding myself. Does the video file have a lot of fast action in it?

[/quote]

[apk]

No there isnt much movement at all, the most going on is moving around the room or walking down the road.

[jack_d12]

okay i have gotten a 160gb hard drive (99 bucks after rebates at compusa) it's a WD 160gb 7200rpm and 8mb cache and now i'm having some problems setting it up ... it comes with a ultra ATA controller card and i have it on as the only drive on the cable ... now the problem is i want to set it up as a storage drive while my 30gb is the drive that it boots from( the drive with all the oses) ... now after installing everything ... the bios recognizes it but winxp does not ... i can see it as 149gb on bootup (is that how much it comes out too ?) but on winxp the controller is <!> the instructions say that i have to use that drive as the boot drive but i've seen on other forums and info from searching the web that that is not true ... please help ... !!! kinda fustruating ...

[spectroelectro]

149 gigs after formattings ounds right. Check your LBA settings in your BIOS (typically accessible using DEL during boot-up). Probably one of the BIOS settings is not correct, Ultra ATA might be supported by your m'board or chipset, or you might have to go into the BIOS settings and dink with 'em to get your m'baord to recognize your new drive as Ultra ATA instead of normal ATA.
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As regards your DiVX encoding issues, DiVX is problematic in my experience. It's not a true standard yet, and there exist plenty of different DiVX encoders. For isntance, I have been dispapointed wit hteh video quality in the popular encoder Dr. Divx, especially with its default to 352 x 260 (say WHAT?)...
You might try a different DiVX encoder.
My own experince indicates taht the XViD encoder produces superb video but somehwat block jerky movement even when set on highest motion estimation.
Dr. DivX produces mediocre-looiing ouutput, blotchy, with speckles. Double plus ungood, Winston.
Microsoft WMA (AKA unhacked DiVX 3.0) can produce decent resutls depending on bitrate, but still pretty lame-o compared to TMPGEnc.
The DiVX-enable VirtualDub produced the best DiVX output I've seen. I haven't yet tried the DiVX 5.05 encoder as the authors want $$$$ and hard experience has taught me not to pay for software upfront without seeing hard proof that it does the excellent job its author(s) claim it does.
Perhaps the best DiVX quality I've seen comes from the "withdrawn" version of VirtualDub 1.3c. You can still find that version floating around on the web even though Avery Lee has withdrawn it due to licensing issues. You might want to try that and see what the DiVX output looks like.
My own experience indicates that you only get really high quality video output from DiVX around the 3000 bitrate, so take that into consideration. Multiple pass DiVX encoding also makes a big difference as opposed to 1-pass, I would think, though I haven't used multiple-pass DiVX encoders extensively yet. Only the 1-pass types.

[jack_d12]

thanks for the help got my solution from western digital .. they said i had to use a util called dsikmgmt.msc and i got it to work ... just one thin tho ... the controller still shows a <!> next to it in device manager even tho the drive works ... tried writing and deleting off the drive and everything works fine ... um ... so u don't suggest divx ??? i'm going to do a clean install on winxp pro so it'll be a while till i get everything back up ... i'll check back here tho thanks ...