Converting Video8 analogue to DVD

[ozbrettdj]

I have a number of Vi8 tapes that I'd like to put on DVD. I have a WinFast DV2000 card to handle the input and I was thinking of using DVDlab to manage the DVD output. Any advice on the following would be appreciated

1) In what format should I record the tapes, DVD or uncompressed AVI etc?
2) Is there software that will automatically pick up the static gap between films rather than me having to go through frame by frame

Thanks

[lchiu7]

I have done a few Hi8 tapes but the process should be similar.

I also have a different video capture card but again it should not make much difference

1. Feed the output of the camcorder into your capture card (I use either a Hauppague WinTV PCI card) via s-video or sometimes a Pinnacle DC10+ card. I usually capture with iuvcr using MJPEG format with compression set to 19 which is almost as good as capturing uncompressed (if you do that, use huffyuv)

2. Open the video file with Virtualdub (the DC10+ captures in MJPEG format so I have to have a MJPEG codec installed to be able view it outside Pinnacle Studio - I use the PicVideo codec).

3. Edit out the blank areas (presumably this is what you term static gap?) which is pretty easy in VirtualDub. I have also used Pinnacle Studio 7 (there are later versions) and it tries to create a scene break each time there is a scene change. Presumably a blank area would count as a scene change so you could use that software to add only the scenes with pictures to the timeline and author that

4. Frameserve the output to your favorite MPEG encoder (I usually Mainconcept but Tempgenc is fine also but slower)

5. Author the video to DVD using your favorite software (DVDLab would be fine as would DVD Movie Factory, Adobe Encore etc.

Works fine for me

Larry

[edDV]

Another strategy,

8mm camcorders record from the CCD to tape with Y/C separated. You can preserve this Y/C separation to the A/D by using either:

1. A Hi8 camcorder playback into a S-Video cable to the capture card.

2. A Digital8 camcorder playback into a IEEE-1394 DV stream to the computer. At the computer you can record the stream to a DV-AVI file and edit in DV format (best quality result) or realtime MPeg2 encode from the DV stream if speed over quality is desired. Realtime MPeg2 encoding will require a fast computer (P4 2.4GHz or better).

For scene detection, try
http://www.scenalyzer.com/

use the "optical scene detection mode" for 8mm

[ozbrettdj]

Thanks guys, much appreciated