Capturing 16:9 from a Sony DCR-TRV530

[sturmie]

i just shot most of my honeymoon footage in 16:9 on my dad's Sony Digital 8 camera and was wondering the best piece of software to capture thru the firewire cable while still maintaining the aspect ratio?

i tried pinnacle studio 8.8, but it couldn't do the 16:9, instead, it distorted the picture. i tried sonic foundry's vegas video, but that seemed quite a bit choppy...any suggestions?

thanks...sturmie

obviously, my ultimate goal is to get all this footage onto DVD.

[sturmie]

17 views and no thoughts? interesting...do not a lot of people capture in 16:9 or is it that simple that i'm just missing something?

[kabanero]

Hi sturmie,

Here is my expireince.
I used Sonic Foundry Vegas Video to capture video from my Sony D8 camcorder DCR-TRV103 shot in 16:9 mode. Then I encoded it in Vegas to MPEG2 for DVD with NTSC Widescreen template and then authored and burnt DVD and it was working great.

But there are some tricks.

First, when you capture from D8 cam to your PC with FireWire your captured AVI will have the save frame size 720x480 for NTSC no matter if the video was shot in 4:3 or 16:9 mode.

Second, some Sony cams handle 16:9 mode differently.
My old Sony DCR-TRV103 (I think it was Best Buy version of TRV110 or TRV120, those first generation D8 cams) was actually widening the viewing angle and compressing picture vertically when I was switching it to 16:9 mode.
Now I have DCR-TRV840, and when I switch it to 16:9 mode it just puts black bars at the top and the bottom of the frame.

I didn't do this with my TRV840 yet (I might do it this weekend because I am curious myself), but I will tell you how I did it with TRV103.

After I captured video shot in 16:9 mode from TRV103 to PC with Vegas I reloaded that raw AVI in Vegas. The video had frame size of 720x480 and everything was stretched verticaly, but no black bars at the top and bottom. Then I encoded it to MPEG2 with NTSC Widescreen template in Vegas. After that when I was watching that MPEG2 file in my ATI file player or PowerDVD, it was showing it in wide screen mode without any problem and without black bars at the top and bottom.
Then the big thing is that you must use DVD authoring software that correctly supports 16:9 authoring mode.

Now, as I said that I am curious myself, I will shoot in 16:9 mode this weekend on my TRV840, capture with Vegas 4, and then put it on DVD. I guess that I will have to use little bit different aproach with this cam for 16:9 thing. I can post my test results if your are interested.

Also, I don't know how your TRV530 handles 16:9 mode. If it just puts black bars at the top and bottom of the frame like TRV840 does, I guess you and I will have to encode AVI to MPEG2 using standard 4:3 DVD template in Vegas.

Regards.

[sturmie]

@kabanero

thanks for the reply. i would be very interested in ur results. i will capturing to raw AVI tonite (prolly in Vegas) and tomorrow b/c i have to give the camera back to my dad this weekend .

from what i could tell, the 16:9 mode for TRV530 expands the shot somewhat, but not too much. it doesn't, however, just seem to put the black bars in though...it does a little widening.


thanks...sturmie

[kabanero]

sturmie,

According to your info, it looks like TRV530 handles 16:9 mode the same way as TRV103: expands the shot somewhat, does a little widening, doesn't seem to just put the black bars.

[sturmie]

well, the capture went great!

got 50 mins of video into a 12.5gb AVI w/ 0 dropped frames ...the "stuttering" that i mentioned before doesn't happen during the capture - it only seems to happen in Vegas during the previewing of the video.

now all i need to do, is learn how to use the Vegas software ...i need to chop up the AVI and cut out some of the boring stuff before i render the MPEG2.

thanks...sturmie