DV capture problems - blocking

[SnoopyDad]

I recently shot miniDV video of a relatives wedding and in the process of 'capturing' it to DVD, while monitoring the video during transfer, I noticed severe blocking. Is this a playback issue with the tape head or a recording issue? Can it be cleaned up? The majority of the footage was indoor, low-light (reception) Capture is being done as pass-through thru the camera (Canon ZR-70), A/V line out (1/8" jack) to RCA inputs on the DVDR.

Would I have better results using firewire or usb from the camera directly to my computer?

Thanks in advance

[loster]

Normally you capture as DV using WINDV or similar to copy the video losslessly then encoding with a software mpeg-2 encoder. This needs a computer. It looks like you are feeding the analog output of the camera into a dvd recorder. At the very least attempt to use the s-video output and see if it looks better. If your dvd recorder has a firewire connection you might use that.

[davexnet]

If it's a DV camera you should use Firewire. Then you get the actual digital info from the tape as-is.

[jagabo]

Would I have better results using firewire or usb from the camera directly to my computer?

Yes. But if the recording on the tape is messed up, or the heads are dirty enough to mess up the retrieval of the data, you will still have problems.