How to improve quality of DV capture to DVD

[HMFC]

I wonder whether anyone can help out a newbie.

Bought the family, OK me, a new Panasonic Digicam and have used it to tape the kids birthdays.

Got mysefd a Firewire port installed and software such as Pinnacle 8, Roxio 7. Problem I have is not in capturing the DV output its the quality.

At every step of the way the quality seems to deteriorate and by teh time I've encoded it through TMPENG v2.56.39 it looks like its been shot about 25000 leagues under teh sea!


Its grainy and fuzzy and not a patch on the original quality.

Please help - what am I doing wrong?

[MpegEncoder]

Please help - what am I doing wrong?

I would help if you would start by telling us what you're doing? Then, maybe we can tell you what you're doing wrong.

Is the original "captured" video clear? Etc.

[XL3/\/7]

Why do you use TMPGEnc afterwrds? Pinaccle 8 supports mpeg-2 capture and you can use it to capture, edit and burn your project. Why reencode with another program? Of course, IMO Studio is not the best way to capture from your DV and create a DVD but re-encoding makes things even worse.

[jimmalenko]

I "capture" VHS via an ADVC-100 connected through firewire. Essentially, we are doing the same thing from the firewire cable onwards. I use ScenaylzerLive to capture to AVI using the Canopus DV Codec, then convert to MPEG-2 with TMPGEnc Plus. You can tell it's VHS on the final product but it rivals the source so I'm sure you would get decent results with high quality source such as "raw" DV.

The most important part of achieving quality results will be your bitrate. Remember also that conversion = quality loss, so try to minimise the number of conversions you do.

[BJ_M]

the most importaint part of achiving quality with dv is to use a tripod and proper lighting ...

after that - it's gravy ...

[guns1inger]

BJ_M is a little more experienced than most, so let's assume that the horse has bolted, and the footage can't be reshot.

Copying the DV footage across to disk is a data transfer exercise, so you should no suffer any quality loss during this stage. If you are, then you have some fundamental problems that need to be addressed.

If you only do simple edits (no transitions, cross fades etc), then the edited version should not be recompressed when you save it out from Pinnacle, so again, you should not suffer any quality loss. If you have added cross fades etc, then these sections (and only these sections) will be re-encoded, and may, depending on the DV codec being used, be of different quality to the original.

Finally, encode it as mpeg-2 with TMPGEnc. This is where you need to be sure you have a few things right.

Fields - lower (bottom) or upper (top) first ? I know for PAL DV it is lower first, not sure for NTSC.

Bitrate - Variable Bit Rate (VBR) provides the best quality, but takes a lot longer. If I have an hour or less of footage, I usually use high 8000, low 4200, average 6000, and usually find the average ends up being around 5995 once the encoding is complete.

You can use Constant Bit Rate (CBR) encoding, however you run the risk of not allowing enough data for areas of fast movement, and these will suffer for it. CBR generally is much faster than VBR, so there is your trade off.

For more detail, check out the following guides
https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=566&howtoselect=4;10#566
https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=601&howtoselect=4;10#601

[mikesbytes]

If you did some work to clean up the picture, the encoder would have more bits available for encoding the stuff you want.
Suggest
1. reducing camera wobble. Pinnical (v9?) can do this, or you can use a deshaker filter with virtualdub.
2. removing noise, with one or more of the filters / utilities / options in your various software or virtualdub.

Getting quality from home video is a bit of black art. Learn lots and you will be happy with the result.

[HMFC]

I want to thank everyone who has replied with tips and hints.

I now need to take all of this away and digest it - don't suppose any of you live near Edinburgh, Scotland so yoiu could come round and help me out.

I'll make sure I have the beere in!!

Thanks again one and all

[lenti_75]

try Ulead Video Studio, and you'll see that is all you need.

it can capture, edit, and burn, easy, and the quality is great.

as long as, the bitrate is above 5000kb/s, the quality is the same.

[DVD_Ripper]

Xfering the Video via your firewire to your PC you loose no quality what so ever.

When you convert that massive AVI file to MPEG in preparation for DVD burning is where you quality will deteriorate. When they make 30 gig DVD's then we will all have phenomenal videos. But for now we need to convert that AVI ... As people have mentioned, use Ulead or Pinnacle products ... they are very user friendly

or

capture the video as MPEG as jimmalenko denoted. You can buy an analog capture device or use your Firewire port and convert on the fly to MPEG via Mediaconcepts MPEG Editor.

Best of luck... this forum will be able to provide great assistance.. .do take some time and read the various guides and tool feedback you will find to your left.

[guns1inger]

Unless disk space is at a premium, I would stay away from capturing as mpeg-2 for a couple of reasons.

1. mpeg-2 was not designed for editing. It is a final delivery codec (and a damn good one). You can get programs that will edit mpeg-2 footage, and MainConcept now have a plugin for Premiere Pro to do this as well, but usually it is more trouble than it is worth.

2. unless the encoding is done in hardware, the quality will be a lot less than what you would get going from DV to mpeg-2. PC's simply are not powerful enough to allow for a quality, multi-pass VBR encode in real-time.

3. a good DV codec (such as the Sony codec that ships with Vegas) can withstand multiple re-encodes with minimal degradation. You still want to avoid this wherever possible, but if you add transitions or even colour correction to a clip, you will have to go through a reencode at some point. Mpeg-2 is not as forgiving. You will find that it deteriorates much faster than DV when reencoding.

While a beer sounds good, Melbourne (Australia) is a little far to travel at the moment. Sorry.

[HMFC]

Thanks for all the help folks. I'm now capturing via Pinnacle 8 with all screensavers and virus checkers etc. switched off and unplugged from teheInternet.

I'm not buring to disc as Pinnacle 8 was burning in MPEG 2 and I couldn't play these on my standalone dVD.

I'm now capturing Via Pinnacle 8 and editing. Now instead of buring to disc I'm creating disc content but now burning to disc.

I'm then using Nero to burn through using teh VOB etc. files and these are playing a treat on teh standalone.

Hope thsi makes sense.

As Rabbie Burns said - If it first you don't succeed try try again'

Och aye the noo.