Is the video capture quality of Quicktime inferior to that of iMovie/FCPX,

[videoconverter11]

Hi, I currently have a Sony handycam I am using to convert Hi-8 tapes into a digital file. I am having a ton of trouble with iMovie/FCPX having issues with my timecodes inside the tapes. Therefore, I have resorted to using Quicktime player as a video capture software by choosing "New Movie Recording" under the "File" menu. However, I am curious how the quality would compare to that of iMovie/FCPX if they actually worked for me. Additionally, how might this compare to a windows AVI type capture software? The video capture currently in Quicktime takes up a lot of memory, at the tune of 56 GB per 2 hour tape. Any comments would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!

[Cornucopia]

SD? HD? Model #?

I would have thought you were doing DV, until you mentioned 56GB/2hours (aka 28GB/hour). DV is ~13GB/hour (25+Mbps). Were it DV, your QT and your iMovie and your FCPX captures should have all been roughly the same (and would have been equivalent in bitrate and equal in quality to an AVI Type2 DV capture), but now I don't know what you're doing.

Use MediaInfo to give us more specifics on the file deets.

Scott

[videoconverter11]

So I am using this connection: Sony Handycam -> firewire 4-pin to firewire 9-pin -> firewire to thunderbolt (apple adapter) -> quicktime. Also, the tapes I am converting are not mini-DV but the larger hi-8 tapes. Would this make a difference? Thanks!

[Cornucopia]

Model#? Need more specifics than just "Handycam".

Hi-8 is analog. Are you referring to Digital 8 (equivalent of DV)?

Scott

[videoconverter11]

Hi, sorry for the confusion, my Handycam is the DCR-TRV310 NTSC. It says "Digital 8" on the front of my camcorder, but I am using it to play both Video 8 and Hi-8 tapes. Thanks!!

[Cornucopia]

Ok, so the "D8" digital stream that this camera produces through firewire is a STANDARD DV (aka miniDV, aka DVC) stream. Thus, it should be 13GB/hour. The fact that your are getting 28GB/hour is disconcerting. It means you are encoding to a format with a higher bitrate, but it also means you are Re-encoding (and thus losing quality) regardless of the fact of the higher bitrate.

Again, I ask: check the file with MediaInfo to see just what QT is saving it as. It could be you have options on how to save and that just happened to be your pick. I use QTPro mainly on the PC, and since the PC version doesn't usually allow video recording (IIRC), wouldn't be of much help to you, but I could walk you through it.

For DV material presented to iMovie, it should save as a raw (containerless) DV stream. It won't be encapsulated in a .MOV format, but the data of the stream should be the same. Being the raw format, it is NOT a "type2" stream, but more equivalent to a "type1" stream. That means it won't have separated/duplicated audio, and so it will be somewhat smaller, though the quality of both V+A will be the same regardless. Newer versions of iMovie have a preference for upconverting certain video camera inputs (usually to AIC, but occasionally to iFrame, etc), but for DV firewire capture, it should still default to a standard DV stream format.
FCP/FCS/FCX should all capture DV as a standard type2 Quicktime .MOV (identical to what Quicktime ought to be doing if it is possible to set it up correctly).

Scott

[videoconverter11]

Thank you for your response, really appreciate your help. I have used MediaInfo and the result is as follows:



Does this mean it is saving as mpeg?

[smrpix]

Since you're sending a DV stream you should capture DV. IIRC, QTX will not do this, so it transcodes to ProRes (which is what you have.) Use the latest QT 7.x instead. That being said, as Scott mentioned, DV is DV whether raw DV, DV-avi or DV-mov. Just slightly different packages, quality should be identical.

The problems you're having with iMovie and FCPX (and QTX) are likely related to Apple's vision for the future, which no longer includes DV.