Sony DV camcorder - capture guide?

[hoozdapimp]

Hi all,
I'm still stuck in the old days with a Digital8 Sony Camcorder, but very soon I will be getting a new Sony Mini-DV camera. I know it's possible for me to capture the DV using the iLink cable, but I was wondering if there was any good newbie guides for capturing/editing/converting to DVD. Even though I don't have the camera yet, I want to do some reading so that when I get the camera, I actually know what I'm doing! Basically I'm going to want to convert most of my material (the new material, not my hi8) to DVD so that I can archive my videos. Any links/guides/suggestions for which programs to use to capture, which DV codecs to use (and where to find them??) would be greatly appreciated! :)
Thanks!
Scott

[FredThompson]

NTSC or PAL? That makes a difference. Why do you think Digital8 is bad? The tapes are cheaper but it's bulkier. Other than that, so what? I can tell you from experience, DV tapes are better treated as film if you do anything in a dusty/dirty environment. If everything is pristine and a controlled environment, DV tapes are reusable. However, DV uses a higher density and is more prone to dust/glue damage.

I use the MainConcept codec. People have their own preferences. There's no truly accurate way to judge the different codecs as there is no baseline decoder to compare against. Well, maybe there is if you purchase a developer's license...

The most important things to know are that DV is bottom field first and most DV camcorders will only take luma in the TV-firendly range. The MainConcept and some other codecs will decode as a full range so be aware of that setting. NTSC DV is 4:1:1 so 1 chroma for 4 horizontal pixels. Reinterpolate411 and 411Helper help change that to 4:2:2 which is more firendly with MPEG2. See my recent post for NTSC scripts for use with DVD2SVCD to make MPEG2. I use ProCoder for quality, CCE for speed.

[hoozdapimp]

It will be NTSC...I don't think digital8 is bad, it's just that capturing from my camcorder is analog and therefore lossy...I will be copying to dvd from DV as soon as I make the tapes, so it shouldn't be a problem. thanks for the reply.

[FredThompson]

What? You've got a digital feed, don't you? Isn't that what the iLink cable does? Why spend the $ for miniDV?

[bb]

hoozdapimp, you said that you have a Digital8 camcorder, but your material is Hi8 (analogue). Sony introduced Digital8 to offer their customers a digital upgrade path: Digital8 uses the same tape cassette format as Hi8, so you can re-use the cassettes. Digital8 camcorders can read the analogue Hi8 and convert internally into DV (digital), which can be output to a firewire port (i.Link in Sony's terminology).

So if your camcorder really is a Digital8, not a Hi8, then upgrading to miniDV just reduces your cassette and camcorder sizes. Parameters like resolution, CCD chip quality, and lens quality decide whether you'll get better video or not. The DV format itself is the same for both, Digital8 and miniDV.

bb

[hoozdapimp]

sorry for the confusion...here's my exact situation...my current camcorder is broke and my uncle is able to return the one i have and get me a new one...he said it's also possible for me to get a different model so for $180 more, I figure it's worth it to have mini-dv right? It's smaller, lighter. Now here's my question, will it capture at a higher resolution than the digital8 or are they the same? I'm going to upgrade either way, just wondering if there is any difference at all.

[bb]

The DV resolution is always the same: 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC). But nowadays there are better CCD chips, having higher resolutions and better sensitivity. The higher resolution won't give you a higher video resolution (only photos), but the video quality is improved, as there are more CCD pixels to interpolate a DV pixel, and there's more room for the "steady cam" feature to operate.

bb

[hoozdapimp]

thanks for all the info!

now i just need to know where to go to get started so i can learn how to capture my dv from the camera? any links? (especially guides) :)
Scott

[FredThompson]

All you need is an appropriate firewire cable and software. You can find out some stuff here and also look in the links list I keep on Donald Graft's site. Also, look at the post I made recently in this forum containing the NTSC cleanup script for DV.