Best way to capture DV from a Digital Camcoder?

[esabet]

Hello all;

From experience which is the best software (for best quality) for capturing DV from a Digital Camcoder via Firewire: VirtualDub or ScenalyzerLive. The intent is to dump onto DVD format for home viewing.

Also can you use different Codecs with ScenalyzerLive?

Thanks

[yg1968]

Virtualdub cannot capture DV but you can import a type 2 DV avi file to it. DVapp or DVIO (freewares) will allow you to capture a type 2 DV avi file.

Most programs capture in type 1 DV avi (for example, Windows Movie Maker). Your authoring software probably also captures in type 1 DV avi.

The quality will be identical (no matter what software that you use) as DV is only transferred through firewire and not truly "captured".

As far as codecs are concerned, you only need to install one DV codec. For example, I would suggest the Panasonic DV codec. The installed DV codec will only be used for type 2 DV files. Type 1 DV files will use the Directshow built-in Microsoft codec.

SceneAnalyser is useful for Windows 98 and ME users but if you are using Windows 2000 or XP, you don't really need it.

[esabet]

....SceneAnalyser is useful for Windows 98 and ME users but if you are using Windows 2000 or XP, you don't really need it.

By saying that SceneAnalyser is usefull with Win98 and ME is that because it breaks up to differnt scenes and, therefore, no size limitation? But thtat is part of the reason that i like SceneAnalyser: it automatically detecs differnt scenes and breaks it up for you. Is there another software that has the same ability?

Also thanks for the hint about VirtualDub! I did notice an error message when i tried to capture my DV with it.

It seems that you really know what you are talking about so allow me to ask you a few more questiosns (ofcourse by no mean do I intend to exclude others from posting theri suggestions, I have yet to see a more usefull forum than this ):

I use Adobe Premier to author/edit my clips and as for best quality, after authoring/editing, what format should I export my final avi, or in another words what codec should I use for exporting (MS DV Type 2 or Huuffyuv, etc.)?

This also brings me to this final question, I have heard that TMPGEnc is one of the best Video Encoders but then I understand that it cannot handle DV Type 2 files. Is there a workaround for that?

Thank you for your time(s) to reply in advance!

[yg1968]

I don't use Scene Analyser but under Windows XP and 2000 and provided your drive is formatted under NTFS, you have no size limitation, so breaking up the file is not as much of a concern.

If the file that you import in Premiere is DV, I would leave the file in DV. Using huffy would reduce the quality of the video in this case.

TMPGEnc does not officially support type 1 DV avi files (it only supports type 2 DV file). However, I manage to get TMPGenc 2.53 to recognize type 1 DV avi files. I believe that it is by setting the priority setting in TMPGEnc for directshow at a higher setting, for example, +4, you increase the chances of compatibility with type 1 DV files. The exact instructions to do this are the following:

In TMPGEnc, select:
Option >Environmental setting > VFAPI plug-in > Right click the "DirectShow Multi Media File Reader" > select higher priority, do this several times until its at the top with a value of 4.

[Rondo]

That's odd: I am obviously misunderstanding something as Ulead tells me that my AVIs captured from Sony Digital 8 are type 1, & I have no bother with encoding under TMPGenc at all. What am I missing

Chris

[yg1968]

If it works, you don't need to fix anything. I haven't had problems either but for others the directshow priority makes a difference.

[Nolonemo]

DV "capture" from a DVcam via firewire is a straight data transfer, there's no codec or encoding or transcoding or coversion or compression involved. You do need a codec to read the avi file once its transferred, of course.

Re Scenalyzer: It can detect scene changes in two ways: (1) by reading the timecode on the DV tape or (2) by detecting changes in the optical stream.

[mpb]

Hello all;

From experience which is the best software (for best quality) for capturing DV from a Digital Camcoder via Firewire: VirtualDub or ScenalyzerLive. The intent is to dump onto DVD format for home viewing.
Thanks

Neither. Just use DVIO (the download link is on this site). Freeware, works perfectly, simple and small.

If you're planning to edit the video, you could do a lot worse than Windows Movie Maker 2. It allows you to export DV as DV-AVI. (Everythign else, WMM makes you export as a crummy WMV file). Then you can crank up TMPGenc or main concept and encode to DVD-mpeg2.

[Faceman101]

Huffyuv would not decrease quality, it will only make a the file size huge.

If you use Adobe Premiere to edit, you can also use Premiere to capture. Personally I use Scenalyzer to capture and then I edit in Premiere. That is because I have FAT32 with XP.

Export your edits in DV and encode in TMPGEnc.

[yg1968]

I try avoiding converting from one codec to another as the conversion will most likely decrease the quality of your video (huffy isn't "trully" lossless since it does through out some information upon compression). In any event, there is certainly no advantage in going from DV to Huffy if you are starting out with a DV avi file. I think that you should stick with DV for your editing and then convert your DV to mpeg. You can also decide to export the DV back to your digital camcorder.