Digital-8 -> MPEG-1/2 directly ?

[max2k]

Hi there:

New to DV and digital formats :)

I have lots of footage in Digital8( Sony's version of mixing DV and Hi8) - I can capture fine using firewire and Premiere - but it captures this as an AVI.

Is there a way to capture and encode ( using CCE or TMPGEnc ) on the fly so that I don't need the enormous space that the AVI needs ?
I don't mind if it takes time to do an encode.

My ultimate aim is to get (S)VCD out of the tapes - this is just casual video so I don't bother about making it a DVD.

Any tips - suggestions ???

Thanks folks :)

[bb]

I doubt that you can capture and convert to SVCD compliant MPEG-2 in realtime and get good quality video. You'd need to convert the audio to SVCD compliant MP2 at the same time, by the way (probably including up- or downsampling).

bb

[steve_g]

I use Studio 8 for capture of DV, and you can write to disk as mpeg2 "on the fly". However, you do need a lot of cpu speed to do this, and probably a separate disk, and still get dropped frames. But once you have the extra disk, you might as well capture as an avi and then encode!!

[max2k]

Thanks bb !!

So is the best way for me to get (s)vcd from my camcorder would be Firewire capture to AVI (using premiere ) and then use something like CCE to create a MPEG ?

Thanks so much for your help :)

[bb]

Yes. You may want to try the PluginPac Frameserver (mentioned in the 4/28 news, including download link) in order to omit the step of saving to a DV AVI file. You can use it to frameserve directly to CCE or TMPGEnc. You can skip this if you don't want to edit your captured DV file, of course.

Don't forget about the audio: You need to process it separately. I use BeSweet frontend to get my SVCD compliant MP2.

Another note: You may use DVD2SVCD's AVI2SVCD mode to automate the conversion.

bb

[max2k]

bb and all - thanks for the informative posts.

bb: you said that I need to process audio separately.

If I use the AVI2SVCD mode,( as u mentioned ) - does this take care of both Audio and Video for me ?
So I use premiere to save the AVI file and use the above to process it and get a compliant svcd ?

Thanks for being patient :)

[bb]

Originally posted by max2k
If I use the AVI2SVCD mode,( as u mentioned ) - does this take care of both Audio and Video for me ?
So I use premiere to save the AVI file and use the above to process it and get a compliant svcd ?
It should do it, but make sure you save as type-2 DV AVI. DVD2SVCD creates images ready to burn (inluding fancy stuff like CD change picture etc.).

Just try it!

bb