As a complete newcomer to video editing I'm attempting to convert footage from my Hi8 sony handycam tapes to my PC for editing and, eventually, conversion to dvd.
I've got myself a budget range TV card (the Hauppauge WinTV GO) and have no problem saving the files as uncompressed avi's, but I need to compress these files to a reasonable size that I'll be able to open using basic video editing software.
So far I have only been able to compress the file using some of the filters available through the WinTV2000 software (DivX® Hauppauge 5.1.1 Codec for the video and MainConcept Hauppauge MPEG Audio Encoder for the audio).
This has worked, but the quality has been greatly reduced (384 x 288)and the video appears very blocky especially when I've filmed in nightshot.
Can anyone give me any tips regarding the compression I could try and what software would be best to use.
If you're going to put them on DVD, I would edit now, in VirtualDub, then encode to mpeg-2.
That way, they're ready to author, and smaller than uncompressed avi's.
I use Sonic MyDVD to capture mpeg2 in real time via firewire and the same program to produce dvd movie. Personally I think it looks great. MyDVD gives you 3 diffrent compresson setting depending on length of movie. Computer power is a must here with this real time encoding. Im running P4 3.4G, SATA Rapturs 10,000rpm and 1gig dual memory. Im sure that helps. With my old pc 800mhz and 512 mem it would not get the job done. Not having to convert an AVI or dv file I think saves a little time.
I don't know which is the best way to author from an analog source to dvd. I use Pinnacle DC-10+ card for capturing from 8mm or VHS tape, which came with Studio 7, which by the way doesn't compiles DVD. Thanks God my DEV burner came with Pinnacle Studio 8 SE edition, so I was able to author from AVI (MJPEG in fact) to DVD straight from the hard disk. Unfortunatelly Pinnacle's Studio in DVD quality writes only one hour to each disk, even if you choose the creation of the files only. So you cannot create files for a standard 2 hours movie, or more in case that you want to compress afterwards. So I decided to pourchaxe DVD Lab pro, which by the way is much more cheaper than Studio 9 and offers a lot more of choises.
The quality of My DVD is lower than the above products so I decided not to use any more. Now I use Pinnacle studio only for capturing / create mpeg file and dvd lab for ediditing. Finally I use Nero to burn the compilation.
I suggest to purchase a 1394 or a USB card for video input that outputs directly to MPEG format to ypur hard disk. They are not expensive any more and the quality will be more than acceptable. Afterwards you can use any program for encoding / editing / compiling / authoring the raw matterial.
