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gromit Unregistered guest | John, I don't think twain is going to help with video capture. If you are trying to do this without spending money, and can't find the original software, try to find a friend who regularly buys PC Magazine (or similar). From time to time they have fully functional, free copies of Ulead Video Studio on the front cover CD (that is how I got mine). That will work fine for capturing video and doing basic editing. But you will almost certainly need to spend some $$ for the DVD authoring software, however. That would be the case even with XP I believe. Cheers. |
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dwegs Unregistered guest | BERNY (or anyone else who knows): I am wondering whether to spend the extra $ for an 800MbPS card vs a 400MbPS. Will this affect final quality or transfer time only? If everything is done corectly during transfer from DV tape to PC (via firewire), editing, and burning, what kind of quality loss should I expect from original tape? Thanks much! |
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gromit Unregistered guest | (Berny, excuse me) dwegs, today's DV cameras only transfer video to the PC in real time ("1x") which is equivalent to 25 Mbit/s. So even a 400 Mbit/s Firewire card gives you 8 times more speed than you need. Incidentally, 25 Mbit/s is about as fast as my PC/hard disk can go in any case. In the future, who knows what may be possible (DV cams transferring above real time, HD DV cams, etc), but I am expecting my 3 year old Firewire card (400 Mbit/s) to give me many years of service yet! To answer your other question, you can view the transfer from your video to the PC as being lossless. That means identical quality in real English. Likewise, editing where the finished product reamins .avi is lossless so far as quality is concerned. It's only when you start rendering, i.e. converting into different formats, that any quality change can be expected. The MPEG conversion for DVD is one such. The amount of degradation depends on the software package and the settings you use. I always use "highest quality" setting which still allows about an hour per single-layer DVD. Normally, I am happy with the resultant quality. In case you are wondering why conversion is necessary, it's because DVD MPEG files are much smaller than avi due to the inter-frame compression. If DVDs used native avi format, you would never fit a movie onto even a dual-layer disc. Some of the posts on this page may give you aditional information: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t247343.html Cheers. |
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sadperson Unregistered guest | ok, i have a problem. I am trying to get the video from my miniDV tape in my camcorder, to my computer. I have a firewire card and the correct cord. When i plug it in Windows Movie Maker recognizes it and stuff, then when i try to capture from the tape, it says that the device is not responding. What the hell does that mean!!!? the camera is on......ive read the manual.....the battery is charged.....firewire works for other stuff......some help me please!! PLEASE RESPOND IF YOU CAN HELP!! |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Sadperson, may I ask a few questions? 1) What type of DV camera are you using? 2) Is it just capture that is the problem? By this, I mean is it possible to control play, fast forward and rewind from the PC when you are NOT trying to capture? 3) What are the "other devices" that your firewire connection IS working for? 4) When Windows Movie maker recognises the camera, what information, if any, does it display? If this gets too detailed for a public bulletin board, include your email address in your reply and I'll try to help one-on-one. Cheers. |
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New member Username: H0anglan3003HanoiViet Nam Post Number: 1 Registered: Feb-05 | plz help me . my comp not connect to Canon ZR65 . where can i download driver Canon ZR 65 . I use Windows XP |
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sadman Unregistered guest | ok well im using a samsung SCD103/D105 camcorder. When it recognizes it, it just gives me a thing asking me what i wanna do next. so i clicked on capture video. then i go through a few steps and at one part it gives me the error thing. I dont think i have my camera on the right mode or something like that. The firewire works fine for like capturing live video such as webcam and stuff. HELP!! |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Sadman, as a start, you should make sure your camera is in playback mode and check that you can at least control playback through the firewire interface. Are you sure that you are using firewire for webcam? I thought USB was more common for that. Firewire is normally ONLY used for transferring DV, either from tape or for real time capture of DV quality video. Please confirm that you really are using firewire. I have located a website which indicates that SCD103 works OK with Movie maker (http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetailReview.do?pageno=2&oid=88609&order=D &com.broadvision.session.new=Yes&ct=0&BV_SessionID=@@@@1607417190.1108245511@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdhadddleidhgjcfngcfkmdffhdffh.0) but it might also be worth you downloading an evaluation copy of Ulead Video Studio (http://www.ulead.com/runme_ns.htm) and seeing how you get on with that |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Nquyen, what hardware and software are you trying to use to connect the camera to the PC? Also, are you trying to transfer DV? No specific drivers should be required for that. |
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sadman Unregistered guest | well to tell you the truth gromit, this is my first time doing this.....and i dont really know what im doing. but i just purchased a firewire card and put it in my computer and i have the correct cord. I dont think that the camera is in the right mode. Could you possibly walk me through the steps of transfering data from a DV tape to the computer via firewire? I am sorta confused, lol....and as i said, ive never done this before. once i get the video on my computer, then i can handle it from there, but im knew to firewire. When the camcorder was connected through firewire only, i was able to get to this screen where i could record live. but thats not what i want to do. Help if you can........and thanks for the responses. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Sadman, if your camera is connected OK via firewire, then you are 90% of the way there. Just make sure the camera is in "playback" mode (this will be a switch actually on the camera). Next, on your software, go to the "capture" screen if there is one. You should see a window that looks like a TV screen with video controls underneath or close by. Experiment controlling the video camera remotely from the PC. Once you have done this, the only additional thing you need to do is to hit the "record" or "cpature" button (probably red colour) to start the PC capturing the video that is coming in from the video camera. Let me know how far along this path you can get. It's pretty simple normally - exciting the first time, though! |
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Yati Unregistered guest | I am using SHARP camcoder and try to transfer the video from tape to VCD. I managed to transfer the video to my laptop and CD using WINDOW Movie Maker. My problem is I cannot play the VCD on my VCD player. I've found that the file created in the CD or laptop WINAMP format. Please advise. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Yati, can you get a copy of Nero including Nero Vision Express? That has a very nice wizard-driven interface for making VCDs. I tried it myself for the first time last week - success first time! If using Nero, just make sure whether you want menus or not. Older players may not cope. Cheers |
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Yati Unregistered guest | Since old VCD players may not cope if using Nero Vision Express, Is there any other software that can be used? What is the file ext. should be created in the cd? |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Yati, I myself have an "old" player that can't cope with menus - that's why I gave you the heads up. Inclusion or not of menus is a choice in Nero Vision Express. The nice thing about Nero Vision Express is that it automatically sets up the file structure, extensions, and encoding (MPEG-1) required for VCDs. If you take any standard VCD, you'll see it's not trivial. For your information, the correct file extension for the video file is .dat and it is located in a folder called "Mpegav". You may well find freeware out there that does all that, or pieces of it. I just referred to Nero because it includes everything in one easy-to-use package. Hope that helps. |
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Troy Martin Unregistered guest | Gromit, Ok I have come to the conclusion after many late nights that the poor quality on my DVD is due to the poor DV capture from windvd. I play the tape & picture looks fine I then capture the tape & play it back. Picture become a little blurred. I have searched high & low on windvd for a quality setting for capture & dont believe it has one. It tells me it will capture at 277KB per second. Is this good? Have tried capturing with nero but i get a lot of dropped frames & jamming. What I find hard is the fact that VHS is the best quality I can achieve. Does the software you use videowave3 have a quality setting. Cheers Troy |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Troy, I can tell you with 100% certainty that so long as you are not dropping frames during video capture, there is no possibility of the quality falling off a result of the capture process. There is no "quality" setting in Videowave. You should look at video capture on your PC as something more like file transfer, but just a bit more exciting because it happens at a fixed speed, in real time. The actual speed of DV video capture is about 25 Mbit/s, or 25000 kbit/s. Did you perhaps leave a zero off the number you quoted? If you are dropping frames during capture, then you need to look closely at your system to make sure it is capable of transferring DV in real time. How old is the PC? What is the processor speed? How much free space do you have on your hard disk? When did you last defragment it? A tip here: my PC (667 MHz) was completely incapable of transferring DV over Firewire without losing frames until I enabled DMA on the hard disks (DMA was an option installable via the system disks). Thereafter, it never missed a beat. Anybody with a new PC over 1.4 GHz should never have a problem, I think. If you think the software is part of your problem try downloading an evaluation copy of Ulead Videowave from http://www.ulead.com/runme_ns.htm. Capturing from your DV camera with this package is very easy. The bottom line is that the version you see on your PC screen when monitoring an external DV camera, and the .avi file you play back after capturing with zero frame loss should be identical. Any difference you see will be traceable to an attribute of the system you are using to view the video. By the way, are you producing a DVD that plays on any set-top box (i.e. an "authored" DVD with menus), or just burning the avi files to DVD as a data disk? Cheers. PS: sorry to hear about the late nights. I know how time-consuming this stuff is. |
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Troy Martin Unregistered guest | Gromit, My computer is only 4 years old so the processor should be at least 1.4. I only have 10 gig free space because my computer is only 20 gig. It has been defraged maybe 3 weeks ago when I got XP put on it. The windvd software produces DVD with menus. When I capture using the same program it automatically turns the file into a MPEG2 file. I will try downloading Ulead tonight. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Troy, Hmmm, my PC is only just over 4 years old yet is only 667 MHz. I'm running Windows 98SE, and although Firewire video capture is very reliable for me, I don't believe I have much headroom. Most independent reviewers believe that XP needs a much higher processor speed/memory than Win98 to run effectively. I certainly have no intention to change from Win98 until I get a new PC. It might be worth checking out your whole system spec, especially if you suspect you may be losing frames (cf your "nero" comment above). Good luck with Ulead. |
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Hazeleen Unregistered guest | I've tried to make a VCD last night using Nero Vision Express and play at my VCD player but there was only the first picture displayed like still picture. Then I tried using Nero Express followed the guide that provided by AHEAD Software and faced same problem. For your info I can play the movie using NERO in my pc before make the VCD. Please help..... |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Hazeleen, on the Nero Vision Express page where you add the videos to the VCD, you can see a button marked "More". Click on this to get additional configuration options. Uncheck the box marked "Create menu on disc" and I think that will fix your problem. By the way, this is the same message (with more detail) that I gave Yati a bit further up. Let me know how it goes. Cheers. |
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Hazeleen Unregistered guest | Hi Gromit, thanks for your help. The VCD now can run on my VCD player but I found that movie played faster than the original and the picture was not clear. Is this because I choose NTSC i/o PAL? Or is there any other step that I have to do to configure the picture? Thanks. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Hazeleen, an incorrect PAL/NTSC standard would certainly cause the symptoms you describe, or perhaps even worse ones! By the way, you don't mention whether your local video standard is NTSC ("Never Twice the Same Colour") or PAL ("Perfect At Last"). That's a European joke, by the way. I think that now we heave dealt with menus, PAL/NTSC selection is about the only thing left. Go to "More" >> "Video Options" and select the correct standard. If you don't know your local standard, use the drop-down list of countries for guidance. One other possibility I can think of is that your video camera and your TV use different standards, but that is very unlikely unless you bought one of them outside your normal country of residence. In that scenario, you'll need a converter. We can have a separate discussion on that if need be. Let me know if that helps. Cheers |
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Troy Martin Unregistered guest | Gromit, my computer is 1.41GHz. But I only have 128 ram. XP requires 256. This together with my hard drive having being 10 gig free is pushing my system to the limits. Anyway I think I have found a way to stop losing frames. Ulead proved to me that this was the problem. I use windows movie maker to capture, but turn off the preview screen & open the LCD on the camera to watch. This gives me a near prefect conversion to AVI. I then import that file into Windvd creator & burn it. This has given me a picture finally worth watching. Thanks for the help, I can finally get my head around minidv capture. Cheers. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Troy, this is indeed good news! Now that you have established that frame drop was your issue, it might be worth seeing if you can target one or two system enhancements to minimise or eliminate the problem altogether. The obvious ones I can think of are: 1) double your memory to 256 M. Memory is very cheap these days and you can quite easily (with caution, following instructions) fit it yourself. I'm surprised that the dealer who fitted XP for you didn't insist on a memory upgrade at the same time. 2) make sure that your hard disk is accessed via DMA. I also made a reference to this above. I once had a colleague who spent many thousands of dollars on a SCSI hard disk arrangement to avoid frame dropping, when all he needed to do was to spend 30 seconds running a system utility for DMA that was supplied with the system disks for his motherboard. I also spent 6 months unable to avoid frame drop until I figured this out. The other enhancement I did on my machine was to augment the original 20 G hard disk with a second, 40 G hard disk. That has given me a lot more flexibility, but I wish I had spent a bit more and got 80 G! Have fun making movies.... Cheers |
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Hazeleen Unregistered guest | Hi Gromit, Thanks for your help. I've change to my country with PAL setup and it's run fine. BTW, at certain picture it was not really sharp. Any advise? |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Hazeleen, yes, I have the perfect advice for you. Forget about making movies on VCD and get a DVD burner instead. They're really cheap these days and the quality on DVD is 100 times better (well, 6 times if you are picky) than VCD. Cheers. |
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gorf Unregistered guest | Thank you JD 2 and Gromit. You helped me get started along the right path. I wanted to use my ATI all in wonder card to capture video from a mini dv camcorder and then burn it to SVCD. I was having very little success. So,......... 1. I installed an ieee 1394 card and connected my camera with firewire (digital connection vrs the analogue connection the ATI card used). 2. I used Pinnacle Studio 9 (purchase it on line, it's way cheaper) to perform the capture. I suggest to do this as an .avi file to maintain the video quality (lots of free hard drive space is required). 3. I then used Pinnacle to write the video as an SVCD using my cd burner. 4. The quality was great! It played on both of my stand alone dvd players. |
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New member Username: MettaflarePost Number: 1 Registered: Feb-05 | I have a a canon camera, 2r 25 mc, I need to know if it's TLC or PAL....plz? |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Gorf, thanks for the appreciation and interesting report. Mettaflare, I think you are asking whether your camera is NTSC or PAL. That information should be quite easy to find in the "specifications" section of your user guide. Post again if you can't find it, and mention the country where you bought the camera. Hope that helps |
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New member Username: TinimijinPost Number: 1 Registered: Feb-05 | hi for eveyone having trouble getting their computer to regonize the camera make sure you have a memory card installed in your camera. It is essential. Connect the camera using a $20 firewire cable. My ? is about the burn. What format of dvd is required? |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Brian, if your question refers to whether one should use DVD +R, -R, etc, then it's really a question of what your burner can support, not to mention the device you intend to use for playback. Here in Australia, DVD -R is cheaper but when creating DVDs to send to friends/family I normally use +R as I read once that more players support that format. By the way, I have never tried putting a memory card into my DV Camera (Canon MXV150i) and yet my computer hasn't had any trouble recognising it. Luck of the draw, maybe? Hope that helps. |
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aisha Unregistered guest | I have panasonic nv-gs15 camera and there is no connection with computer i try many ways but no connection for transfaring video or using it as web camera . it send picture only to computer no video. do you think the cable is the problem. i use usb cable |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Aisha, the following web page indicates that you can use USB for a webcam function, so it looks like somehting isn't quite right. http://www.camerastore.com.au/Panasonic+NV-GS15-details.htm However, I am pretty sure that you will need Firewire to transfer video for editing on your PC and making DVDs etc. Your instruction manual should give full instructions. Post again if you need further help. Hope that helps |
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Unregistered guest | hry guys im a total computer idiot ive been using a webcam and ive just recently got a jvc dvx8 i know its old im using win98 ive got all supplied cables and computer is petium2 it dosent have video card and dv cam has no fire wire how exactly can i get a image on my screen with minimum cost |
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New member Username: TinimijinPost Number: 2 Registered: Feb-05 | hey gromit, thanks for the reply. I have a Canon Elura 65 and had a terrible time getting started. So after a 2 hour session with a tech and help from Canon support it was determined the memory card needed to be there. When I added the card the camera was reconized. I am using Adobe premiere to edit and have used RW- dvd cds to record dvds but when I tried burning a home movie, it did'nt like the format on the empty dvd. The errror message was the cd was full and burn fail. Brand new cds. Just a matter of playing with them I guess. Thanks again |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Brian, I'll make a note about that memory card issue! I've noticed that quite a few Dell computers (and presumably some others as well) can only burn DVD +R. I think you are saying you have only tried with -R so far. Might be worth getting a pack of +R DVDs if you are still having trouble. If this gets really difficult, we can look at your burner in more detail to determine its requirements. Cheers. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Idoiot, Are you absolutely sure that your camera doesn't have firewire? If it is a Digital Video camcorder (of any age) I would expect it to have a firewire port, probably labelled "DV". Please check. With a Pentium 2 PC (operating system doesn't matter so much, in fact you are better off with Win98 with that type of machine) you are going to be struggling to capture video without dropping frames. Do you want to transfer video clips, or just "images" as per your question above? Drop a reply to these Qs and we'll try to move you forward. Cheers |
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idoiot Unregistered guest | gromit from idoiot the cam has a place 4 fire wire just didnt come with i'm not trying 2 use 4 pic transfer just want 4 web cam because the pic quality is much better |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Idoiot, ah, sorry, I mis-understood you. If you want to use a DV camcorder for webcam, you need to be aware of the following: 1) You will probably need to connect using USB rather than firewire 2) Even if your camera has a USB port, there is no guarantee that it will support a webcam function. My quite new high-end Canon doesn't, for example. Do you have a user guide for the camera that suggests webcam function is included? If it is not mentioned in the manual, there's a big chance it simply won't work. 3) Depending on the speed of your internet connection, and your PC, you may find that the camera itself is not the limiting factor for webcam quality. Hope that helps. |
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idoiot Unregistered guest | dont have usb connection dont have fire wire please help me get apiture from this im dying here who ever helps me i will give my video chat sddress and u can chat 4 free with me |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Idoiot, If you do not have either USB or Firewire at your disposal, your options are getting quite limited, not to mention unattractive. The only other things I can think of are: 1) Use the video output (e.g. S-video) from your camera and capture it via an analogue capture card such as Leadtek. But it is quite unlikely that your computer would be fast enough to do that properly. 2) Transfer some low-resolution clip onto a memory card and then from there into your computer. Of course, that doesn't give you real-time video. Overall, I think I would advise that you view computing and videoing as separate activities until you get a new computer. Good luck! |
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idoiot Unregistered guest | if i get a fire wire will it be possible to as webcam? and if so which kind of card do i need to buy |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Your webcam application will probably have a drop-down selection for the video device. You might want to check with your supplier, but I have never heard of Firewire being available as an option for webcam. (Other readers, feel free to correct me!) If webcam is really the application you want, then you almost certainly need a USB webcam, OR a video camera that has USB and supports webcam function. Note that you can cheaply buy PCI cards to add USB to your computer if it is not already supplied as part of the motherboard. But as I said before, doing any kind of real-time video with a Pentium 2 is probably asking too much. Cheers. |
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idoiot Unregistered guest | i have a usb output and have been using a web cam with almost perfect results no only problem i have is picture quality i know that video picture quality is much better and it works much better in in the interior lighting i have also has zoom which in my line of work i need i just need to find a way of getting my computer to recognise my video cam |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Oh, your earlier post said you didn't have USB... If both your computer and your camcorder have USB, then the next step is to find out whether your video camera supports a webcam function. I believe that is a relatively new feature for video cameras. Please consult your User Guide. If webcam is supported, then the chances are you either need to re-install the drivers, or download updated drivers from JV'Cs website. I am not much of an expert on webcams or USB for that matter so you may need to get other people involved if the discussion goes down that path. Cheers |
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New member Username: DeeebopgirlPost Number: 1 Registered: Feb-05 | Okay I Have PV-GS120. I have windows XP Sp2.. I using usb trying to make my camcorder act like WEBCAM. WHat is werid it work on my other computer that has Windows ME. So to answer some question on this it is operating system. I did what the tech support told me , uninstall all my other photo software and my other video codes. I then just installed me software that came with the cam..( Usb driver and webcam driver) and still deos not work. Does anyone have other suggestions to make it work.. also went Xp and panasonic website for updates. Xp saids it is a emeration rpblem, but does nto tell you how to fix it... Anyone can help me , it be great.. sorry for the long post, but I wanted people to know I have tried everything, I can think of... |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Deeebopgirl, can you supply the URL from the Microsoft site that told you it was an "emeration problem" Cheers. |
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New member Username: Nheero143Post Number: 1 Registered: Feb-05 | I have a "camcorder not found" error when I have the firewire cable plugged in, but not when USB cable is used. My DCR-TRV22 used to work fine, but now it is not being recognized. Not sure if it is a cable problem or camcorder 1394 problem. It does indicated DV IN when the cable is inserted, so something is working, but Pixela V1.5 won't recognize it. USB seems pretty worthless for what I have to do, plus the audio doesn't seem to make it into the mpeg file. I tried installing the Firewire card and Pixela into another XP system, but the same problem appears. Tomorrow I'll get a new Firewire cable and hope it works. Firewire or bust. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Don, there aren't any settings on your camera that would disable or turn off its connection to the PC are there? That might explain why the problem can be duplicated to a different PC.... Good luck! |
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New member Username: Nheero143Post Number: 2 Registered: Feb-05 | Well, I tried resetting the camera and also looked up the manual regarding output modes. The mode appears to be set properly for outputting from tape, but I will try it both ways anyway. I am also going to try free DV capture programs WinDV and/or DVIO, just as a sanity check against Pixela. WinDV got some great reviews, though type 1 AVI is apparently the better transfer mode. I'm fine after I have the AVI files. I did try using a different firewire cable that I found in my box of cable junk. Same problem. http://windv.mourek.cz/ http://www.carr-engineering.com/dvio.htm |
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rudi Unregistered guest | Tourturedsoul. Use a program like DVD shrink (free-google it) if your finished movie is too big for a 4.7GB DVD |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Don, you seem to be taking a very scientific approach here, so there probably isn't much I can tell you. But to take the process of elimination to its natural conclusion, you probably should also try connecting a friend's DV camera to your computer (success means youre firewire card is OK) and/or try connecting your camera to a friend's PC. It's the "used to work" comment that's driving me (and you, I suspect) crazy. Good luck! |
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New member Username: Nheero143Post Number: 3 Registered: Feb-05 | Thanks for your inputs. Yes, I am a tortured soul, for now anyway. I will take your advice gromit and try what you suggest. One thing that is different is that the previous successful firewire captures were all under W2000. Now I've upgraded to all XP SP2 systems. It is possible that there is some system cause, though all looks well in device manager, etc. I will make sure that it is the Camcorder before sending it out for repair since Sony service starts at ~$250. FWIW, I can record AVI files with USB and I get sound if I select USB sound device, not SONY, but I'm not sure if I'm getting full quality yet. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Don, would your suffering be less if you knew you were not alone? Take a look at this interesting site that refers to your model along with other similar ones (I have selected two pertinent pages for you) http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t106716.html (suggests a problem with XP SP2) http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t112817.html (Indicates a Sony hardware problem) Take your pick! Let us know how it goes... |
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New member Username: Nheero143Post Number: 4 Registered: Feb-05 | Thanks a lot gromit. I have a feeling that it is the SP2 issue, so I will try installing these three SP1 drivers over all instances of their SP2 versions. This little dvcam has been used in some outdoor places that cams should probably not go, plus it was dropped on the driveway once. So I wasn't sure if a failure had occurred, but it's starting to look like I've got some company with this bug. |
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New member Username: Nheero143Post Number: 5 Registered: Feb-05 | Well, I tried the SP1 drivers and even installing W2000 on a spare drive, but the problem persists. It appears likely that it is a camera capture board problem as your second link suggests. I will try the local Sony repair for a check of that function, but it sounds like it will require an expensive repair job at the Texas facility. Thanks for the help gromit. The good news that with my system fiddling, I got rid of a troublesome condition requiring me to have my XP disk in the CDROM drive. Some XP license thing. It got somewhat confused when I added one of my other system disks to the PC. Microsoft :grrrr: Also, if I ever need to use W2000 again, I can boot up on my that disk. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Don, you win the award for persistence and ingenuity! Sorry the driver thing didn't fix it - I was feeling just a little confident it might. Let us know the outcome. Cheers. PS: if you are already getting .avi via USB along with sound of yet-to-be-determined quality, is the game worth the candle? |
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Antonio Modena Unregistered guest | please helpme gromit: i have a new sony mini dvd 301, the camcorder records in mpeg 1 or 2 format ??, is any diference in the formats ??, i need to convert the files to .avi files to burn in my computer??, how i can preserve or get the mayor quality for burning in dvd discs ??, thnnks for your time |
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Antonio Modena Unregistered guest | i have 3 recorded dvd´s, how i can edited in my computer to make just one dvd ??, what is the best software to do that ?? |
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Antonio Modena Unregistered guest | how long is the life of the mini dv casettes ??, how many times i can record in the mini dv casettes with the same quality ??, is much the difference versus the mini dvd´s discs ?? |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Antonio, Lots of interesting questions. MPEG-1 v MPEG-2: for most people, the difference is that MPEG-1 is used for VCD (relatively low quyality) and MPEG-2 is used for DVD (high quality). This is a quote I saw: "you can think of mpeg2 as mpeg1 with support for higher resolutions and higher/variable bitrates." on this site: http://club.cdfreaks.com/lite/t-95337.html. This site also gives a helpful definition: http://www.dj-media.com/doc/mpeg-1_vs_mpeg-2.asp If your intention is to make DVDs for playing on standard set-top boxes, you do not need to worry about trying to convert to .avi. MPEG-2 is the native format for DVDs. Your DVD authoring software will take those MPEG-2 files and convert them into .vob files without further rendering. This means your DVD quality is identical to the movies you record in MPEG-2. By experimentation, I have just confirmed, rather to my surprise, that the DVD authoring package I use, Ulead MovieFactory, can take existing DVDs and extract scenes or entire DVDs to a new disk compilation. I'm definitely going to try that! Don't know about other packages. Mini DV cassettes store information digitally, so it's unlikley you would ever notice deterioration so long as the cassettes are stored carefully, even after repeated re-recording. I don't know, but I would guess that min-DVDs are limited to about the same recording life as conventional re-recordable DVDs, say 100 times. Probably more than you need, anyway. Hope that helps |
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OlegV Unregistered guest | gromit, I've read the entire tread on this and found your posts to be very, very helpful (and very clear). Thanks a lot! This entire weekend I've been struggling with capturing good quality of video and sound using USB. I wish I've found your posts before. I do have a firewire card and will try using it now. My question now is as following. At this time I just want to get a small clip (5 min) from my SONY HC 30 camcorder to my PC, so that I can simply e-mail it to a friend across the country. The video quality is not very important, but the sound quality is. It will be played on a computer only, using RealPlayer or similar. Obviously the size is a big consideration - must be less than 10 Meg. What format should I be creating for this? What software to use, etc? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thanks a lot in advance, Oleg |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Oleg, Many thanks for the kind comments! For video projects (all originating from a DV videocamera) where my target has been less than DVD quality, I have always used MGI Videowave with pretty good results. The Indeo 5 codec included in that programme seems to work very well for me. I normally run 384 pixel windows with quality set to "85%" whatever that means. However, I am talking here about file sizes that are convenient to share via CD, not via email. MGI Videowave III does also include a rendering setting for "Video Email", i.e. a project where you want to share the end-product via email. That is the "meanest" setting for file size. The rendering settings are: VIDEO CODEC: MPEG-1 Frame rate (choose 25 for PAL or 19.97 for NTSC) Frame size: 160 x 120 Resultant bit rate: 106 KB/sec AUDIO CODEC: not stated, I presume simple PCM Mono sample rate: 44.1 kHz, 16-bit Resultant bit rate: 8 KB/sec I think the big B signifies bytes rather than bits; this is an area subject to a lot of nomenclature abuse. I ran a small test to find out what the resulting quality and file size would be and the reuslts were: Video: kind of blurry but no worse than VCD (smaller of course) Audio: pretty good File size: approx 5 Mbyte/minute. As this is well outside your target (and my area of expertise), I have engaged the help of some friends who work with video encoding as a profession to see if they have any suggestions. It may be a day or two (or never) before they get back to me. But I'm sure you will need to get something like RealProducer or similar to get down to the type of bandwidth you are hoping for. You couldn't make a brilliant DVD and send it by snail mail, could you? Cheers. |
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Jimmy Frimpton Unregistered guest | I have a GR-D72 camcorder, and I'm looking everywhere to find a good firewire driver for free. Also, how do I make my mac (OS 9.2) see my camera? |
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Jimmy Frimpton Unregistered guest | I have a GR-D72 camcorder, and I'm looking everywhere to find a good firewire driver for free. Also, how do I make my mac (OS 9.2) see my camera? |
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OlegV Unregistered guest | gromit, Thanks a million for your quick reply. As always, very helpfull. I appreciate you trying to get the answer from your friends. In the mean time, I am wondering if the 5MEG file which you've created in your test could be zipped? Or these types of files are not 'zippable'? Cheers. Oleg. |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Oleg, You're welcome! Those files are zippable, however, when zipped, my test file only reduced in size from 3,058 KB to 2,954 KB (3%). That is about what you can expect normally. I'm still waiting for my friends to get back to me on the other stuff. Cheers |
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gromit Unregistered guest | Jimmy, Are you sure you need specific drivers for your camera? My PC is Win98SE, 4 years old; my firewire card is 3 years old, and it has no trouble recognising the Canon DV camera I bought 6 months ago - without the need to install any driver software. (I should mention it displays "Canon" rather than the model number.) Might be worth you checking out the Apple support site. What I read there makes me think that Macs only require firewire drivers if the application is webcam or something like that. Good luck! |
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wallace Unregistered guest | Attaboy, Gromit. 'Bout time you registered, eh, Chuck? |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 2 Registered: Mar-05 | Oleg, As I suspected, my expert friends came back with the following advice: 1) MPEG-1 gives reasonable quality at quite low bit rates (this is the technique I referred to above, using 5 Mbyte/min)) 2) You will need to go to Real Audio products to get anything with smaller file size Real Producer is a commercial product, but there is a division of Real called the Helix Community which provides lower functionality versions as freeware. The freeware product to produce Real files is called Cameo and you can find it here: https://helix-producer.helixcommunity.org/downloads.htm#Cameo You have to register to get the download. I tried it out and found the following: Supported OS: Win2K and WinXP File size: 3 Mbytes per minute (note, you have to choose "video to post to a website" or it truncates the file size) Bugs: seems like you can't adjust the target file size for email attachments, meaning you are stuck with 3 MByte/min as above Video quality: pretty awful Audio quality: good Does this help? Cheers. |
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Teki Yaki Unregistered guest | Hi to all. I have a P4 2Ghz pc with 256mb memory, 128 mb video card and brand new InnoDV1000 LE firewire card. Everytime I transfer my video from my Sony video cam to my system it hangs, sometimes blue screen. It will say "Hardware Malfunction".It hangs randomly, after 10 mins,after 5 mins..etc. InnoDv1000LE is supported by Windows xp so I dont need to update my firewire driver. I could transfer my video through Ati or Pinnacle capture card. Have you experience this problem before. pls give me any idea on what to do on this...many tnks. |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 3 Registered: Mar-05 | Teki, although my general level of trust in Windows error messages is so small as to be virtually imperceptible, one has to accept the possibility that there may be a hardware malfunction here. That being so, some normal standard debugging procedures might be called for, e.g. 1) De-install the Firewire card, make sure there is no dust or other dirt in the PCI slot, then re-install and try again. 2) try your DV cam on another PC (just because you can capture analogue video, this doesn't guarantee that the DV port is operating 100% OK) 3) try a different Firewire cable Try some or all of the above and let us know how it goes. Cheers |
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idoit Unregistered guest | hi gang me again the guy with dv into web cam problems i went out and brought video capture card fire wire installed it no problem there what do i have to do to get the computer to recognize the video cam etc when i was using the webcam i had a little icon that i could click on and presto i can see myself please help me attain the same with my video cam i have spoken to some "computer experts"and they tell me to get pinnacle studio only thing is im not interested in recording all i want to do is use as a webcam please help im dying here |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 4 Registered: Mar-05 | Idoit, did you check in your User Guide as per my Feb 23 suggestion to make sure that your DV camera does support the webcam function? Also, it is more likely that (if webcam functionality is supported) it would use USB rather than firewire for that feature. There would probably be software included with your system. Perhaps more interestingly for you, I did check out the specification for Pinnacle Studio 9 and there is no "magic" feature in that to allow any old DV camera to be used as a webcam. BUT, when I checked on Google with the string "software use DV camera as webcam", the top link was this one. http://www.orangeware.com/endusers/webcamdv.html If you believe their product page, this software does exactly what you are looking for. Let me know if it works. Cheers |
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Unregistered guest | how can A picture which is some video type can be compreessed ?What's te technique involved in compressing a video file.I want to know it from any of the software experts.please tell me your answer to tis site or to my mailid giving along with this message. |
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Unregistered guest | I have a Sony CCD-TRV608 Digital Camcorder plus VideoWave 7 software. I use a USB cable to connect the camcorder to my PC The sotware can capture the video but when I click "PLUG and Burn" button to burn it to a dvd, The software doesn't recognize any footage. Any thoughts? |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 5 Registered: Mar-05 | Damian, although you describe your camcorder as "digital", according to the Sony site I took a look at, it is classified under "analogue - Hi8". Furthermore, the support site I also checked suggests that there may be restriction in what you can use USB for. There's also a download for USB you might need. http://www.css.ap.sony.com/consumer/template/DDSummary.aspx?Id=1656&Model=CCD-TR V608 Finally, I don't know whether Videowave can support USB (especially analogue!) to DVD burning in real time, but I would have suspected that Firewire/DV was a more normal mode. Please let me know if you have knowledge in this area. We may need to exchange a few more posts to get to the bottom of this. Cheers |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 6 Registered: Mar-05 | Praveen, your request to know "from software experts" suggests that you are interested in the technology behind video compression, not seeking information about software packages you can buy. If I am right, some of the material on this page might be of interest to you. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/compression-faq/part2/section-2.html Hope that helps |
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chrisbilal Unregistered guest | I just bought a Sony DCR HC21. Be forewarned, DO NOT USE THE SUPPLIED SOFTWARE AND ONLY USE THE USB FOR A WEBCAM OR CRAPPY STILLS YOU TOOK. Even worse, it took over 2 hours to get 35 minutes on a CD and I couldn't even save the video directly to PC. The problem with that is that the 60 minute tape was full and it only copied 35 minutes of it, at no fault of my own. In closung don't use it. The only way to transfer video to the hard drive using a Sony is to add their crappy mp3's to it. Don't do it anyway because the video was horrible. I do have a question though. I have a Windows Xp machine without a FireWire Card, I just purchased a I.Link/FireWire cable which is 4x4 pins. Through my extensive research for firewire cards, I haven't found any 4x4 cards with 4x4 pin? Is it OK to get a 6x4 pin card? |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 7 Registered: Mar-05 | Chrisbilal, I don't 100% understand your question, but I'll do my best to answer. Normally, the firewire cable that connects PCs to DV cams has 6 pins at the PC end (larger connector) and 4 pins at the DV cam end (smaller connector). On laptops, the PC connector may also be the smaller type (presumably to save space). In the former case, you need a 6 pin to 4 pin cable, and in the latter, a 4 pin to 4 pin cable (obviously). Both are readily available. In both cases, only a single port is required on the computer to connect the DV cam. Firewire PCI cards commonly have multiple firewire ports, but if (like me) you only ever connect one device, the other ports will never do anything other than gather dust. If you transfer digital video using firewire, you should expect perfect quality (i.e. identical to what you originally shot) and exactly the same length of video. What's more, it should transfer in real time, i.e. a 60 minute tape should take 60 minutes to transfer - using up more than 10G of disk space, by the way. I normally only transfer 10 minute chunks at a time to be conservative as it is a bit frustrating to be 90% through a massive upload only to run out of disk space or encounter some other problem. Incidentally, recently I purchased a 4 pin to 4 pin cable to experiment transferring digital video (i.e. copying) between my cameras. It worked fine! Post again if that doesn't answer your question. Cheers |
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chrisbilal Unregistered guest | I checked sthe sony site for the accesories and the I.Link cable is 4 pin to 4 pin cable. So I went to pricegrabber and purchased a Belkin 4x4 $30 cheaper than Sony's. I then purchased a 6x4 firewire PCI card. I was just asking if they are compatible. I think you answered that with a yes though. Thank you very much Gromit. |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 8 Registered: Mar-05 | I think I answered yes, as well! It's just this "6x4" terminology that was throwing me. Good luck - I'm sure it will work out. Cheers |
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Anonymous | why the hell doesnt anyone tell u that u need an i.link cable to download ur files? i brough my camera having been told that all was ok and ready to record (exept the guy that sold it to me forgott to include tapes-wanka) and then i find out i have to pay more money so i can have my videos on the computer! even though i have all the software included in the package! so much for handycam "package" |
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Unregistered guest | I am buying a new PC and want to do transferring (and maybe editing) to dvd. How much hard drive would you recommend as a minimum? |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 9 Registered: Mar-05 | Newpcquestion, If your intention is to make DVDs of approximately 30 minutes length, 10G of free working space should be sufficient. This is to accommodate approx 6 Gbytes of avi files from your camcorder and then the much smaller mpg files that are produced as part of the DVD making process. Scale this pro-rata if you have different length DVDs in mind. A rule of thumb that I normally recommend is to consider the largest possible requirement you could ever think of, then double it, and buy one the next size up from there. Backing up commercial DVDs is VERY disk-hungry, by the way. If you want a specific recommendation for a new PC, I wouldn't consider anything under 80G as a HDD, UNLESS I was planning to add a second HDD. Actually, my strategy for PCs is to have all the programme files on the relatively small C Drive (20G now), and all my documents on a much larger D drive (40G now, soon to be 120G). That way, if Windows gets mucked up and I have to re-install or Ghost back, my data is still safe. Hope that helps |
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New member Username: GromitPost Number: 10 Registered: Mar-05 | Anonymous, Annoying though your experience may be, there is some historical reason for this. In the early days of firewire, no PCs had firewire ports as part of the motherboard. You had to buy a PCI card. The PCI card normally came in a package complete with firewire (=i-link, why DO Sony insist on calling it that?) cable and software. So camera manufacturers became accustomed to assuming that anybody wishing to use the DV port would have a firewire cable already. These days, motherboards commonly have firewire ports equipped, but (same as USB), cables are not supplied. But they're not expensive. Last one I bought was US$10 and it works fine. Enjoy movie making! PS: the guy who forgot to mention you need tapes was obviously absent on the day they held the "upsell" course. But, again, they're not so dear: approx US$7 each if you buy a pack of 5 and you can use them as many times as you wish. |
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Anonymous | Im in the market for a laptop and prefer an ultralite (such as sonly vaio T-series or panasonic e-lite). however, one of my intended uses for a computer is to create DVD's from numerous DV-tape home movies i have. reading the stories above about video capture frustrations by hardware and software is horrifying me. the MAC notebooks have DVI inputs and are supposedly plug-and-play on this front. are there any equivalent PC notebooks out there that are highly portable? |
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Bronze Member Username: GromitPost Number: 11 Registered: Mar-05 | Anonymous, An ultra-lite with built-in DVD burner and firewire is pushing the envelope a bit. Certainly, Sony are in there with products like the ULV733. But if you are scared by the number of questions that start with "I've got a Sony...." (albeit normally camera related), something that may open up some more options for you is to concentrate on getting an ultra-lite with just the DVD burner and add firewire through a PCMCIA card such as Belkin. Your local PC dealers should be able to give you advice. Hope that helps |
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Unregistered guest | I have a Canon ZR90 but my computer is ME not XP and it NEEDS xp, also when i try the USB the computer dosent see it what can i do? Do i NEED XP? can i get a special Cable? Can i use USB? P.S. I'm only 13 little words Please!!!!! |
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Bronze Member Username: GromitPost Number: 12 Registered: Mar-05 | MJMS, You need to connect your camera to your PC using a firewire cable (also known as IEEE1394). There are several posts in this thread giving you help on how to do this. If your computer does not already have a firewire port, you will need to buy a firewire card to fit inside. If your computer is quite old (ME gives me a hint) then almost certainly you WILL need to buy a firewire card. They aren't expensive. Many cards come supplied with a cable and software to help you transfer video to the computer. You do not need Windows XP to do all this, although when you buy the firewire card, check the system requirements. I am running Win98 and have no problems transferring video. In Windows ME, you will need to transfer no more than 10 or 11 minutes of video in one chunk to avoid the file sizes getting too big. Don't try to use USB unless your instruction manual explicitly states that USB can be used for DV transfer. Hope that helps. |
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dummy Unregistered guest | Hi Gromit, I read all the posts and you are so knowledgable. I bought panasonic pvgs120. I created a VCD. The quality is not very good but because I don't have DVD burner yet ( planning to get one ), I am still very happy with it. The informations posted here are very helpful to make all this works. One question I am having is that I'd like to have the date/time on the movie I make, but I don't know how to do it. When I played the tape from camcorder I could see it. But when I replayed the captured file on the computer, the time is not there. Would you please help ? Thanks a lot! |
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Bronze Member Username: GromitPost Number: 13 Registered: Mar-05 | Hello unregistered guest! Thank you for the kind comments. Something I learnt from the real video-meister on this site (Berny) is "You can't transfer the date, you have to put it in yourself on the final edited product." Here is the sister page with that Q&A. https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/photography/84713.html Cheers. |
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dummy Unregistered guest | Hi Gromit, Thanks a million. At least I can stop looking for the answer. |
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chrisbilal Unregistered guest | What the heck is a LANC port (on my Sony DCR-HC21) Young Liberals |
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Bronze Member Username: GromitPost Number: 14 Registered: Mar-05 | Chrisbilal, This definition (web-link included) that I found might help you. "The "lanc" input, if it exists, (and I forget what the acronym is) receives an input from a remote control unit that controls focus, power, zoon and the on/off for vidio taking." http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/sony-dcr-dvd100-dvd200-dvd300-camcorder-08_ 26_03.htm Cheers |
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Unregistered guest | hi, i have canon optura 20 mini dv.i can connect my dv to computer through usb. but it is not recognising tape. how to transform video from tape to computer? |
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Bronze Member Username: GromitPost Number: 15 Registered: Mar-05 | Dhrubajyoti, I think you will find that on this model, USB is used only for transferring still photos and you should use firewire for transferring video. Hope that helps |
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Anonymous | I have a Panasonic NV-GS400 Is that good camera? Can I transfer DV to my computer with USB? thanks robert@platypusmusic.cn |
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Unregistered guest | Gromit, thank u i'll see if it helps do u have any editing software in mind that i could use? right now i have nero 6 is this a good choice? |