Capture from a digital camcorder

[dansleethmovieman]

Ok nobody replied to my last message and it's probably because it was hard to work out, so here is another question: I have 25mins of footage on my DVcam and I want to put it on 1 CD (pref. into VCD). I have a capture-card and I want the video to be good quality, last time it came out it was 5.7GB. What software do I need to carpture it in good quality as well as alowing it to fit on 1 CD PLEASE PLEASE HELP!!

[Casavpa]

I think if you read the how to section on this site you will find your answer. Don't expect great quality from vcd.You may want to look at svcd or xvcd. 25 minutes should not be a problem. I have a sony dcr-trv8 and use a firewire card to capture to disk. Just make sure you convert your avi file if that is what you have from type 1 dv to type 2 dv if your avi file is not type 2 already. otherwise if you try to encode with tmpgenc your sound will have pops and crackles in it. I first convert my type 1 avi to type 2 and then using tmpgenc and the svcd template create a mpeg2 file to make a svcd. I also use toolame as my layer 1 type 2 audio encoder. I have tried to capture mpeg 2 with my ati all in wonder but the quality is poor. A 5 gig avi file will end up being a 500 MB mpeg 2 file. so one disk will handle it. I burned my first svcd today using nero and it worked perfectly.

[jtor]

You need to clarify a little here; you mentioned DVCAM, and Capture Card. Does that mean you're using a Capture Card (which is analog) to get the video to your PC, and the source is DVCAM? That shouldn't be the case, because for digital camcorders, FIREWIRE IS THE WAY TO GO.

Firewire will let you transfer it to your PC. And THERE REALLY IS NO SETTING TO GET BEST QUALITY, as it is fixed. This will give you a DV-AVI file, which is a big file (do the math on approx 3.6MB/sec of video), which you need to encode to MPEG1 or MPEG2, depending on what your goal as final output is. The favorite here is TMPGENC, and you can get this free in the TOOLS section.