Problems with DV video

[Staz]

Hey

I used a DV CAM for the first time ever last night.
I took some excellent footage and I think I got it onto my computer Ok.

I used Ulead videostudio 7 to capture the video to DV format. The first time I did it I captured to DV type 1 and the 2nd time to DV type 2. That seemed to work and I have the .avi files sitting on my pc. Was this an OK way to capture from the DV cam or are there better ways? I have to return the DV Cam tomorrow so I need to be absolutely certain that I have the footage correctly captured to my computer!

When I open the DV type 2 files in virtualdub (I got errors with the DV type 1 video) the video is obviously interlaced. However when I just play the video in MPC the video does not look interlaced. Why is this?

I am wanting to encode these DV type 2 files to XVID format. I apply the latest "smartdeinterlace" filter which looks pretty good in the preview I guess. Another question is, what do all the doom9 pros use when deinterlacing DV content? I want the best quality I can get.

So Im compresing the DV file to XVID in virtualdub and choose "save as .avi" but unfortunately I come across some errors.

First Error: "Statsfile Not Found"

Second Error:

Cannot start video compression:

The operation is not supported.
(Error Code -1)

If anyone could help me to sort out this error that would be great!!

Thanks in advance

Staz

[Video Dude]

1 - Ulead is great program to capture DV in. You can select type-1 or type-2. (I think I remember reading about an update fix for type-2 on Ulead's site for an earlier version. I would assume the bug to be fixed in version 7). If using VirtualDub to convert to Xvid use type-2.

2 - VirtualDub gave you an error about the type-1 audio. To get audio either use type-2 or export a wav file from your type-1 using Ulead. Then open the wav in VirtualDub.
MPC is most likely using a playback deinterlace filter.

3 - There is no best, as it depends on the video. I guess smartdeinterlace would be good enough (but not as good as AviSynth with TDeint in my opinion).
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=82264

4 - Make sure you are selecting 1st pass vbr or cbr. If you select 2nd pass without doing the 1st pass you will have no stat file and thus the error.

[Staz]

Thanks very much for the reply =)
I will look into it tonight.

The video quality when MPC was playing the DV file was good but still looked a bit sketchy. Can I achieve better results when I use either smartdeinterlace or Tdeint?

There are lots of different options on the Smartdeinterlace filter. Is there a good guide/faq as to what they all mean? Or recommended settings?

Also I plan to make a good looking presentation out of my footage including credits, transitions etc. If I do this in Adobe Premiere or Videostudio, am I able to save the whole thing in DV format and use virtualdub to encode that final DV file?

Thanks
Staz

[ShawnFumo]

Staz, I find a great free program for capturing DV is WinDV. It can capture in Type 1 or 2. Does some nice stuff like split scenes and name files based on datecode and tells you if any frames got dropped.

I'm not sure which de-interlacer MPC uses, but it should probably look better with a dedicated de-interlacing filter.

De-interlacing is really confusing at first, but I've been doing some research lately. :) The best site for information that I've seen is here:
http://www.100fps.com/

I also talk about some of the options in this thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=91466

Now, that thread was focused on smoothness, but it depends on what you really are going for. If you don't mind XviD files with twice the normal framerate (and your computer can handle it), DGBob (in avisynth) and Smooth Deinterlacer (in virtualdub) give very nice results. However, it sounds like SangNom could be good also.

For a normal framerate, easy things are blending fields (gives smoothest motion but some ghosting) in areas of fast motion) or throwing out half the fields and interpolating (more sharpness but less fluid motion). There's also smart de-interlacers that combine those two options, but can be hard to set up correctly sometimes. However, it sounds like TomsMoComp may be the way to go, since it also uses motion compensation.

I assumed at first that TDeint was a normal smart de-interlacer, but it sounds like it is a smart bobber that could probably be better than DGBob and SangNom (since it uses motion compensation). Now I have to go off and try TDeint.. Thanks for mentioning it Video Dude. :)

This (http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtech/videogetb3a.html#mozTocId875829), gives a rundown of many of the avs filters.

Shawn