DV Capturing Quality Problem!

[Beginer]

As a beginner I need some help and guide ness.
Let me describe the environment first:

Pentium 4 CPU 2.00 GHz with 768 MB DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro SP2
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600
Hauppauge WinTV PVR 350 PC II
NEC DVD RW ND-3500AG
SONY Mini DV – DCR-TRV30E - Transfer to PC via FireWire/1394
European PAL Standard - PAL DV
Vegas 5.0
PowerVCRII
ACE Mega Codecs Pack 6
TMPGEnc 2,5
WinDV
and more

And the problem:

Connecting my DV Cam using FireWire I can transfer the tape to PC.
I have tested different capture software and settings and still not happy with quality.
Generally the captured video picture is always more or less “angular” on most of objects like cars, signboard etc. The borderlines and edge on these objects seems to get checked
Vegas capturing seems to work little bit better then other software’s, but still not acceptable.

When playing the captured avi file on PC, I can identify different quality depending on which capturing software I have used and which player I use.

Here is an example:

Sequence that are captured via Vegas has better picture quality when playing in WMP then BSPlayer, while captured sequence via WinDV shows with better quality in BSPlayer then WMP. This with same capture settings.

I have searched on forums, and tested suggested ways of capturing, but no luck.
I’m little bit confused and feels that a guide for dummies is needed.

I need to know how to fix this quality loss, or a way to avoid it when transferring video to PC. Diffrent settings when capturing etc...

Appreciate any feedback.

[guns1inger]

If you are transferring via firewire, then quality should not be affected. Firewire transfer is effectively a file copy from the tape to your hard drive, and should be bit for bit identical. Once you get it to the PC there are several things that can effect quality though.

1. Windows Media Player default settings - by default, WMP is not set to show DV at full quality. To fix this, open WMP, then click on Tools, Options, then the Performance tab. In the Video Acceleration section, click on the advanced button. In the dialogue that appears, make sure the Digital Video slider is set to large (all the way to the right). This will make a large difference to WMP playback of your files.

2. PC monitors are Progressive. DV is (generally) Interlaced. This means you will probably see a combing effect on fast moving scenes. This is normal, and won't be as noticable on your TV. PC monitors are usually a lot crisper around the details that your TV, to artifacts like stepping will be more noticable.

I would suggest you do some reading up on DV and the various issues and pitfalls. A good place to start is here http://www.digitalfaq.com/