8500 AIW Troubles

[auad14]

I am having difficulties capturing high res versions of video footage.

I just bought a Canon miniDV because I thought my input might need to be upgraded. I hope I didn't throw $400 in the trash. My setup does not have a firewire so I am having to go through my adapters for my 8500 AIW Radeon.

Do I need to get a firewire?
Is the 8500AIW Radeon my problem? The picture looks great when it is capturing but it looks awful when I play it back.

The 8500AIW Radeon has tons of settings for import? Should I be importing as DV, DVD or MPEG2?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to do a video for my daughter's soccer team and have spent more money than my wife wanted me to and more time than (well I know you guys spend tons of time on this stuff too).

THANKS.

[FOO]

1. The ATI default settings are bad.

2. You can't capture DV with it. ( Firewire cards are $15 BTW )

3. See if you can capture DVD at around 6000kbps . That should look good.
It should look as good as the preview.

[auad14]

Question. I am using Ulead 6 as my editor. I am bringing in the video using Ulead? Do the capture settings come from my 8500Radeon AIW card or from the Ulead settings.

I am about to get a firewire installed on my machine to get the videos in.

Question 2. I have read an informative link on the ulead 7
http://www.corporatemedianews.com/2003/10_oct/tutorials/jones_ueadtut1.htm

Should I purchase Ulead 7 and bring in the video this way with the new firewire?

[FOO]

I would try the capture stuff that came with the ATI. - MMC
I capture analog straight to DVD ready MPEG2 all the time.
It works well and saves the lengthy encoding step.

[Zetti]

First of all : Buy a $ 15 DV card.

If you have a DV camera and don't have a DV card, you'd need to do DV to Analog on the camera, then capture analog at the PC and convert to MPEG2, lossy process;

If your budget is high and you wanna take a serious look at video editing, buy a "high" priced Video editor like Premiere Pro, vegas 5 (!!) or Ulead Media Studio Pro, all in the range of $ 500 I think;
Then, be prepapred to buy guide books, etc; you'll need time to learn and will produce excelent stuff;

If you aren't into that, get Ulead Video Studio 7 (under $ 100 I think), which is a very stable software with great quality, you can indeed convert DV to MPEG2 on the fly with very good results;

If you capture analog with VS6, you can choose in this software the settings you desire, although as far as I know Ulead VS doesn't recognize popular codecs like HuffYUC and PICVIDEO if you use AVI. I generally capture MPEG2 on the fly with Ulead VS7;
I don't use and don't recomend MMC, it drops frames and is unstable (at least for me);

Good luck,

Zetti

[auad14]

I know this is basic stuff. Please be patient.

End Goal: High Quality Edited video footage with titles, transitions and music on a DVD.

From what I have read and how it would work best with my setup.

Please offer any thoughts or suggestions.

Process:
1. Canon mini DV footage to DV format via firewire connection and ATI 8500 Radeon software/hardware

2. video footage will be in DV format.

3. Edit in DV format using Ulead 7? I'm not willing to go to $500 range yet. Is Ulead 7 the best under 100 dollar option.

4. Can I use the Ulead 7 software to take me the rest of the way (MPEG2) to DVD? or do I need to explore the TMPGEnc world?

[Zetti]

I know this is basic stuff. Please be patient.

End Goal: High Quality Edited video footage with titles, transitions and music on a DVD.

From what I have read and how it would work best with my setup.

Please offer any thoughts or suggestions.

Process:
1. Canon mini DV footage to DV format via firewire connection and ATI 8500 Radeon software/hardware

2. video footage will be in DV format.

3. Edit in DV format using Ulead 7? I'm not willing to go to $500 range yet. Is Ulead 7 the best under 100 dollar option.

4. Can I use the Ulead 7 software to take me the rest of the way (MPEG2) to DVD? or do I need to explore the TMPGEnc world?

1 - You won't need your 8500 card for nothing, it's useless for you - be it a good new or not...
OK, you need a video card :P
If you capture as DV format using a Firewire card, you don't need a capture analog card like the 8500 AiW;

2 - You'll capture it as DV, but after making all the video editing, you'll need to convert it to MPEG2 compliant DVD format. VS7 makes it with very good quality in my opinion, lots of people say TMPGEnc is wonderful (specially for its two pass VBR ability), I agree with that, but I am very satisfied with the quality of the encoded DV to MPEG2 quality provided by VS7, so I don't care about TMPGEnc (I have it);
Once I have done my editing in VS7, I am already at it, so why should I go to another software ?

3 - Yes and yes. Of course there are other options, but I like VS7;

4- Yes, you don't need any other software, VS allows you to build DVD's with menus, but it's not an "advanced" tool though, OK for basic stuff;

Zetti

[Phantom Of The Opera]

Zetti:

Since you have both TmpgENc and VideoStudio7, can you comment on the relative strengths/weaknesses of the two for MPEG2 encoding of DV footage? Also, are you in a position to compare VS7 and TMpegDVDAuthor for DVD authoring?

Thanks.

[Zetti]

Zetti:

Since you have both TmpgENc and VideoStudio7, can you comment on the relative strengths/weaknesses of the two for MPEG2 encoding of DV footage? Also, are you in a position to compare VS7 and TMpegDVDAuthor for DVD authoring?

Thanks.

Well, first of all let me say that these tools serves for diferent purposes, TMPGEncPlus is basically a MPEG2 encoder - its main job is to convert AVI (DV or not) to MPEG2, it's NOT a video editor like VS7.
It does it very well, people like it specially due its dual-pass VBR capabilities. The sw first analyses the video, then on a LATER step it encodes it, "knowing" in advance what to do;

VS7 is basically an amateur Video editor, that has the "side" benefit of also converting the final edited AVI movie to MPEG2 (no double pass though); and even burning it to DVD with menus if desirable; but with limited capabilities;

So, as it's a sort of "do it all" tool, VS7 isn't as powerful as dedicated tools for specific tasks;
I have dealed a bit with TMPGEncDVDAuthor, I haven't sticked to it cause I prefer more advanced authoring tools,

Anyway, I might say that TMPGEncDVDAuthor is more powerful than VS7 **for DVD authoring** as it's dedicated ONLY for that,
It indeed converts the audio to AC3 if you buy an annoying plug-in that will "talk" to Pegasys server every 15 minutes to check if you're a honest guy - eg, if your serial is legal. I don't like that and definitely won't use that.

What I do :

Capture DV and edit in VS7, then ENCODE it to MPEG2 in VS7 and save the already MPEG2 compliant file at my HD;
Then, I import it into another authoring software (dedicated ONLY for that), and go on.....

So, for me, basically that's it : both sw's are good, but as they serve for diferent goals, it's not "very" suitable to compare them;
An encoder afficcionado would definitely insist that TMPGEnc is better for the AVI to MPEG2 task, as it's dedicated only for that, but I might say I am satisfied with VS7 (more fast....) encoding job;

I think other opinons are welcome, you'll certainly hear people that disagree with me, well, we all have personal preferences;

Zetti

[Sam Ontario]

I would try the capture stuff that came with the ATI. - MMC
I capture analog straight to DVD ready MPEG2 all the time.
It works well and saves the lengthy encoding step.

Alternatively, as easiest will be buy a DVD recorder with DV input if you have no patience and time to learn (struggling will be a better word if you are not yet an expert in capturing with a PC) say 3months.

[jhill]

Doesn't the 8500 AIW have a firewire port on it? If it's the same AIW I have then it does, but I can't seem to capture dv through it either. I guess I will have to buy a different firewire card and try that.