Samsung SDC-107 Camcorder. Better dvd quality question.

[mryeaidid]

I have a Samsung SCD-107 DV camcorder. Whenever I record on the mini dv tapes, and look at playback on either my camcorder or on a regular vhs tape, the quality is as good as regular tv! Basicly it looks very crisp, and some might not believe that I did the recording


Now I tried to step it up and notch and try to make dvds. The quality was so bad, that it was not even worth the dvd-r I placed it on!

What I did was tape it using the comcorder --> then I hooked up the usb connection to my computer and basicly what I get is file format is .ASF (windows). Now with this ASF format, I have to convert it to make a dvd and the quality is very poor. I would like to know what I would have to do to make a dvd as crisp as when I have it on the DV tape or even the vhs quality. Would I have to buy some type of expensive equipment to get this done?

*note: this camcorder even has a ieee 1394 connection, maybe that would make a bigger difference if i used this instead?

Thanks to everone that took the time to hear me out!

[Richard_G]

The mistake you re making is transferring using USB to .asf. The USB port on a camcorder is intended for low resolution, webcam type, video and stills. If you transfer the footage as DV.avi using the IEEE 1394 Firewire connection, you will get full frame video. Firewire is a file transfer rather than a capture, so the file on your computer will be identical to the file on your DV tape.

All you need do then is encode and author to DVD. Depending on the precise settings you use for whatever encoder you are using, the quality will be no different to watching straight from the camcorder.

[mryeaidid]

Hi Richard_G,

Thanks alot for the response! After looking at a few posts after i posted this, I kind of thought usb was my problem. After reading that everyone is transfering using firewire and not usb that kind of did it for me. Today I will go out and purchase a firewire card. Never thought I would need it. Thank you very much for your response!

When I bought my comcorder, it came with software called dvc media 5.1/Ulead photo express se, Do you of any software that is perfect to this done?

[Richard_G]

I'm not familiar (in fact, I've never heard of!) with dvc media 5.1 and Ulead Photo Express is for editing stills, not video. Your best bet to start off with, would be to download Windows Movie Maker 2 from the Microsoft website. There are plenty of other bits of software for transfering (such as WinDV) but try WMM2 to start with, it works for most. This will do the file transfer from camcorder to pc and any editing you want to do. Save the file (still as DV .avi) and then import that into whatever you use to encode and author to DVD.

[mryeaidid]

Thanks alot for your input Richard_G. Yesterday I went out, bought A firewire card, and I now see the big difference .