What to do?

[bluebus]

I have a hi 8mm camcorder right now and would like to transfer video to my computer to convert to mpeg2 and make dvd's. I also currently have a 3 year old wintv pci card that I have been using. The problem is the quality of the video is terrible when played on the computer. I have messed with using different programs, different drivers, and no matter what the quality is just plain bad.
Now what I'm wondering is do I buy a different capture card, or do I buy a minidv camcorder. I already have firewire port on my computer. I don't have any idea what to do. There are so many different minidv and digital 8 camcorder and just as many if not more capture cards that do a thousand different things. Could someone get me going in the right direction? Thanks.

[Guest]

> What to do?

Start by reading the forum rules, specifically rule 9.

[bluebus]

Thanks for the help! It's people like you that make people like me feel so welcome here. I guess I assumed that since my post was in the "capturing video" forum, everyone would assume the topic was "capturing video". Next time I guess I'll put "capturing video" in the subject line. Now I read the rules so is there any way you could sink down to my level and actually help me out instead making me feel like an ass for even posting.

[dar1us]

A DV Corder would be really cool, but it would be a lot cheaper to go with a new capture card, though if you want to future proof yourself (yeh...right) then spend the cash on a DV corder, If you do a lot of home movies... they are really worth it.

A Better title would have been - New DV CamCorder or Capture Card?

It is however a good idea to read the forum rules before posting. I guess neuron's message wasn't meant to come across so harshly/sharply, but instead just quickly.

Please abide by the rules, leads to less arguments and people whinging at each other.

[Swan]

Originally posted by bluebus
I have a hi 8mm camcorder right now and would like to transfer video to my computer to convert to mpeg2 and make dvd's.

What is your budget?
If you can splash out, I can highly recommend the Canopus ADVC-100 (or any of the other ADVC models, depending on your needs).
I have one and it's the best capturing device I've ever had. But it is a bit expensive.
BTW http://www.dvdrhelp.com/capturecards has a big data base of capture cards and it is full of user comments.

/Maria

[bluebus]

Well to be honest I didn't want to spend more than about $200 for a card and about $400 for a dvcam but I see now how expensive that stuff really is. Would the cheap minidv camcorders for about $400 like the JVC GR-D30US be any good. What's the difference between that one and the expensive ones. If it's just features I don't really care I'm looking more for quality. What about digital8. Are they any good? Still confused. Thanks.

[Jolard]

Before you spend a lot of money, I would recommend trying a few more things with your capture to improve your quality. I am capturing analog of 8mm as well, and spent a rediculous amount of time capturing until I was happy with the results. Your capture card may have an impact, but when you are using software capture (rather than hardware encoding on the fly) the card shouldn't really make all that much difference.

Here is what I have and use:

Geforce 2 Ti with VIVO (It does have s-Video in which I have found makes a huge difference)

VirtualDub for AVI capturing. This program seems to me to do the best job as far as quality goes. As for codecs while capturing, I was never happy unless I used no compression or Huffyuv. Whenever I used PicVideo MJPEG or any other capture codec I was not 100% happy. For the best quality/size compromise I always use Huffyuv now. I capture at 640*480, any higher didn't seem to make a difference for me. I am capturing NTSC.

Watch your frames dropped, as you want to make sure it doesn't get too high. I usually get 5 or 6 per 15 minutes of capture, which I find to be fine. If it is higher, the problem might be your hardrive speed.

Anyway, with those steps I usually get video I am very happy with. Then I encode using TEMPEnc, VBR 6000, and the result is damned close to the original video after I burn it to DVD.

I would play with VirtualDub before you spend more money. It might just be the tools you are using.

[bluebus]

Thanks I will give virtualdub a try. I don't lose any frames while capturing. I have an athlon xp 2100 and nforce2 mb with an 80gig 7200 rpm ata133 maxtor hd, so I'm not really worried about my hardware being able to keep up. One other question though. I have heard a lot of people mention about the huffyuv, as you did, but I don't have that option. Do I have to download it somewhere first? I'll look around a little and see if I can find it and if I do I'll mess around with that a little too. Since I have posted this originally, I have been playing around with virtual vcr and downloaded the btwincap drivers and I have gotten much better quality when capturing from tv but it still isn't that great when capturing from my camcorder. It seems like there are horizontal lines across the screen. I don't mean like big noticeable lines but I notice them. Maybe they would magically disappear when played back on a regular tv instead of my computer monitor. I will keep playing and post back the results.

[Jolard]

Huffyuv is easy to find online, simply do a google search for huffyuv download. There will be lots of options.

You will need to download it and then install it. The next time you open VirtualDub (maybe after reboot) you will see huffyuv as one of the options for Video Compression.

Good luck, let us know how it goes and if you find any other better solutions your contribution is welcome!