S-Video vs DV

[danigon]

Hi all

I have a Pinnacle PCTV and a MiniDV Camcorder (Panasonic NV DS29) and I'm currently capturing my videos using S-Video. I'm thinking of buying a Pinnacle DV capture card. Which are the advantages of DV capture vs. S-video capture?

Thanks all

[bb]

Analogue capture through S-Video is a lossy and lengthy process (real-time only). Capturing DV through firewire is more like copying; you get DV stream from tape to HDD without any re-encoding and much faster. No quality loss during the capture phase.


bb

[dacow]

Actually, the only difference is the quality (at least for a user). The speed is the same isn't it? I don't know any way of "copying" data from DV camcoder via Firewire faster than the camera can play it.

--cya

[bb]

:eek: :scared: Oh, seems I forgot to re-boot my brain...
Of course you copy the data from your camcorder in realtime only, too. Although firewire would be able to transfer much faster, but the tape runs at realtime.
(Aren't there any camcorders out there that can do faster? Like double speed dubbing MC cassettes?)

bb

[danigon]

Thanks all for answering

I just bought the Firewire card and there's really a HUGE diference between analog and digital capture.

[dacow]

@bb: I guess there is no way of capturing faster than it can play since miniDV tape is a sequental media. Even if you could capture in fast forward mode you'd need a driver to slow down the captured material on PC

--cya

[bb]

@dacow:
Not true. DV is not captured like analogue TV, so capturing in double speed with the fps in the DV file still set to 25fps, the video would not play at double speed. How fast the video plays has nothing to do with the speed it was captured.

The only problem is that there are no double-speed DV drives available in camcorders. Firewire's transfer speed, HDD speed and PCI speed would allow for higher transfer rates, but unfortunately the tape drive in the camcorder won't deliver the speed. I guess it's nothing but a mechanical problem.

bb