Best way to capture DV using a 1394 card??

[tjtoed]

I have a JVC DV camcorder and a 1394 firewire card on my PC. I would like to hear what you think is the best way to capture the video in order to author to DVD using DVD workshop.

This would be my ideal way:
1. capture via 1394 directly to MPEG-2 (DVD Workshop does this, but I am not too sure of the quality)
2. Ability to cut the whole capured video into seperate videos based on content
3. Import those videos into DVD Workshop and author a DVD.


This is what I am currently doing:
1. Capturing using 1394 into Windows Movie Maker 2
2. Editing, cutting, then saving out the seperate movies in .WMV
3. Encoding using TMPGenc to DVD ready MPEG-2
4. Authoring using DVD Workshop
5. Burn DVD with RecordNow Max.

Some thoughts or ideas would be appreciated...

Thanks

[The village idiot]

Honest truth..... Get edit studio from www.puremotion.com. Also get the mpegXS pluggin. Then use it to "capture"/edit, then covert with the pluggin. You will need at least one large hard drive 40GB+.

[dilligaf]

I capture to DV avi using video studio, then encode to mpeg2 using tmpgenc. I did try a direct mpeg capture, but it was far 'blockier' than the avi->mpeg method. You can use tmpenc to encode your avi into as many parts as you wish, then use the batch encode feature to do the lot overnight, then author with DVD Workshop.

[djmattyb]

tjtoed,

Your current step 2 needs to be changed. When you ouput your movies from Windows Movie Maker ouput them as DV AVI. When you output them as WMV you are compressing them, and then when you encode them in TMPGEnc you are compressing them again. You will get better quality if you avoid compressing the video multiple times.

[doug1937@hotmail.com]

I use Scenalyzer Live to capture in DV AVI format...it creates a separate file for each scene, which essentially does my editing/cutting/clipping for me. When it's done capturing I just pick the scenes I want to include and then author them to disc.

[tjtoed]

djmattyb - you were right. Saving out to DV-AVI, then converting to MPEG2 gives awesome quality...

Thanks.