MiniDV transfer questions

[Egglet]

I’ve transferred my PAL MiniDV tapes via Firewire using Sclive and have a few questions that I’m hoping I can get some help with:
SClive indicates between 5 and 10 errors for some of the tapes (but no dropped frames), what would these errors likely be, should I worry about them and can they be corrected?

I’d like to create master copies of these transfers in order to keep as archive and use to perform restoration or enhancements (colour, deinterlace etc.) if required. What would be a recommended format to convert them to and what is a recommended software tool?

If I wanted to import them into Resolve for editing, what codec and container is recommended and again what’s the best software tool for the conversion?

Can I get an idea of what current “best practice” might be?

Thanks

[Alwyn]

I've never worried about Scenalyzer errors. Just check your audio is in sync at the end (assuming it's in-sync at the start).

For master copies, simply keep the original DV-AVIs. Things change (eg AI) and using the originals in 10 year's time will be better than transcoding to a lossless format and then running that through the new process.

As far processing DV goes, one philosophy says to transcode it into a lossless format for processing; another is to just edit it as-is. It depends on what you are editing it with. If your NLE has a good deinterlacer, good editing (eg color, noise reduction, which can be an issue with DV in low light) and a good encoder to MP4, just take it straight in. If you like to deinterlace before you edit it (my case), I deinterlace it in AVISynth/QTGMC then export to a lossless codec, then bring that into my NLE. There are other ways to do that: FFMpeg, Hybrid, even VDub has a reasonable deinterlacer.

NTSC DV is allegedly inferior to PAL DV because of the colour system, so the above workflow may be "coloured' by that.

Resolve Import: according to this document, Page 9 down the bottom, Resolve will accept DV AVIs. Otherwise, one of the ProRes MOVs is accepted by Resolve.

Tip: Deinterlace to double frame rate. Your video will be noticeably smoother.

And if you're into spending money, Neat Video does a great job, with very little fuss, at noise reduction. PAL DV does tend to not like low-light, so noise reduction in that situation will noticeably improve the look of your vids.

[Egglet]

Thanks Alwyn, handy to know not to worry about the errors.

I’m intending to keep the raw transfers as well but from reading various threads I’ve got the impression that converting to a lossless format is best for working with Avisynth etc.

Huffyuv and lagarith (still confused about colourspaces though) are mentioned a lot and I’ve used Virtualdub 1.9.11 to convert the files but when importing to Hybrid the log doesn’t seem to recognise the codecs. Is this a problem? Or would it be best to just bring my raw transfers into it? I thought to use Hybrid to deinterlace then export as a format comparable with Resolve.

[Alwyn]

still confused about colourspaces though

I'm no expert but 4.1.1 (NTSC DV) is not as good as 4.2.0 (PAL DV) which isn't as good as lossless 4.2.2 (eg HUFF, LAGS, UT). ProRes from VDub2 is also 4.2.2. This doesn't mean that simply converting NTSC DV to Lossless will improve the video: it won't. But it arguably might allow better processing. Whether QTGMC puts out a better result from a Lossless source as opposed to DV is the question.

I only use lossless for my NLE because that's what I end up with after deinterlacing with QTGMC (AVISynth, Hybrid). Any format other than Lossless, after deinterlacing, will be Lossy, and I would prefer not to edit Lossy when I have the option of using Lossless.

In your case, you'll need to determine if Resolve can deinterlace well enough. It's colour capabilities are good apparently, so that wouldn't be a reason to transcode before importing. But if you decide to Deinterlace before import, then it's either DV straight into your deinterlacer, or convert to LossLess first. I do the former.

You'll have to direct your Hybrid questions to Selur; it's his program.

[_Al_]

You can load DV avi into Avisynth/Vapoursynth.
The it was done years back, we edit DV avi in videoeditor, and then got master, exporting DV avi again. No recompression. So question is if Davinci Resolve can export DV avi without recompression. After that you can start denoise, color correct, double frame rate deinterlace etc. And doing that , by whatever works.