Capturing from Hi8 Tapes using ATI or Dazzle DVC 90 ~more info inside~

[samyrk]

Ok well, I finally have a new camcorder with its on hard drive, but my old camcorder recorded onto Hi8 tapes. SO which Capture card would be good to use? ATI Tv Wonder 200 PCI or Dazzle DVC 90. The final output will be mpeg. I have more questions but this is the bsic so lets get this answered first

[thecoalman]

Neither, Hauppage or DVD recorder for MPEG . If you don't have a lot you might want to check to see if your DVD cam has analog inout and just use that.

[SingSing]

If your intend to share and see these video on DVD players. Get a DVD recorder, that will let you plug either your DVcam or Hi8 into the recorder, and produce DVDs. There are no-point going back to solutions that are popular before DVD recorder.

[thecoalman]

There are no-point going back to solutions that are popular before DVD recorder.

That really depends on your needs, if you want to get it to disc with least amount effort by all means. If you want to do some minor editing a card like the Hauppage might be a better alternative cause you don't have to rip the disc. In the end though for restorative and/or major editing hands down winner is uncompressed or lighlty compressed like DV-AVI.

www.nepadigital.com/articles/analog-capture.php

[Nelson37]

Since you already have the cards, try them and see.

I'm an AIW guy myself, PC-based capture inherently offers a lot more control and options, IMO higher levels of quality can be practically obtained a compared to a DVD recorder.

The DVD recorder is much simpler to operate, however the cost factor is significant.

[samyrk]

Well, I haven't really gotten desirable quality with either is there any methods to get good quality using the ATI and capturing from an HI8 tape?

[Nelson37]

What capture methods have you used and in what way was the quality "undesirable"? Have you tried any other playback methods to get a feel for the quality of the original recording?

You can adjust color, brightness, contrast, tint which are usually unavailable for a standalone DVD recorder. You can specify bitrates in an infinite range, rather than just 3 or 4 predefined settings. You can record in AVI and then re-encode with multi-pass VBR, filtering, etc.

In order to advise where you need to go, I need to know where you have been.

[thecoalman]

You can try LordSumrfs page for directions for capturing with the ATI card. www.digitalfaq.com .

Too bad you didn't stop by here before purchasing your cam, many mini-DV cams have passthrough which will act as a capture card. Add to that mini-DV is leaps and bounds ahead of DVD cams.

[samyrk]

Well, what I first did was capture the video uncompressed, with adjusted brightness setting and contrast In Virtual-Dub. Then In Virtual Dub I opened it and put Huffy Compression and adjusted the framerate option to match the audio and video so they sync. Next I took the AVI into Vegas and rendered as AVI. I came out with crappy quality. I'm looking at the Directions seems like Im capturing in thee wrong dimensions. Hi8 tapes are supposed to be 352x480 according to this http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/intro.htm
Also I thought my new camcorder had the passthrough thing but it didnt, it record onto its 30 gb hard drive, so no mini-dv tapes for me!

[Nelson37]

What cable connection are you using? S-video preferable, then composite though this can vary with the output device.

Don't mess with the framerate. This should not be necessary, and if it is then it points to another problem.

Capturing uncompressed is probably leading to frames being dropped, hence the need to adjust framerate. Try capture with Huffy, that is what it is for.

Reduce compression cycles to absolute minimum. Each time you render, or re-compress, quality is lost.

Recommend capture with included MMC software.

Resolution information is incorrect. Source res is not relevant. Capture res IS. Capture at full D1, 720x480. check the results.

What exactly do you mean by "crappy quality". Dropped frames, blurry motion, blocks, and other items can be specifically addressed. There is no "remove the crappy button."

Have you checked quality of the original uncompressed capture file, and at each stage before the file is changed? Use same setup, change nothing except res to 720x480, examine original uncompressed capture file. Report specific findings.

[thecoalman]

Well, what I first did was capture the video uncompressed, with adjusted brightness setting and contrast In Virtual-Dub. Then In Virtual Dub I opened it and put Huffy Compression and adjusted the framerate option to match the audio and video so they sync.

Find a process that works and keep conversions to minimum, yours is fubarred. First capture directly to Huffy, you don't have to use uncompressed. Apply your filters in virtulabub or anything else you wish and export as Huffy. You cannot fix audio sync issue by adjusting the framerate unless you only intend on using these on computer. you need to either lengthen or shorten the audio track. preferably you want to to fix this so your captures are in sync to begin with or you'll be doing this for every tape you have. Covert your Huffy video to MPEG once and only once.

Directions seems like Im capturing in thee wrong dimensions. Hi8 tapes are supposed to be 352x480 according to this http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/capture/intro.htm

That is in reference to what hi-8 can produce, most information I have found says it can produce 400 lines of resolution so I would suggest you capture at 720x480 . You're not going to lose anything by using 720x480.

[Relayerman]

I have personally used ATI for years with no problems as it captures directly to MPEG-2 for my DVD needs. And I use the Hi8 tapes as well. I capture from camera playback into ATI All-in-wonder 8500DV and the MultiMedia Center software works fine. Don't know if the ATI card you mentioned has the same software or not, but does a great job. the DigitalFaq guide mentioned above was my first start when I started doing this and has proven to be the best guide for ATI captures.

As mentioned above the 760x480 capture is what you want, but set the bitrate according to the DigitalFaQ guides and you won't go wrong.

[samyrk]

Ok thanks, yea ATI Tv Wonder doesn't come with MMC, it comes with ATI Media catalyst, I do need any more help my local Tv station said they would it for me! Thanks for all your help!