Experienced Capture Opinions, HELP needed

[msimon7]

Hello. I have ultimateTV (like Tivo) and i've basically run out of space and need some suggestions for capturing the video on my PC. I'm mostly concerned with getting the stuff off of my ultimateTV box and worry about burning it to DVD-R later.
I have a lot of capture software (gotta love the newsgroups), but not a lot of experience in video processing. I'm basically looking to save the video data on my PC at the highest possible quality and worry about down-sampling later to fit on DVD-R.
right now I have virtual dub (not having a lot of luck with that), video vegas 3, premiere 6.5, ATI MMC 7.7, power VCR II 3, ulead's dvd workshop & media studio, and pinnacle video studio.
can run it thru ATI's input connector cable (have AIW Pro 128) or thru my sony TRV20 camcorder for A/D conversion. which route is for connection is better?

please give me some suggestions if you wouldn't mind. I've read a lot on these forums/help pages and have tried using VirtualDub with not a lot of success, even with using huffy codec. get the comb affect and quality seems to really drop. really would appreciate some suggestions to get me started. I realize the final file creation will be where most of time will be spent, but for now i'm just looking to get it saved on the PC with at least the same quality as the source.
thank you very much! marc

[fmctm1sw]

I'll assume that thing you mention is some kind of sat tv box. I use virtual vcr and have windows 2k like you. It allows me to cap at 720x480 which, I am assuming, is the resolution you want. If you are going to play it back on your computer, deinterlacing is a must IMHO. You can deinterlace with virtualdub. As for quality, using the S video connector is the best bet (I'm unfamiliar with that card so I don't know if you have one or not). I'm no expert, but I hope that's a start.

[apinkel]

I capture from my UTV to my PC thru an AIW Radeon and burn to DVD-R. I use MMC and capture dvd compliant mpeg2 at 720x480 VBR at 7-8mbs. I leave the file interlaced (the comb affect) since I'm going to burn to DVD later (the DVD spec expects interlaced video).

The interlacing comb effect is not signal degradation... that's the way the signal is broadcast. Search the site there should be links to some good explanations of interlacing and deinterlacing (as well as the related telecine and 3:2 pulldown processes). Usually the way this is handled is by deinterlacing at the time of viewing (i.e. progressive scan DVD players and TV's with line doublers).

There are two main sources of quality degradation during capture... one is the analog to digital conversion and the other is the compression of the video stream.

There's not much you can do about the analog to digital conversion on your card outside of getting a new one with better quality converters. I'm not that impressed with the converters on my AIW and I would imagine your card is no better.

For compression, if you want the best quality, Huffyuv is the best since it is lossless. As a very good alternative I'd recommend using the MJPEG codec at quality 18. File sizes will be roughly 9 gig per hour (vs 2gig for the mpeg2 files out of MMC). You should be able to use this codec with virtualdub and then recompress later.

I don't have the time to mess with recompression so I go right to mpeg2.

Al

[apinkel]

Oh, I forgot to mention.

If you want to watch an mpeg2 file on your pc without the comb effect, use a software dvd player as they will deinterlace the video. I don't think they will play avi files but you could check.

[msimon7]

thank you for the replies. going to try these tonight!
do you think using my camcorder for A/D conversion would work better than the AIW card? have not been impressed with my tests (but then again i'm sure i didn't have the best settings). I do have s-video in/out from my camcoder if that helps. do all capture apps recognize firewire usually?
newbie question>> are codecs only for AVI captures?
any advice on keeping the audio/video in sync?
thanks again for the help. there is a ton to learn (been reading up constantly), but it is going to be so worth it to make quality DVDs!!
take care, marc

[apinkel]

Your camcorder does adc as well as compression. It uses a DV codec for compression (which is very similar to mjpeg in terms of quality and file size), the files are around 13 gig/hr. I haven't tried using a Digital camcorder for capture but if you do, post your results... I'm very curious to hear what you find.

Of course if you want to burn to DVD you will have to compress/transcode to mpeg2...

Al

[msimon7]

wow didn't realize that the size would be that large. i'll try some things tonight and come back with some results (and probably more questions)
thanks again for the help!!

[xed]

apinkel is exactly right on all counts. I use a Digital 8 camcorder for analog capture. My experience might prove informative:
First, you are capturing the analog video signal with compression at about 5:1. The compression IS lossy, and employs a discrete cosine transform (each complete field consisting of 2 interlaced frames of the input picture is subjected to a Fast Fourier Transform, and the aimginary part of the FFT is then thrown away). This results in some characteristic video artifacts which are, fortunately, invisible on an analog TV set (but which might become visible if you play back the DV on a very high-bandwidth hi-def TV).
Most digital camcorders allow you to choose whether you will cpature the audio at 44.1 khz or 48 khz. This matters because if you want to burn your AVI file to a DVD, you'll want to record at 48 khz, while if you siwhs to burn your AVI file to a VCD you'll want to capture at 44.1 khz. (Of cousre you can always use a program like TMPGENC to strip out the audio as a .WAV file and then use some other program like Soudn Forge to sample-rate convert, but that's time-consuming. Easier to let the camcorder do it.)
By way of comparison, a typical DV camcorder uses 3.51 megaBYTES per second, which is roughly equivalent to 25 mbits/sec of digital video. That's almost 3 times as much information as the maximum setting permited by the MPEG-2 spec. So using a digital camcorder to capture analog video gives you extraordianrily high quality video, much igher quality than typical MPEG-2.
That's one advantage of using a camcorder to capture video. Another advatnage is the fact that almost all digital camcorders have digital time base correctors built in. As a practicla matter, this means that your analog video source can go completely haywire for a second and your digital camcorder will continue to capture it.
By contrast, ify ou use a DV capture card (even a very expensive one) in your computer, you must typically use a time base corrector twixt the analog video source and the DV cpature card. Excpetions: if you are capturing form a lserdisc, no problem; if you are capturing from a VHS VCR with its own built in TBC, no problem (a few VHS VCRs do have built-in TBCs), and of course if you are capturing duriectly from broadcast TV you will have no problems.
However, many of us want to capture from prerecorded VHS tapes we have stockpiled over the years, and recording from a VHS VCR into a DV capture card is dicey. Chances are your DV capture card will report an error condition and stop capturing after a few minutes (or perhaps only a few seconds) if you do NOT insert a TBC between the VHS VCR and the DV capture card.
So the advantages of using a DV amcorder to do video capture are: relatively cheap media (my Digital 8 tapes run about $2.25 per -- that $2.25 for around 13 gigis of video video storage. Compare with the prices on DVD-R blanks, or hard disks); extremely high quality video storage, about 3 times the bandwidth of DVD; and built-in TBC which allows you to capture analog video from just about any source with no problems.
The disadvantage of using a digital camcorder is that the heads tned to clog up with crud. Digital videotape uses a diferent and much higher coercivity than analog videotape in order to store so much info. This makes digital videotapes much moresensitivie to crud buildup on the digital camcorder's record/playback head.
One further disadvantage is that you are limited to an absolute maximum of 75 minutes of recording time. (If you use Digital 8 you can now buy a 150-minute 8mm videotape which allows you to record 75 minutes of digital 8 video.) However, if you use Win XP on a computer with a large hard disk, there is no theoretical limit to your recording time short of the capacity of the hard disk. I have heard of people capturing 6 or 8 hours of DV-quality video at a time with Win XP and a large enough hard drive.
As DVD-R blanks grow cheaper, the cost advantage so of a digital camcorder will disappear. Camcorder heads eventually wear out (as with all VCRs) so you will eventually have to repair or replace your digital camcorder. With a DV capture card you don't have to worry about the hardware physically wearing out.
Of course, with a DV cpature card you _do_ have to worry about the insane legislation which now aims to make illegal all DV capture cards and computer equipment which does not contain built-in copy protection. (Yeah, what if I shoot my own video on a digital camcorder and want to burn a DVD of it for a friend as well as myself? Illegal, apparently. Congratulations, congress, you've now made it a crime to make copies of DVDs of someone's wedding. Good thinking.)
However, with a DV capture card you _do_ have to worry about your computer and operating system becoming obsolete. Today's computer's stay operational and current for less than 2 years. This means that if you need a new motherboard that will work with your DV capture card in, say, 2006, you're outa luck. So if you buy a DV capture card, chances are it will only worth with last year's motherboards and next year's mottherboards. If you upgrade your computer aftrer that, throw that expensive DV capture card in the trash and buy another one.

[The village idiot]

The short suggestion. Buy a bunch of tapes for you digital camcorder. Then put the stuff you really want onto tape. Store the tapes somewhere cool and dry. Mess around with capturing until you find a way that works well for you. The tapes will always be there, and the quality of DV is very high. You can indeed get better quality than DV, but you will pay for that in file size. Putting stuff on tape allows you the time it will take to convert to mpeg and burn it to disk. There are a great number of capture devices, but few that are as easy as using DV.

[yg1968]

Msimon7,

I have the same choices as you. I can choose between an ATI AIW 128 card and a Sony TRV-25 camcorder (used with a firewire card). I have never gotten any good results with my ATI 128 card (I often had dropped frames or audio out of sync problems). In order to capture in mpeg-2 with my ATI AIW 128 card, I must lower the resolution and reduce the fps rate to about 15 fps (which is non-standard).

My captures with my camcorder have been much better. I never have audio sync or dropped frames issues with DV imported from my camcorder. I am assuming that your Sony camcorder has a passthrough feature since most Sony miniDV or digital8 camcorders have it (except the TRV-140). You can try both and see what you like best.

[msimon7]

thank you all for your replies. it seems like routing the stream thru the camcoder>firewire>pc is possible the best way to go.

yg1968, what do you use to capture your firewire streams with?

couple of questions, can i caputer from firewire to mpeg2?
even if not, what is a preferred recommended mpeg2 video editor? would like to have some of the "cleaning" capabilities that you can get from filters with VirtualDub.
thanks again, marc

[yg1968]

You can use Windows movie maker for capturing DV. There is also freewares such as DVIO and Amcap that are useful. Actually most programs can do this. However, some programs may not recognize your camcorder. In that case, use another program for capturing and import the DV file into your other program. No program is really better than the other since they all basically only import the file and wrap it into AVI DV file (usually as a type 1 DV AVI file) without modifications.

You are possibly better off by editing DV than mpeg-2. Some have recommended (the buggy) Pinnacle Studio or (the less buggy but more expensive) Vegas Video for editing DV. I haven't tried either ones. I use Dazzle DVD complete for almost everything but encoding (I prefer TMPGenc) but it has very limited editing tools (basically cutting).

I could be wrong but I think that an mpeg-2 firewire transfer to a computer is potentially possible from an mpeg-2 device but very few, if any, programs support it. I have heard that Pinnacle studio supports mpeg-2 transfers from a microMV camcorder (which records in mpeg-2) but I seriously doubt that it would work for any other mpeg-2 device.

I remember reading about people trying to hack their Tivo. I forget if they suceeded doing so but you may want to do a search on this.