Should I use WinDV?

[tygger]

I have a minidv camcorder and tried using WinDV. Not sure if I did something wrong, but it split a 30 min tape into 2 different files.

I guess my first question is, is this normal? (for windv to automatically split the vid)

And secondly, is there a better program (free is good) than Windv?

Thanks

[stars]

Windv is one of the best and simplest program for capturing DV in the config you can set
how many frames it will capture...The program also splits the capture into segments containing
the different scens you have filmed with your camera...

If you just want a straight forward capture without the segments use DVio.
It works the same way but without the segments and preview window....

stars...

[Richard_G]

WinDV will split the file at timestamp changes if Discontinuity Threshold is set to anything other than 0 and if the Maximum file size has been left at the default. In the Config menu change Discontinuity Threshold to 0 and set the Maximum file size to 150000 and you'll transfer an hour as one file. See http://windv.mourek.cz/ for instructions on what the settings mean.

As for the second question, very simple answer, NO.

[tygger]

Thanks! I didnt know there was an option to do either or.

I know I set the threshold to 0, but didnt touch maximum file size... probably the reason why it split my video.

What are the advantages of spliting the video into different segments? Only thing I can think of is that it helps sort the film a bit, but when converting to mpeg2, it requires a little more work to add all the files to the program to convert.

Lastly, is DVIO better or just any equal option? If WinDV can do what DVIO can do, any reason to use it instead?

Thanks for you help!

[Jim44]

What are the advantages of spliting the video into different segments?

One reason would be either OS or editing app file size restrictions. For example, even if you have an NTFS partition (4GB file size limit), some editing apps may still be limited to handling 2GB files. WinDV makes it easy to set this up for whatever requirements you might need.

Joining the segments to make a single MPG2 for a DVD should be pretty easy - the encoder I happen to use (TMPGEnc Plus) has a setting to identify sequential files as a single movie. This can also be done via an AviSynth script.

Jim

[edDV]

DVIO is similar to WinDV but does not monitor the feed audio or video. Most prefer to monitor from the computer screen for confidence.

DVIO is mainly used for very old machines with limited CPU.

[Hal05154]

I've a question. I haven't messed too much with WinDV, but it does make HUGE FRIKIN FILES on my HD. I must have 10+ gigs for an hour of video. I've found a way to downsize (taking forever), but working out.

QUESTION: Can I config WinDV to record a smaller file, but with decent video and sound?

Thank you,

Hal

[gadgetguy]

QUESTION: Can I config WinDV to record a smaller file, but with decent video and sound?

No. WinDV does not record. It transfers the video/audio data in the same format as what is on the tape and places it into an avi container.

[dadrab]

QUESTION: Can I config WinDV to record a smaller file, but with decent video and sound?
Hal

You really don't want to alter the feed directly from the camera. That's uncompressed, lossless footage. To get a smaller size file, reencode the footage into your favorite format.

[edDV]

I've a question. I haven't messed too much with WinDV, but it does make HUGE FRIKIN FILES on my HD. I must have 10+ gigs for an hour of video. I've found a way to downsize (taking forever), but working out.

QUESTION: Can I config WinDV to record a smaller file, but with decent video and sound?

Thank you,

Hal

No not with WinDV. It takes a DV stream from the camcorder (off tape or live) and saves as a DV-AVI fille. There are MPeg2 or other encoders that will software encode a DV stream on the fly but that takes far more computer than your 600MHz CPU and 256MB memory. It will take >1.8GHz (>3GHz better) depending on the encoder. Quality will take a beating.

[JohnnyMalaria]

You could use Windows Media Encoder 9 which is free. It can take live DV from a camcorder and, in real-time, convert it to WMV format. You can fine tune the amount of compression and, hence, quality and file size. You can achieve similar quality to the original DV but at a much smaller file size. However, you really need a much faster computer (or do it off-line).

(Re an earlier comment, DV is compressed and lossy.)

[landstake]

Bump, is WinDV still good, the best option? Or is there something way better now? (I have Windows 7 64 bit...)

(I have MiniDV footage to put on a HDD)

[edDV]

Bump, is WinDV still good, the best option? Or is there something way better now? (I have Windows 7 64 bit...)

(I have MiniDV footage to put on a HDD)

Better for what?

WinDV gets your DV video to HDD with no loss.

Other programs can optical spllit scenes or do auto capture from an EDL.

[landstake]

Okay, so it's still good. I thought something else may have taken its place. What would be the advantage of the latter, "optical spllit scenes or do auto capture from an EDL"?

[landstake]

Oh, and would winDV work okay on Windows 7 64 bit? Thanks!

[edDV]

Okay, so it's still good. I thought something else may have taken its place. What would be the advantage of the latter, "optical spllit scenes or do auto capture from an EDL"?

WinDV and most other DV capture programs allow options to capture continuous video, manually start/stop capture or attempt to detect scene changes using time code discontinuity.

Programs like Scenalyzer add so-called optical scene detection. Say you record a TV show, the time code will be continuous. Scenealyzer looks for scene breaks by image analysis.
http://www.scenalyzer.com/

An edit decision list (EDL) is a list of scenes or clips with in and out time codes.
In production, it is common to receive a dubbed tape with time code overlayed in a window like this.



The editor makes edit decisions and enters the in/out time code into a list. The capture software will use that list to capture those clips from the original tape and ignore the rest.

[edDV]

Oh, and would winDV work okay on Windows 7 64 bit? Thanks!

It has been reported yes it does.

[spiderbaby]

In case anyone else is looking for an answer, I've recently used WinDV 1.2.3 on Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit to capture @18 hours of video with no issues whatsoever.

[redwudz]

I didn't see it mentioned, but DV AVI is about 13.5GB per hour of video. You need a fair amount of HDD space when doing the transfers. And it is compressed already, about 5:1, if I recall correctly. One of the big advantages of DV is very easy frame accurate editing. Much easier than more highly compressed formats like Divx, Xvid or H.264. (20:1 compression or higher.)

[lordsmurf]

The issue with Xvid/etc is the long GOP, not really the intraframe compression.