How to Capture/Convert using Firewire from Canon-GL2

[shindsh]

Purchased a digital camcorder Canon-GL2 yesterday. http://www.canondv.com/gl2/index.html. I was recording a short clip using the 16:9 feature the camera. I am not sure, but I believe it records in Progressive 30 fps, NTSC.

Need to buy a 1394 cable 4Pin to 6 Pin? :confused: to connect to the computer.
But how is the recorded movie transferred to the computer. Do I have to capture it using yet another software and if so what is the good one.

Once the movie clip is on the computer, Is the picture MPEG2, and audio AC3, or is there conversion required. The reason I ask is that I used the Dazzle DVC100 for copying interlaced from an analog camcorder and the sound was in WAV.

My objective was to spend the least amount of time in transfering the digital movie on the camcorder to the hardisk (minor edititing + menu) and then burning to DVD. Do I still need an encoder like CCE?

Thanks for any help, and I hope I am in the right forum.

Regards,
Shree

[OvERaCiD23]

you will need a 1394 cable (4pin to 4/6pin, depending on the port on your computer). you will need software to capture/edit the video. I use Adobe Premiere, but it is quite expensive. the video captured is in DV format, and the audio is in WAV format. these will need to be converted to your liking to burn to DVD. you will need an MPEG2 encoder (CCE, $2000 though, so not your best choice).

there are lots of options for prgrams to capture/edit/burn/etc etc etc, and most of them are not cheap. Take a look at some of the DVD guides on the main doom9.org page, and read up. i don't convert to DVD so I can't be of much help on that subject, but i'm sure someone else will chime in on it.

[shindsh]

Thank you for the prompt reply.

I am familiar with CCE and have been using it for the last 6 months for backing up DVD's.

I am surprised that the audio comes in as WAV. I wonder what other surprises are in store for me, with the 16:9 recording.

I'll use the Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.5 and get the 1394 cable tomorrow. Will post my findings on capturing the video from the dv which is 16:9, NTSC and 16bit audio recording.

Regards,
Shree

[nFury8]

You might want to check this out for capturing:

http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html

[shindsh]

Got the cable and tried Adobe and ULead.

Adobe Premiere and ULead both capture the files in AVI. I like the Adobe 16:9 capture preview.

The problem I have is that a 10 minute clip is in AVI format is about 1GB and the dv-avi video quality in Media Player is not all that great. So rendering the avi via CCE is not going to make it any better because the DV-AVI itself is not that clear (I think). The audio is perfect.

How can I capture as MPEG2? Do I need to buy a separate capture card with 1394 input? and if so which one is good for under $500?

Thanks,
Shree

[sh0dan]

The quality doesn't get better if you switch to MPEG2 - it'll actually get worse.
When you grab the DV-signal, you are making a 100% digital transfer from the tape in your recorder to the AVI file. So you get precisely what's on your tape. Converting this to an analog signal and recompressing it, will only make quality worse.

How is the image bad?

[shindsh]

Hi shodan, Thank you for the reply.

The problem was my mistake of judging based on watch the clip in Media Player and also viewing intermediate outputs on the computer. And like you mentioned I steered away from doing real-time compression with a hardware card.

As suggested by OverAcid23, I captured using Premiere 6.0 and loaded the AVI file in CCE with following Avisynth script.
1. AVIFileSource("E:\DVD\seanWideScreen.AVI")
2. FixBrokenChromaUpsampling()
CCE settings...
1. selected 16:9
2. CBR 6000
3. Image Quality Complex 0
4. Noise filter on and set around 16.
Placed the final output on DVD, and watched it on DVD-player and TV. The output is fine.

The following two parts did show problems :
1. Low lit areas of the recording was very grainy. I believe this is because I did not use a camcorder light. But was wondering if there was setting in Avisynth that could make it better.
2. When my son was running around me in circles, and I was turning to capture his footage, the scene is not good on final DVD. It looked a bit jerky on camera playback screen, but was exatterated on final DVD, with the lines around my son;(along edges of his profile). Any thoughts here. (could this be because I did not select progressive, zigzag etc on CCE??)

The following turned out OK/nice:
1. There was noise around moving objects I was recording (previewd in VirtualDub). This was compensated by setting the noise filter on in CCE. Is there a better way in Avisynth and if so , can you please give the syntax.
2. The 16:9 flags set correctly by camera.
3. Never figured out the progressive part, checked or unchecked in CCE produced the same.:confused:
4. The recoding under a lamp/lit areas was truly detailed and color contrasts were great. The output on a big screen tv looked professional.

I just bought the camcorder couple of days ago, and there may be other settings that I am missing on the camcorder (apart from getting a light). I think the ND filter on the camcorder records the color beautiful in low lit areas, but does not produce a fine detailed picture quality. The SONY VX-2000 does low-lit recording better according to some responses, but the color is better on the Canon GL-2.

So back to the Avisynth part, if you can give me a better alternate.

Thanks,
Shree

[sh0dan]

Regarding problem 1) ok/nice 1)

Try convolution3d - it is a really great filter for gently removing noise and still preserving detail.
As for the badly lit scenes it it quite normal for the camera to begin gaining a lot. The only way to help that is smoothing the signal - otherwise it'll be very hard for CCE to compress the result.

Convolution3d (http://hellninjacommando.com/con3d/) You should try some of the presets. A command like this:Convolution3d (preset="movieLQ") might help.

Also the built in "temporalsoften(2,4,8)" might help you.

You could also try
PeachSmoother (http://students.washington.edu/ldubb/computer/Read_Me_Peach_Smoother.htm). This along with temporalsoften and convolution worked miracles on some bad footage I had.

www.avisynth.org (http://www.avisynth.org) is your friend indeed! :)

I think the guru's in the CCE forum might be better at helping you with problem 2). I think you should go for 2 or 3-pass VBR - this will make it easier for CCE.
You very much need to figure out how to handle fields correctly - it'll make a massive difference in the visual quality.


My suggestion for a script:
avisource("vid.avi")
assumefieldbased()
separatefields()
even=selecteven()
odd=selectodd()
even=peachsmoother(even).convolution3d(preset="MovieHQ")
odd=peachsmoother(odd).convolution3d(preset="MovieHQ")
interleave(even,odd)
weave()

You could also try "even = temporalsoften(even,1,2,8).convolution3d(preset="MovieLQ")" or playing a bit more with the parameters.

Hope this helps - otherwise feel free to drop by the AviSynth forum - there even more competent people are waiting to help!

btw - I've fallen in love with your camera. Unfortunately it cannot be bought in the EU yet :(

[shindsh]

Tried for several hours with the script you had provided, but kept receiving errors in CCE while trying to load AVS. After much reading made following modifications in bold.

LoadPlugin("D:\Program Files\AviSynth2\Convolution3D.dll")
AVISource("E:\HOMEMOVIE\AdobeCapture1.avi").ConvertToYUY2()
#assumefieldbased()
#separatefields()
bob()
even=selecteven()
odd=selectodd()
even=temporalsoften(even,1,2,8).convolution3d(preset="movieHQ")
odd=temporalsoften(odd,1,2,8).convolution3d(preset="movieHQ")
interleave(even,odd)
weave()

The quality on a small piece of footage (previously the worst part where my son runs in circles) is truely amazing. Thanks a lot sh0dan. Also another minor change here is that the CCE settings are now Progressive, ZigZag and LinearQuantizer are set on.

However, the speed of encoding is very slow in CCE. About 60 minutes for a 10 min. footage. Is it because I did ConvertToYUY2 above. Else temporalsoften would complain - (Virtual Dub gave error as requires YUY2).

Any thoughts on increasing speed.

Thanks,
Shree

[bb]

You obviously prefer to go the progressive way, so you better do something like this:

LoadPlugin("D:\Program Files\AviSynth2\Convolution3D.dll")
LoadPlugin("D:\Program Files\AviSynth2\Decomb.dll")
AVISource("E:\HOMEMOVIE\AdobeCapture1.avi")
ConvertToYUY2()
FieldDeinterlace()
convolution3d(preset="movieHQ")

Leave Progressive, ZigZag and LinearQuantizer on in the CCE settings.

bb

[shindsh]

Thanks bb,
Used the script you provided. Video quality is good, and twice as fast than the earlier one I used.

Shree