Sony TVR17 question

[Terry]

I am capturing through a siig firewire/dv card to a 933mhz pent111 with 512mb ram to a dedicated harddrive. I have captured utilizing ulead 6.0, adobe premier 6.? and mgi version unknown. I can't seem to get a good capture in any format. If I even go full screen on the avi file, I get a fuzzy, blocky, pixilated picture.

If I try to encode to mpeg1 or 2, it seems to get alittle worse. I even captured from the Sony to my Sony laptop utilizing the ilink and the playback on the laptop is not good.

I have played the tape directly to the tv set, and bingo, a perfect picture. Therefore I have eliminated the heads in the camcorder as being the problem. I had a friend give me a ripped svcd of behind enemy lines, and it plays on my computer with perfect clarity.

Does anybody have any suggestions as to what is wrong with this picture?

[jtor]

...I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's just that, your PC monitor is not the best output device for such task.

You might want to try to play the video from your software's timeline, while your camcorder is still connected to the firewire port. That way, your
'almost' sending the AVI back to tape (of course, without recording on your camcorder). Also, connect your camcorder's video out to a TV, and view it from there. You should see a perfect picture. If it doesn't, reply to this post, and provide info on the picture details.

As for the encoded files (MPEG1 or 2), try burning them as VCD/SVCD, and see the result using a standalone DVD player and TV.

Viewing the transferred video on a laptop will not give you a better/clearer picture.

[Terry]

I will try playing the timeline while still connected to the camcorder. Thanks.

I have burned both vcd and svcd and the picture is bad played through the standalone dvd player to the tv set.

Again, playing the tape directly to the tv gives me a perfect picture.

I am thinking something is losing quality through the dv/card. I understand that my encoded or finished product will be no better than the avi I start with on the harddrive. I am also wondering if I am losing something by saving to a different harddrive than the editing software is on?

[jtor]

The purpose of the firewire card is to 'transfer' the video from camcorder to PC.

Did you drop frames when you transferred the video? Yes, go ahead and try saving to a dedicated harddrive. I thought you mentioned that already in your original post; but I never thought that you also have your editing software residing in the same drive. Honestly, I'm not sure if that'll help significantly. I used to do all this stuff on a system with only 1 harddrive, and I never had any problems.

Also check if your harddrive has DMA enabled.

How did you encode to MPEG1/2? Did you use TMPGENC? That's the favorite encoder here, and it produces good quality video. I've been using only the standard VCD templates since I switched to DV, and the quality is great.

hope this helps.

[Terry]

Currently I have the editing software on one drive and I capture and save everything to a second drive.

I have gone into system properties and neither drive has a DMA checkbox? I had not noticed that in the past.

Yes I have used TMPGENC to convert with no difference in quality output. I have used almost everything on the market to code to MPEG with no change in quality.

I am not sure how to check for dropped frames, I have seen nothing that jumps out to tell me I have?

Thanks for your interest in this. These little things drive me nuts. Everybody is claiming great quality and I can't seem to find it. My output is again, fuzzy around the edges, alittle blurry, and somwthat pixilated.