I am a newbie at video but I've been into computers for a long time... I recently figured out the capture on our home video camera... A sony handycam DCRTRV250. I'm currently capturing via usb. However, as a newbie, somethings don't go so well. First the software Sony gave me was a piece of junk so I used the Nero software that came with my DVD burner. I just got it for Xmas. Anyhow, with that and windows Movie Maker, I can capture in crappy quality like 320x something... or I can capture in like 640 x 480. However, if I capture 640x480, I get terrible frame lagging. And where the picture quality may be good, it's unsuitable for editing or watching purposes. My computer is an Athalon XP 1.8 Ghz with 768 Mb of ram. I don't think it's an issue with the qualities of my computer but I may be wrong. I also have a voodoo 3000 graphics card. It's an old one but it has 16 mb of video ram and it was hot stuff in it's day. It may be a graphics card problem. I also wonder if I went with firewire if it would work better. We use firewire at school to capture on the powermac's and it seems to work well. I'm considering getting one of the AIW cards from ATI. Would that help? or would Firewire help? Maybe both? Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated.
USB just isn't good enough to capture high quality DV. You should definately be using firewire. You will notice the difference straight away with whatever software you use. Capture to .AVI first using a great piece of free software called WinDV. Then encode to Mpeg2 using an encoder such as TMPGEnc or Canopus Procoder if you can get hold of it. Finally author with TMPGEnc Author. All in one programs are OK but wont produce results as good as individual ones. Good luck!
USB is way too slow to capture full frame DV. Hence you can only capture at small resolution or have dropped frames. Get your self a firewire card and cable and you will do much much better.
I also recommend Vegas Video for capturing and editing too.
Hi Hog,
I don't have a clue what fuksony's problem is. Seems like he is in some personal cruisade against Sony...
I have been using a Sony camera for almost 4 years (PC110) and I am still very happy with it.
Anyway, as others have pointed out DV capturing should always be done with Firewire. If you do that and your software just transfers abd stores the result as DV-AVI there is absolutely ZERO loss of quality. Your video card has no influence at all on the quality of your captured video. just on the quality as it is displayed on your monitor.
If you're a newbe, read some of the basic articles on http://www.digitalvideoclub.com One of the baisc articles deals with video capturing.
Hi guys, its me again from the first message. Thanks for all your help. Now I have a different question. I don't know which is better, I got a tv tuner a while ago. I wanted it to be usb but since the limited bandwith I suppose and plus it was pretty cheap, the tuner just hasn't worked for me. Its alright but there is sometimes static in the capture and lags such as dropped frames and unsynced sound when I record. Anyway, I'm definitly getting something that has firewire. But is it better to just get a firewire card or do all in one's firewire ports work? For example. I was looking at the ATI All in Wonder and I believe it has firewire also. Is that something I can get that will help with everything? Also, I was considering getting the 9200 All in Wonder but is that being cheap to get an older model rather than the latest? Do any of you have experience with tuners also and is this a good one to do video capture via firewire and act as a PVR?
You better start a new thread with a new subject.
Anyway, my suggestion: just buy a simple PCI tuner card and a separate Firewire card for your digital video. These ar two differnt applications anyway. No hassle and probably cheaper.
