Oja
5th April 2008, 15:35
I'm a video capture & DVD burning newbie, and am hoping for some advice. I have 70+ hours of family videos on MiniDV, Video8, VHS and Beta (all PAL) that I need to archive onto PC hard disks at the highest practical quality. I'd initially like to just capture it all onto PC with no editing, with my priority being capture quality, not file size. Later I'll do some very basic compilations, eg. all of one child's birthdays, which I'll keep on PC and burn to dual-layer DVDs.
Many of my tapes may only play once, or play worse if played again. A few years ago we had a fire and our home videos were slightly smoke affected, so I feel I'll only have one chance to get the best remaining playback quality. My questions are:
1) Are MiniDV videos recorded in DV format? If so, is capturing them to PC via Firewire a lossless copy? If not, is there a way to capture them without loss, eg. before the camera converts them to DV?
2) I can connect my Beta and VHS VCRs to my Sony Handycam, which I can connect to my PC via Firewire, for on-the-fly analogue-to-DV conversion. The Handycam will also play my Video8 tapes and output them as DV to PC. This sounds convenient but is there a practical way to capture better quality, without needing to play some of my tapes more than once?
3) If capturing DV via Firewire is the way to go, what settings should I use in Premiere Pro CS3 to maximise quality (file size is not an issue)? From the little I've understood so far, it seems I'd just select DV-PAL Standard (all my videos are 4:3) and 32kHz/12-bit or 48kHz/16-bit. I recorded some videos with 12-bit and some with 16-bit audio. Do I have to capture them separately? Are there other Premiere settings, or capture software, that will improve my captured/archived quality?
4) My priority is high-quality capture but ideally without making compile/editing and DVD-burning too hard later. I may also find that many of my videos have bad dropouts or colour fade, so I may later need to apply some image enhancements (but with so much footage, time will be an issue). Is there a way to either do some of that while capturing, or capture in a way that allows easier subsequent enhancing, or is that better done later as part of encoding for burning a DVD?
5) I don't think it's relevant to my initial archiving, but what is the lossless Lagarith codec used for? Also, for final burning to DVD would Xvid or H.264 give better quality for the same file size (assuming I stick to new DVD players that play these)?
I have a fast PC with 4GB RAM, 320GB boot/program drive and two other 750GB hard disks (they're down to A$166 each now, so I can get more if needed). For burning DVDs, I have a Sony VRD-MC3 stand-alone burner with a Firewire input and a High Quality record mode for 2 hrs of video on a dual layer DVD+R. Would this do a good job? I also have some Super8 cine films that I'd like to convert to digital. Can anyone recommend someone in South Australia I can take them to?
Sorry for such a long document, but once I started I thought more info may lead to more relevant comments, if anyone's interested or has had some similar experience? Thanks in advance for any tips or pointers!
Many of my tapes may only play once, or play worse if played again. A few years ago we had a fire and our home videos were slightly smoke affected, so I feel I'll only have one chance to get the best remaining playback quality. My questions are:
1) Are MiniDV videos recorded in DV format? If so, is capturing them to PC via Firewire a lossless copy? If not, is there a way to capture them without loss, eg. before the camera converts them to DV?
2) I can connect my Beta and VHS VCRs to my Sony Handycam, which I can connect to my PC via Firewire, for on-the-fly analogue-to-DV conversion. The Handycam will also play my Video8 tapes and output them as DV to PC. This sounds convenient but is there a practical way to capture better quality, without needing to play some of my tapes more than once?
3) If capturing DV via Firewire is the way to go, what settings should I use in Premiere Pro CS3 to maximise quality (file size is not an issue)? From the little I've understood so far, it seems I'd just select DV-PAL Standard (all my videos are 4:3) and 32kHz/12-bit or 48kHz/16-bit. I recorded some videos with 12-bit and some with 16-bit audio. Do I have to capture them separately? Are there other Premiere settings, or capture software, that will improve my captured/archived quality?
4) My priority is high-quality capture but ideally without making compile/editing and DVD-burning too hard later. I may also find that many of my videos have bad dropouts or colour fade, so I may later need to apply some image enhancements (but with so much footage, time will be an issue). Is there a way to either do some of that while capturing, or capture in a way that allows easier subsequent enhancing, or is that better done later as part of encoding for burning a DVD?
5) I don't think it's relevant to my initial archiving, but what is the lossless Lagarith codec used for? Also, for final burning to DVD would Xvid or H.264 give better quality for the same file size (assuming I stick to new DVD players that play these)?
I have a fast PC with 4GB RAM, 320GB boot/program drive and two other 750GB hard disks (they're down to A$166 each now, so I can get more if needed). For burning DVDs, I have a Sony VRD-MC3 stand-alone burner with a Firewire input and a High Quality record mode for 2 hrs of video on a dual layer DVD+R. Would this do a good job? I also have some Super8 cine films that I'd like to convert to digital. Can anyone recommend someone in South Australia I can take them to?
Sorry for such a long document, but once I started I thought more info may lead to more relevant comments, if anyone's interested or has had some similar experience? Thanks in advance for any tips or pointers!