Newb- capture help

[davidc2478]

Hey Guys, great forum!!
I have a question, and I apologize if it has been beat to death before!

I have a Sony MiniDV Camera (hc42) that is not HD and I have Sony Vegas. Does it make sense to capture in Vegas @24fps, edit my video like normal, and then Render @29.97fps? I have read that 24fps is more cinema-like. Or should I capture at 29.97fps, edit, then render down to 24?
What would be the "normal" or "correct" way? Please help!
I'm not a pro, but I would like my home videos and projects to look a step above the average Joe


Dave

[redwudz]

That camcorder appears to have a DV-AVI out FireWire port. You would hook that to the FireWire port on your computer and do a 1:1 transfer of the video from the DV tape directly to the hard drive on your computer. No settings or adjustments involved. I use WinDV for this, but other programs will give you exactly the same results.

DV is about 13GB and hour, so have plenty of hard drive space available. Once you get the DV to your hard drive, you can use the programs of your choice to work with it.

And welcome to our forums.

[davidc2478]

Hey thanks for the reply!

I've been using firewire to capture to a second HD. I noticed is was about 13 Gigs which is fine. I just wasn't sure if I should capture at a different framerate, or render at a different framerate. Basically I want a smooth cinematic feel to my videos ( or at least close to it)

[redwudz]

DV is what it is. Without re-encoding it will be the same format, specifications as the DV camcorder output. Once you get it to the computer, you can do further processing. 'Film look' has more to do with lighting and other pre-transfer and pre-editing stuff. But you can make quite a few changes during editing. You might also look into Enosoft DV Processor. It's freeware for personal use. Many adjustments possible during the DV transfer.

If you are familiar with VirtualDub, you can use hundreds of available filters, some with 'film look' possibilities: http://www.thedeemon.com/VirtualDubFilters/ and http://neuron2.net/ You would also need to install a DV codec. The Cedocida DV Codec works well. My guess is the 'film look' you are wanting may be achieved by muting the colors and softening the video a bit.

One post to look into: https://forum.videohelp.com/topic339899.html

If you plan to do this more often, I would also look into AVISynth to use with VirtualDub. It will speed up the processing and make use of more advanced techniques. A bit of a learning curve, but very fast and powerful.