help me please :o)

[MrBassman]

I am a complete newbie, so please be gentle.

I am using Adobe's premiere 6 to capture through a DV camcorder, which is connected to my VCR. I have Pinnacles Studio 7 software, which came with my card, but I can only get it to capture from tape and not using the AV->throughput of my camcorder, (go figure!)

So now I have a 4GB DV-AVI file that I want to play with, but I am having trouble finding the best solution for converting the source into mpg.------I can't seem to get Cinema Craft Lite working properly, but I am currently playing with the Panasonic plug-in ---- I read a way to use TMPGEnc to encode using a "frame server", but even when its up and running I'm told "frame server may be down". (I'm not 100% sure everyting is setup correctly, but I haven't seen another setup explanation to check with.)

I would like to output to AVI/MPG for use with my pc, VCD for use with my DVD player and I would also like to experiment with recording DVD-R's with my Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-RAM recorder.

Any help, or pointers, would be greatfully received. (I need all the help I can get, as I keep putting off playing with video, because I get confused with the many different options).

[Mac Sidewinder]

I have been playing around with this very topic for quite some time now. I have a Sony digital camcorder and I use Studio 7 combined with DVD2SVCD and the results I get are pretty good to me. Here is my latest project, it was 58 mins of a military airshow. Lots of action (aircraft flybys) and some static panning. I use a single leg stand to help steady the shots (highly recommended).

1. Capture from camera via firewire and compose project (with transitions, titles, and special effects with studio 7.

2. Output project as avi file (using the DV codec). Since its uncompressed, no loss. The file was 12.5 gb.

3. Using DVD2SVCD with the following options:
- Left as interlaced (otherwise motion was somewhat jerky on tv)
- Audio sample @ 192k
- Sharpness @ .60
- Tem Smooth @ 2,1 (helps with closeups of people's faces without losing background detail. Seems to help also with ringing on some objects.
- Quality @ 22
- 4 pass encode with cce v2.5
- Selected to edit the avs
- Avg processing speed was .571
- Final filesize was 799mb

Here are some observations/questions I have:

1. The only prob I encountered with DVD2SVCD was after I edited the avs(more on this in a sec) and pressed save, then continue, CCE would hang. Never tried to write the script files at all. Tried it 3 time with same results. Finally tried recover in DVD2SVCD which resumed at the edit avs screen and then cce started normally. Last entry in log file after error would just show that the audio was completed and nothing about video at all. (Still haven't figured this one out)

2. The reason I edit the avs was to change the video size. If I would select 4:3, DVD2SVCD would crush the video vertically and add borders (but this was not indicated in the preview frame option, it looked correct) - if I selected 16:9, it would crush it twice as much and add bigger borders. So I edited the avs script to set the res to 480x480 and deleted the add borders statement.

3. I read in another thread that you could save bitrate by setting the res to 352x480 and the dvd player would resize automatically. I tried this and it seems to work fine with no adverse effects. Any reprocussions from doing this?

All in all the video looks great. It kind of suprised me that CCE actually took the 12.5 gb file and didn't choke on it. I'm not very experienced with using filters and can't seem to find much on the actual settings for each, or WHEN to use each. Most of the time you see posts like use this one or that one without explaining HOW to use them. I have visited Donald Graft's page but more of the same.

I used cce but DVD2SVCD also lets you use tmpg if you desire. If you want to try this prog, go to www.doom9.org and find it in the d/l section.


Mac

[mrbass]

thanks for posting those results.

http://212.88.77.140/Readme.txt

- Bug fix: Made some changes to the AVI resize algos. Seems to be more precise. (thx Gerti67)
perhaps the newer version will have better .avi resizing ability.

my avi guide is at dvd2svcd.org for miniDV. I try to stay away from as many filters as possible unless necessary although others would disagree profusely.

@mrbassman...are you my long lost brother?

[MrBassman]

No,, I'm a long suffering Bass player.......

Trying to get to grips with convertig from VHS is taking a lot more effort than I thought.......

[indicracker]

why don't u use some capure-card like ATI TV WONDER ??

works great for me

[DMWRIGHT]

Capture Card

"why don't u use some capure-card like ATI TV WONDER ?? "

How important is the capture card? I thought getting video on HD was the trick. What would a high-end card do that a cheaper one wouldn't ? I use low-budget IEEE that came with PC, seems to do it.

[MrBassman]

Exactly.

I get a wonderful 4GB file, (18mins or there abouts), of DV AVI, but am wanting to know the best way to convert the file.

Getting the best quality/size ratio is important, as is stopping the appearance of those black lines when something moves, (is this to do with "interlacing" ?, or the result of a bad mpeg encoder ?

Is a slightly blurry picture, (in full screen), a result of bad encoding, or a fact of life due to the poor quality of the source?

PS: What size is the PAL tv picture? When I capture with the DV camera the dimension are changed to 720x576 or whatever the DV format is.

Is the ratio the same as PAL, (4:3, I presume) ?

PPS: I imagine that if I searched for and read every article on the subject, I am sure I would find a the answers, unfortunately I have been working 7 days a week, (upto 90hrs ), for the last 15 months so I just can't get the time together to do the research.

I am crossing my fingers that some nice person , with some experience, will help me out, before I start editing etc.

Thanks for any suggestions.