Capture to MPEG2 from DV-cam

[Bjurta]

I am wondering if its possible to capture directly from my camera to mpeg2 via firewire instead of beeing forced to first capture to AVI and then convert it to MPEG2. I know its baad if i want to edit my films and that a software avi to mpeg2 application make it better but i need to save time and diskspace

Thanks in advance

[Capmaster]

Nope. I don't believe that's possible.

I think you're stuck copying the DV via firewire and then encoding on the PC

[redwudz]

You can feed the DV stream directly to Mainconcept encoder and have it encode to MPEG-2 on the fly. You need a fairly fast computer and you will likely have to use the built-in buffer. The quality won't be as good as a stand alone encoder, but it's quicker.

[hexxisoft]

i do it with my ADVC-55 when some client comes to me and needs a rush job on something. the quality is ok, but its a bit system intensive on the computer i use. i use mainconcept. it works fine.

[MpegEncoder]

Software mpeg encoding is always a time/quality tradeoff. The longer you give the system to analyze the data, the better quality output it can produce (up to a point).

Real-time software mpeg encoding is EXTREMELY CPU intensive. That's why, when you want the best real-time mpeg encoding quality, you get a hardware solution.

[lechtin]

Ulead products such as DVD workshop and DVD Movie Factory can encode to MPEG2 as the DV stream is captured, but you'll need a really fast computer not to drop any frames.

[edDV]

See my response in this similar thread doing just that.
For the test I was realtime encoding a DV stream from a Canopus ADVC 100 connected to a cable box, but it would be the same using a DV camcorder.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=257977&highlight=

If this is important camcorder material, I would suggest the 2 step process for best quality.