Poor capture quality. How can I fix it?

[Caprica7]

Hello:

I have a Panasonic PVGS189 SD miniDV camcorder and a Canon NTSC 2R65MC miniDV camcorder. I've been transfering video from them using a Pinnacle capture card with the AV capture port that came with it, and the Pinnacle Studio Plus 11 software.

The capture format is set to record to an avi file at full DV quality and I usually encode to an avi using MPEG compression with a resolution of 720x480 and 29.97 frames/sec.

For some reason the video quality always comes out poorly with a lot of noise. Should I be using a different capture/compression method? I can't seem to get a crisp, noise free picture quality.

Should I be transferring the data via the S Video or DV ports instead of the AV port?

[Case]

Could it be that the Pinnacle capture card is analog to digital? Try to avoid that with digital camcorders.

If you capture over FireWire/IEEE 1394/iLink, then the captured DV AVI file should be identical to what the DV camcorder recorded.

[Caprica7]

Well taking an educated guess, I imagine the AV out on the camcorder has a DAC and the Pinnacle port has a ADC so it's going from digital to analog to digital again.

Theoretically this should be a seamless process but I guess there is a lot of opportunity for error or noise introduction.

Unfortunately I just realized the firewire cables for the camcorders have 4 circuit connectors on each end and my computer only has 6 circuit ports. Do you know if I can obtain an adapter?

[jagabo]

Just get a proper 6 pin to 4 pin cable. For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F3N401-06-ICE-4-Pin-6-Pin-FireWire/dp/B00005NIMR/

An adapter will probably cost you just as much:
http://www.buy.com/prod/cable-showcase-30e3-01300-data-transfer-adapter/q/loc/111/214571924.html