Help with DV capturing with fire wire

[Bede]

Guys I need your help!
I've tried to find answer for this, but I couldn't.
Most of you seem to be have a good experience with DV capturing.
I have a Sony DCR-TRV730 D8 camcorder. So far I just used it with TV and it had a really nice picture. Recently I put a Pinnacle FireWire card into my PC and tried to capture it. It worked, but the quality is far from what I have seen on TV. This capture should be better than TV because DV is better resolution. Is it right? So what can be the problem, is my cam or the card wrong?
I tried it with Pinnacle Studio DV 7 what came with the card, and I chose the full DV quality.
I have also tried a ULEAD DVD Workshop demo. It didn't even manage to capture, it said the bitrate was low=1500, what should be 1775-9950.
So what is it?
I hope not this is the best quality what a D8 can do.
If it works fine for you aren't you getting something similar like watching DVD?

Thanks

[ktnwin]

Why do you think that the captured video has poorer quality then what you seen on TV ?
Is this because of the quality of the video in the little preview window of Studio DV ?
If that is the case, ignore it.
You need to make sure that the number of dropped frames is as low as it could be. For me, it's always 1 (it dropped one frame at the start of capture).
To really verify the quality of the capture video, you need to double click on the .AVI file. WMP will play it.

[SingSing]

I got ulead 5 dv studio with the card. It has a auto detect feature.
start the program and run the dvcam, and ulead 5 figure out the format.

You may want to try it if there is a demo version of ulead dv studio.

[stimpleton]

you are not alone, i have a DCR-TRV 720E PAL SONY
I also used pinnacle studio to capture at full dv quality but the output as VCD and SVCD was c**p, i resorted to the make movie and chose to record back to my camcorder. the rendering time etc wasnt as bad as i thought and when played back on tv from camcorder the quality was as good as the original. i then recaptured the recorded movie back to pc from the camcorder and encoded for SVCD using TMPGenc, again quality was c**p, i now resort to using the template in the wizard folder DVD PAL
(mpeg1 325x288 25fps unlock the template and up the bitrate to 2500 and lower audio to 128. this gives a decent quality and also you can use ulead DVD movie factory to create chapters (new project / VCD / xvcd).
if anybody knows of a better way please help

[Bede]

I tried it again with the Ulead, the result was the same.
Now I also tried to play back the captured avi. When the zoom was 100 % it looked nice, but the size was pretty small, I have my monitor set up at 1024x800 something, and this window was like one quarter or less of the screen so it was like 240x something. When I blow it up to 200 % it became worse, at full screen with Power DVD it was terrible. If I clicked on the properties of the file it said it was 700x480. How can it be?
Any guess?
So it seems to be the information getting lost at the capture, or transfere, not at the conversion to MPEG.
Does anyone know how to check incoming format and bitrate?

Cheers

[Rich927]

My first question is, what did you record with your Camcorder that you are capturing? If it's a show you recorded from your tv or VCR to your Camcorder, it's going to have a resolution of around 240 LOR(lines of resolution). Digitizing it isn't going to change that. when you record a scene using your Camcorder as a Camera, it records at 400 or 500 LOR.
when you capture using firewire, the program you are using probably captures as an 720X480 .avi file. when you render to a .mpg VCD the resolution is 352X240 which is slightly less than the resolution you see on your TV. If you can, make SVCD's or DVD's. With a little tweaking, you can make the VDC's look better. If your original source is low resolution, it's going to stay low res no matter what you do. 240 LOR digitized to 500 LOR is still going to look and act like 240 LOR. Good software can help. What I've gone to, is if my source is VHS tape, I use a analog USB capture that captures 352X240 uncompressed .avi. If it is an digital source, I use firewire.

[Bede]

Thanks Rich,
It was a scene what I recorded as a camera, so it should have been the better res. But anyway if I capture something in avi format, and play it back, the 100 % shouldn't be 700x480, I mean in size? So if I have let's say 800x600 monitor res., it should be almost fullscreen. What is that you are getting,

Bede

[lightsaber]

I have the Sony TRV-730 and I use adobe premiere 6. It gives me no problem, and the quality is excelent.
Drop me a line

[Tommy]

you are not alone, i have a DCR-TRV 720E PAL SONY
I also used pinnacle studio to capture at full dv quality but the output as VCD and SVCD was c**p, i resorted to the make movie and chose to record back to my camcorder. the rendering time etc wasnt as bad as i thought and when played back on tv from camcorder the quality was as good as the original. i then recaptured the recorded movie back to pc from the camcorder and encoded for SVCD using TMPGenc, again quality was c**p, i now resort to using the template in the wizard folder DVD PAL
(mpeg1 325x288 25fps unlock the template and up the bitrate to 2500 and lower audio to 128. this gives a decent quality and also you can use ulead DVD movie factory to create chapters (new project / VCD / xvcd).
if anybody knows of a better way please help

Since you can export back to the camera and the quality is the same as the original, I would say its your SVCD conversion that needs work.

[FredThompson]

Keep in mind an analog TV screen acts very differently from a computer monitor. There is an inherent dejagging and smoothing that happens on a TV. The issue of resizing is also important as enlarging/reducing will frequently introduce corruption from rounding. Another thing to keep in mind is the expectation of crispness from a computer monitor. (Maybe I misread but that seemed to be the issue.) We accept lower quality from a TV display because it's what we're used to. We also expect a very high level of quality from computer displays.

[Feuerwehr]

Bede,

I have had Studio 7 since it came out and has worked flawlessly for both capturing and editing. It has never dropped a single frame, nor have I ever had any problem whatsoever with the program hanging up, audio getting out of sync, etc. For me at least Studio 7 is by far the best $100 editing program out there! If you copy your edited video back to your camera the quality will be 100% as good as your original. If you are trying to make VCD's or SVCD's beware; MPEG output from Studio is frankly lousy. Do yourself a favor and convert your edited output to AVI, the quality will be as good as your original. Take the edited AVI file and convert it with CCE or TempGEnc to MPEG, then burn your VCD or SVCD using your favorite burner. Nero works great, but so do lots of others.
I do not have a DVD burner so I can’t honestly comment on Studio’s DVD mpeg conversion, but I doubt that is comparable with CCD or TempGEnc.
I also use a Sony DV camera, and make a lot of home videos. Believe me, you can make really great quality SVCD’s using the above method, but the downside is that CCE and TempGEnc are very slow. I always start my encoding before I go to bed, and let the computer work overnight.
I have tried Videowave, and Ulead. They are about the same price range as Pinnacle, but for me at least they are not as versatile as Pinnacle for editing. Ulead does do a somewhat better job of MPEG conversion, but it still is not acceptable as far as I am concerned.

[FredThompson]

My first question is, what did you record with your Camcorder that you are capturing? If it's a show you recorded from your tv or VCR to your Camcorder, it's going to have a resolution of around 240 LOR(lines of resolution). Digitizing it isn't going to change that. when you record a scene using your Camcorder as a Camera, it records at 400 or 500 LOR.
when you capture using firewire, the program you are using probably captures as an 720X480 .avi file. when you render to a .mpg VCD the resolution is 352X240 which is slightly less than the resolution you see on your TV. If you can, make SVCD's or DVD's. With a little tweaking, you can make the VDC's look better. If your original source is low resolution, it's going to stay low res no matter what you do. 240 LOR digitized to 500 LOR is still going to look and act like 240 LOR. Good software can help. What I've gone to, is if my source is VHS tape, I use a analog USB capture that captures 352X240 uncompressed .avi. If it is an digital source, I use firewire.

Not exactly...

That Sony camcorder has pass-thru A->DV conversion.

Let's assume the source is a standard NTSC VCR input. That means 240 lines of INTERLACED video, 480 lines of actual resolution. Assuming the circuit in the Sony camcorders is any good (the vast majority of reviews say it stinks) it will grab all 480 lines and convert them to DV on the passthru. A similar situation exists for PAL VHS formats.

You seem to be confusing the CCD capabilities with passthru conversion. They share some circuitry in the camcorder but the "lens" portion of the camera has nothing to do with passthru conversion.

[stimpleton]

well i think i have the answer now, when encoding with TMPGenc, load the VCD or SCVD template of your choice, click on settings, advanced, and double click the DE-INTERLACE option, you can choose odd field or even field , its amazing how clear the picture becomes, you can preview the output by clicking file , preview. Now we dont get the de-interlace option in pinnacle studio or the ulead products. as before when finished editing i record back to the camcorder and then re capture, then encode using method above and then load the encoded file into ulead moviefactory to create chapters. Quality is excellent
enjoy. ps BEDE my email is broken but i did get your message but only now have the answer