DV capture quality issue...

[narcyz]

HI,
Im having a quality issue when capturing from DV to AVI with Premiere 6.5. The picture is pixalated, it does not look as good as when i plug DV into TV.

Im feeding the DV thru firewire port into Premiere and outputing with latest Adobe MpegEncoder, and then with Workshop 2 onto dvds.
Also im using MainConcept codec when working in Premiere.

The question is: do i need to get a capturing card like Conopus instesd of having it going thru regular firewire port to get the better quality picture? or does this not matter?

Im using AMD 2600+ with ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (latest drivers), 7800 rpm harddrives.

Please advise,
Narcyz

[Thomas Anderson]

Well for starters you don't capture DV, you transfer it through firewire. You should try a simple program like WinDV or DVIO to transfer the AVI and then encode it however you like.

(This should be in the DV Forum too I think)

[narcyz]

tnx, for a fast reply.

So that means that WinDV or DVIO has better quality than Premiere with 'transfering' the data?

narcyz

[hexxisoft]

might be better. premiere eats up resources. the other programs don't. they're stand alone. premiere eating all of your resources could provide you with a crappy transfer (dropped frames.) i'd never feel comfortable using an NLE for firewire transfer.

[narcyz]

Tnx.
I have never experienced dropped frames with Premiere before, only issue was the quality... I was going crazy for weeks trying to figure out the problem... I tried different firewire cards and DV cables, no luck, i hope this WinDV or DVIO will solve my problems. Thnx a lot guys.

Narcyz

[bugster]

HI,
Im having a quality issue when capturing from DV to AVI with Premiere 6.5. The picture is pixalated, it does not look as good as when i plug DV into TV.

Im feeding the DV thru firewire port into Premiere and outputing with latest Adobe MpegEncoder, and then with Workshop 2 onto dvds.
Also im using MainConcept codec when working in Premiere.


Narcyz

At what point in the process does the picture become pixelated? Have you viewed the avi captured by Premiere without encoding it to mpeg 1st? It could be the encoder or settings used to encode that rea the problem.

[narcyz]

Yes, it is right after i get the footage in to Premiere, it becomes pixalated.
At the begining i was using Windows Dv codec but when i switched to MainConcept codec it helped a little bit, but still the quality isn't the same when compare to original DV onto TV screen.

[narcyz]

Does anybody of you think if i get capture card the quality will be better, or it won't matter, because they are only good for analog capture and real time editing?

narcyz

[BSR]

WinDV and DVIO should have the same exact quality as a capture through Premiere. This process is just a transfer.
Premiere could be doing something to the video to display it on the screen faster which makes it pixalated, but the source should be the same.

Try using Media Player to view the DV file that you captured on your hard drive to see how it compares to the video being displayed in Premiere.

Also remember that Computer monitors have much better resolution than TV's so pixelation will be more noticable. But when you encode your DV to DVD and play it on a TV, all should look fine.

Capture Card quality will not be better. Your source is already DV and a capture card will require more transfers between formats, DV -> Analog -> DV or HUFFYUV. The more format conversions = loss of information and loss of quality.

[trickyman]

DOnt bother with a capture card. Since youre transfuring from a digital camcorder and not from an analog (like VHS).
I make alot of home videos and follow a very similar procedure. I capture and edit using Premiere 6, then i render the movie an an AVI using the Microsoft DV codec (i think thats what it is called, i'm not in font of the computer is user for editing right now). Then i encode the resulting AVi to MPEG 2 using TMPGEnc. My quality is always excillent..

[narcyz]

Thank you guys for BIG HELP !

[narcyz]

One more question:
will it be better to export to Mpeg-2 (for dvd), from Premiere or any other software?

[BSR]

One more question:
will it be better to export to Mpeg-2 (for dvd), from Premiere or any other software?

I think this is personall preference.
I like TMPGEnc. Premiere has Mainconcept built in, and a lot of other users prefer CCE or procoder. All encode differently and all take various times to encode. Some blur more and some keep more sharpness. You will have to run you own tests to decide, but Mainconcept in Premiere is an excellent encoder. Don't disregard it because it came bundled in Premiere.

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