DVD Newbie with a couple of questions - digital 8 camcorder to DVD-R

[tbirddmnd]

Hello, before I ask my questions I'd like to say this is an incredible forum and I'm learning a lot. There seem to be a lot of great folks here who give advice and help solve problems. I did some reading prior to joining and afterward as well, and I did several searches trying to find answers before I asked.

I am planning on going forward and delving into the wonderful world of making my own DVDs from my Sony Digital 8mm videotapes. I have quite a few sitting waiting for me to do something with them. In the past I would create SuperBeta HiFi videos from them by connecting the audio out of the camcorder to a DJ mixer. Also to the mixer I would connect the outs of a CD and MiniDisc player containing background production library music (I'm a collector and have tons of it). The audio out of the mixer would then go to the Video 3 input of my Sony ES AV receiver, and the camcorder's video out went directly there too. Pop a blank Beta tape into the deck and hit record, press play on the camcorder and start the music, all the while riding gain on the audio via the mixer and starting a new music selection when the previous one ended to make for non-stop background music. I wouldn't need to do any editing since all the footage was going to be used anyway and I was the camerman. All well and good and when the finished product is done I would make dubs from the Beta to VHS for those family members who didn't have Betas. Yes it was all done manually but a friend of mine suggested I try making DVDs of those camcorder tapes instead of Betas and VHS tapes.

I did some research over the past few months to almost a year and decided on a plan which would include:

1) stand-alone Sony RDR-HX715 DVD recorder (http://www.crutchfield.com/S-vFjGVjQKvlE/cgi-bin/Prodview.asp?g=69800&i=158HX715) with the 160 GB hard drive
2) Sony Vegas + DVD Production Suite (http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=967)

I currently have a DVD burner in my computer, the NEC ND-3500A capable of burning dual layer, along with DVD Shrink 3.2, DVDFab Decrypter, DVD Decrypter, and Nero 6. I also am fairly decent with Adobe Audition 1.5 also known as Cool Edit Pro 2.0 and I plan on using that to bring in the .cda, .wav, or .mp3 files of the audio I want to use for my DVDs. My weakest link however is the one thing that needs to be one of the most important elements; the computer. I have a 2001 Dell Pentium III 933 mHz with a 100 GB hard drive, running at 512 MB RAM, and Windows 2000 Professional. I want to upgrade to one of those Dell XPS600s but at the moment it's going to be a bit out of my reach so I need to settle for what I have.

Once I have the Sony 715 I would record the camcorder footage to a DVD-RW via the front-panel digital camcorder input (IEEE 1394) and then bring that DVD-RW to the computer. My first question is what format does that 715 record in? Would that Sony Vegas + DVD software recognize those video files or would I have to change the format from what the 715 records it as? Is it something simple as just "renaming" it from whatever it is to ".mpg" or "mpeg"? I wouldn't think that would work unless I'm wrong.

My other question is does the combination I've chosen of hardware and Sony Vegas software seem OK to go ahead with? I realize that the computer speed has something to do with it and it's going to take some time to burn. I chose the Sony Vegas software because I'm also pretty decent with Adobe Photoshop 8 CS and 9 CS2 and Vegas allows for import of my own menu title pages that I could create in it.

I'm sure I have other questions but I'll leave it here and thank all of you in advance for taking the time to read through and guide me! Like I wrote, I have the other software and can back-up my DVDs all I want, with no glitches, primarily I back up Disney DVDs for my girls that the in-laws have so they can watch at home. And I back up stuff for them as well. But I want to move ahead and explore the realm of actually creating my own DVDs to give out to family and friends, along with creating my own covers using Photoshop.

Thanks again!!

[mikeytown2]

Wow you got a huge list of things going on here... its hard to figure out where to start.

Question
Does your Sony Digital 8mm have a firewire (IEEE1394) port on it?

If it does why do you need the Sony RDR-HX715 DVD recorder? You could plug the Cam Directly into the computer. which would make this easier in my opinion. no need to rip mpeg2 back to avi, higher quality too.

I've done this using almost all Open Source (free) tools. This is how i did it.
1. Use Microsoft Movie Maker to grab DV file from the cam via firewire card
2. Grab Audio from avi file with Virtual Dub
3. Edit Audio with Audacity
4. Edit Video in Movie Maker
5. Save Movie Maker File as DV
6. Use AVISynth to do any special Things that Movie Maker cant do (also used to feed the MPEG2 Encoder)
7. Encode MPEG2 File with QuEnc (i would try HC now) (check odd or even field for your cam)
8. Make DVD Menu with DVDStyler (get the latest beta) and GIMP
9. Burn DVD with Nero 5.5

I did this all in one night with encode times included and it took about 10 hrs first try, which is not that bad... your original analog way is very fast, because its all real time for the most part, once your done playing the video your done editing. When you go to DVD the quality is better, but it takes a lot longer.

I would recommend spending your money on another HD. When you format the new HD make sure to set the NTFS cluster size to 64k instead of 4k for speed. I have 2 80's on a raid 0 (4k cluster) and a 160 (64k cluster). They are just about the same speed because of the cluster size, just something to think about.

Good Luck
-Mike

[tbirddmnd]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for replying.

Yes, my camcorder does have the IEEE1394 port on the side of it, I have the Sony DCR-TRV720 that I bought in 2000.

The reason I want the Sony RDR-HX715 DVD recorder is to replace my SuperBeta Hi-Fi so I could record programs off the air onto the hard drive and then decide later if I want to make DVDs from them. I should have mentioned that at the beginning. My SuperBeta is my primary VCR and I have tons of tapes made through the years which I would also like to make DVDs out of. At home I have cable and Dish Network (the Dish Latino package) so I have a great variety of programming.

I still don't know how the 715 records; are the files MPEG-2 or VOB or another format? Do I need to do any conversion to them when I insert the DVD into my computer? If so, how do I do that or do I even need to do that? I'm guessing that whatever files they turn out to be the Vegas Video program would recognize them as they are, being a high-end application. I don't have the 715 or the software yet, I plan on picking them up around the end of March into mid-April.

Thanks!

[mikeytown2]

I'm guessing that it encodes it into mpeg2, which makes since, but on the dvd it will give you a VOB. VOB and mpeg2 are pretty much the same, seeing how you need a mpeg2 file to make a VOB and from a VOB you can get a mpeg2 file.

As for conversion, the 715 will give you DVD disks, which means it will contain VOB's. So you can look at a program that will extract the dvd and process the video, something like AutoGK. I my self like to do it the manual way which is using avisynth with DGIndex and DGDecode. After this step you should be able to edit the video with just about any program.

Yeah it kinda sucks doesn't it? In short if you can skip the 715 in this entire process it would be a lot easier, at least for home videos yet to be edited. As for the ones that are all ready edited and for TV stuff, if you want to edit the video further on your computer you would have to...
1. get the DVD that the 715 gave you and rip it to your computer
2. Edit it using Vegas
3. Burn

If vegas can't handle vob as input then you have to jump through some hoops, which can take time.

In short, if Vegas Video does it all, then DVD or DV as input shouldn't be that hard. if Vegas doesn't do DVD, then DV (avi) would be the easiest by far to play with in an editing program. I don't know anything about Vegas so i can only help you so much.
-Mike