Transfer Mini DVD to HD

[Mahlercougar]

I have been away from Encoding and DVD mastering for about a year now and Im afraid I might be a bit behind. I have been using Adobie Premiere 6.5 for Win 2000 (I now have XP) with a special program that would allow me to use the Main concept codec to transfer the video from the MINI DV to Adobe then to my HD (Raw video- uncompressed)

Since I feel that there have been significant changes made recently, Im more concerned with (at the moment) of transferring the video (MiniDV, VHS, Laser disk) to the HD (uncompressed) for storage until I can catch up with the new encoding and programs to master my footage.

Which is still the best method of transferring RAW footage to my HD (I have plenty of HD space) DO I still use Adobie Premiere 6.5? Are there better programs out there from just transferrign raw data over? DO I save it as an .AVI file? .dv file? I heard of a program called Fraps?(somethign like that) that lets you save videogame screen shots and video)

Im very picky about video quality and Ive even heard that the format i put it in (even if its uncompressed) can still have significant losses if I save it as a microsoft AVI file for example..

Any suggestions? Any help would be much appreciated

[Mahlercougar]

In the TITLE I put Transfer MINI *DVD* , I meant to put *Transfer MINI "DV"* not DVD. Sorry about that

[paglamon]

Best way to put Mini DV to hard disc is via a Firewire port and cable. Use WinDV as the transfer software.

[Mahlercougar]

Thanks.. I know "how" to do it. Ive been doing video transfer from my MINI dv Camcorder via firewire to my computer for quite some time now, my question was just that I want to know what *format* my "Uncompressed "video should be in before I encode.
.AVI or .DV, .DVI or.. is there another that I should use?
Ive just heard that even if you transfer directly to HD and use a MS avi format(even though its completely) uncompressed, that there are still losses and I want to know is it possible to do it.
I also want to transfer a LD as well.

Any help would be appreciated.

[paglamon]

Transfer via firewire will give you DV-AVI and this is the best format for editing.You can also try capturing using Huffyuv "Lossless" Codec as avi.

[Mahlercougar]

Thanks a bunch! Where can I get this Huffyluv lossless codec? or program?
Can I use it with Adobe Premeire 6.5?

[paglamon]

http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html

[Mahlercougar]

I found out how to "encode" with Huffyluv in the TMGPE program as an output..
Which program could I use that would allow me to Capture with Huffyluv as a lossless AVI? WOuld Adobe Premeire allow me? (I looked but I couldnt find out how to do it)

[paglamon]

I have not used AP. Ulead Video Studio can do it. But,I prefer Virtualdub.

[Mahlercougar]

Thank you so much for your help. I have not used Virtual dub before. How can I configure it so that I can use the Huffyluv lossless codec with it?

[paglamon]

Virtualdub/File/Capture avi.
Please visit the VD forums for more info.http://forums.virtualdub.org/

[Mahlercougar]

Thanks so much.. I think I prefer VD now . Not as much "Bloat" as AP..
Although It does Crash a bit, but Thats just a little down part.

[paglamon]

Glad I could lead someone to this fantastic piece of free program.

[Mahlercougar]

Yes.. I thank you so very much for that! My brother is a big user of VD and at the time I was a big AP person. But after I upgraded to Winxp(with its awesome driver DB) and using VD, Im a convert I love the features and I especially love the filters. I also figured out why I was dropping frames as well. I went into the settings and disabled one of the video monitoring settings which was 1 cause of Dropping frames. The other thing I noticed is that on my mini dv tape , whenever there is a break in the video and the time stamp resets back to 0:00.00 and another video starts. On playback in VD , the second video that started at time 0:00.00 would have the audio off by a bit and the video would be slow and choppy. The Solution was simple: when the end of a segment on the video happens, just End the capture. Set up another capture, rewind the DV to the second section and record the second video with another file, then APPEND the 2 videos together(They DO have to be the same settings or the video will not accept the 2 appended videos together into 1 file)