Tweet
Ok, I am no rookie at technology nor audio/video equipment. Bringing the two together, I understand the basics, but I'm far from being an expert. However, it seems that I am missing some things that I hope someone can clear up. Here is a list:
1. After fighting for weeks with a POS Dazzle DCS-200 device (actually, it was the software that was a POS), I returned it and purchased a Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 camcorder than can play back my Hi8XR video tapes. Currently, I'm trying to play back the Hi8 tapes and capture the video using just about any software, but right now I'm using Adobe Premier 6.0. The camcorder has both ports, firewire and USB2.0. Is there any difference in using the two when doing this type of conversion or actually capturing full Digital8 recordings? The unit only came with the USB cable, so I haven't picked up a firewire cable to try, yet. I would like to know the best way to capture both Digital8 and Hi8 video using the camcorder.
2. It appears that the camcorder only outputs to AVI files, which are extremely large, then it can convert them to MPG, but the system locks up if they are too large (or I'm not patient enough). 5-10 minutes was about 2GB. Is there any way to capture this directly to MPEG?
3. The quality is horrendous compared to the tape. I was hoping to get this converted to DVD with minimal quality loss. Is this quality loss normal? I do not want broadcast or VHS quality--I would like to maintain as close as possible the Hi8 quality of the original recording. I have tried using TMPGEnc and it smooths/blurs the image a little to help remove the graininess, but the quality simply sucks compared to the original played back from the camcorder.
4. What are all the settings in the codecs for? I understand the basics, fps, bit-rate, etc, but is there a recommended codec for most things that would eventually end up on DVD? If I use the firewire port, does this remove all the settings that I have to screw with in the codecs? If so, can I use the firewire when capturing the old Hi8 video?
It just seems that I have done tons and tons of research and there is too much information out there that really does not specifically say, "Do this, this, and this and your videos will look good." I know it will take quite some time to get the hang of tweaking it, but I just don't see why it should be so hard from the outset to get half-way decent video. Is this crap just not mature enough to work good or what?
I should probably mention that my PC is a P4 3.0GHz 8MHz FSB, 1GB RAM, 73GB 10k rpm SCSI hard drive. Are there settings that I should enable or disable on my system, such as Hyper-Threading or Video Hardware Accelleration?
1. After fighting for weeks with a POS Dazzle DCS-200 device (actually, it was the software that was a POS), I returned it and purchased a Sony DCR-TRV350 Digital8 camcorder than can play back my Hi8XR video tapes. Currently, I'm trying to play back the Hi8 tapes and capture the video using just about any software, but right now I'm using Adobe Premier 6.0. The camcorder has both ports, firewire and USB2.0. Is there any difference in using the two when doing this type of conversion or actually capturing full Digital8 recordings? The unit only came with the USB cable, so I haven't picked up a firewire cable to try, yet. I would like to know the best way to capture both Digital8 and Hi8 video using the camcorder.
2. It appears that the camcorder only outputs to AVI files, which are extremely large, then it can convert them to MPG, but the system locks up if they are too large (or I'm not patient enough). 5-10 minutes was about 2GB. Is there any way to capture this directly to MPEG?
3. The quality is horrendous compared to the tape. I was hoping to get this converted to DVD with minimal quality loss. Is this quality loss normal? I do not want broadcast or VHS quality--I would like to maintain as close as possible the Hi8 quality of the original recording. I have tried using TMPGEnc and it smooths/blurs the image a little to help remove the graininess, but the quality simply sucks compared to the original played back from the camcorder.
4. What are all the settings in the codecs for? I understand the basics, fps, bit-rate, etc, but is there a recommended codec for most things that would eventually end up on DVD? If I use the firewire port, does this remove all the settings that I have to screw with in the codecs? If so, can I use the firewire when capturing the old Hi8 video?
It just seems that I have done tons and tons of research and there is too much information out there that really does not specifically say, "Do this, this, and this and your videos will look good." I know it will take quite some time to get the hang of tweaking it, but I just don't see why it should be so hard from the outset to get half-way decent video. Is this crap just not mature enough to work good or what?
I should probably mention that my PC is a P4 3.0GHz 8MHz FSB, 1GB RAM, 73GB 10k rpm SCSI hard drive. Are there settings that I should enable or disable on my system, such as Hyper-Threading or Video Hardware Accelleration?
Comment