Outputting the BEST quality Possible!

[c2p]

I just recently purchased a Sony miniDV camcorder and I am amazed at the quality it has when playing it back, but when capturing it, any type of output i have down is not the same quality as playback.

My goal is to have the same quality i see on the cam, on my pc.

I have tried different codecs, mainly MJPEG codecs but this defeats the purpose of quality due to once that is done, encoding to mpeg will lose quality.

I have just recently tried PowerVCR 2 and I am NOT impressed at all!

I was under the assumption that using a realtime encoder would provide the best results, but from what i have seen from this program, i change my assumption-

MPEG-1 profiles are complete garbage.

DV and DVD profiles are also garbage. They both pixelate.

The ONLY profile that did good was MPEG-2 Excellent profile at a CBR of 6000 kbps and 640x480.

The quality was better but not perfect. The main problem i have with this is the resolution, i will still need to recode it!

The DVD profile of 4000 kbps and 720x480 was useless.


Does anyone know any realtime encoders or possible any codecs I can use to get that lossless quality look at final output?

I run an NTFS system with over 400 Gb of available space so lossless quality due to space is not an issue. The only space problem i may see is i like to have at least 2 hrs of video on a dvd possible.

[communist]

First of all - how do you transfer footage from your DV cam to your computer? If its via capture card then you're already dropping quality there.
Use a IEEE1394 card (iLink / Firewire...) to transfer footage from your DV cam to your PC without any quality loss.
You will have a perfect copy of what was on your DV tape in avi files on your computer to work with. There is no encoing during this transfer - just a copying process (like DirectStreamCopy in VirtualDub).

Then comes the fact that you probably preview your DV cam stuff on a TV - which is the intended display type for watching interlaced content. For playback on PC you should either deinterlace *before* encoding or do real-time deinterlacing during decoding.

[c2p]

uncompressed avi copying...

Ok, the software i got came with direct copy to avi, i know it's uncompressed because in 8 minutes the file size reached 2.5gb!

Now, if i were to be copying over 40 minutes of video through 1 avi file, can an NTFS system or even just an encoder such as tmpgenc load an avi file that could potentially be 8-12 gb in size?

The software is Imagemixer i think is the name of it.

So, i use that to copy direct. I then deinterlace it. I didnt know i had to deinterlace because i never seen interlacing lines to begin with but thanks for the advice.

I can then use tmpgenc to encode to mpeg2 just like backing up a dvd manually and not lose that much quality i suppose.

Well, if thats right then cool man thanks.

[bb]

Originally posted by c2p
uncompressed avi copying...

Ok, the software i got came with direct copy to avi, i know it's uncompressed because in 8 minutes the file size reached 2.5gb!
That's weird, because that means a bitrate of more than 5 MB/s. Umcompressed AVI should yield ~20 MB/s, DV ~3.6 MB/s. Thus it's not uncompressed, but it doesn't seem to be DV either...

Originally posted by c2p
Now, if i were to be copying over 40 minutes of video through 1 avi file, can an NTFS system or even just an encoder such as tmpgenc load an avi file that could potentially be 8-12 gb in size?
Yes.

Originally posted by c2p
The software is Imagemixer i think is the name of it.

So, i use that to copy direct. I then deinterlace it. I didnt know i had to deinterlace because i never seen interlacing lines to begin with but thanks for the advice.
If you don't see interlaced lines (combing), then you either watch the video on an interlaced device (TV set), deinterlace during playback, or your video is progressive (unlikely).
You should not deinterlace if you want to create a DVD to be played back mainly on TV; better leave it interlaced then.

Originally posted by c2p
I can then use tmpgenc to encode to mpeg2 just like backing up a dvd manually and not lose that much quality i suppose.

Well, if thats right then cool man thanks.
Yes, with TMPGEnc DV encoding is quite easy. You may consider to use AviSynth frameserving to clean up the video, e.g. with noise filters.

bb

[communist]

Originally posted by c2p
uncompressed avi copying...

Ok, the software i got came with direct copy to avi, i know it's uncompressed because in 8 minutes the file size reached 2.5gb!

Its not uncompressed copying exactly ;)
Your DV stream on your DV tape is already compressed - with Firewire you can simply copy this stream into an avi file. As bb pointed out the data rate should be around 3,5 MB/s - 10 minutes ~ 2,1GB

Originally posted by c2p
So, i use that to copy direct. I then deinterlace it. I didnt know i had to deinterlace because i never seen interlacing lines to begin with but thanks for the advice.
Like bb said - either you have progressive material (very unlikely), you watched it on TV OR your capture chain involved a auto-deinterlacing. AFAIK PowerVCR does at least do some on-the-fly deinterlacing during capture. Also decoders (DV) tend to blend / weave (dont know the exact technical word) fields together during playback creating a bit blurry but 'progressive look'.

[c2p]

OK, I have a problem.

Pixela's ImageMixer has a file size limiter of 4 GB and will NOT exceed it. I have done searches and others are reporting the same thing. It says that the supposed AVI standard is not to exceed 4 GB therefore ImageMixer will not allow it either.

Do you know any programs that can take control of my cam via Firewire and copy the media over to avi for me that would not have this limit?

[communist]

http://windv.mourek.cz/
^^ This little tool in combination with a DV device (DV Camcorder / DV video recorder) that is connected to your PC via Firewire will allow you to copy the DV stream to your hard disk. If you use NTFS you will also be able to create files BIGGER than 4GB.

[bb]

This tool is listed besides DVIO in the "Links" stick thread. Both free capture tools will be integrated into the DV guide this weekend. I sent the guide supplement to Doom9 already.

bb

[communist]

OT: Hey bb you mention in your DV to DivX guide to use FhG or Radium for mp3 compression - arent these in most cases warezed versions? Maybe you can add a link to a LAME binary (including the acm version) which works good with VD / VDM and IMHO gives great quality :)

[bb]

FhG MP3 codecs are either free and limited for encoding, or they are licensed. I don't know about the Radium codec, though, but you're right: the LAME ACM codec is better for the purpose anyway, so I'll change that (give me some time).

Thanks for the hint.

bb