Somewhat of a newbie here. How do you get the highest quality DVD video from a Sony Camcorder that uses MiniDV tapes? I bought a firewire port for pc and cable to connect up my pc and camcorder and have been testing various software such as Adobe Premier Elements 3 and Nero 6. I found they both don't produce very high quality dvd videos. Do I need more expensive sofware? Someone told me the more expensive softwares have better encoders? Can someone help? Thanks
1: Capture format
2: If your PC can keep up
3: Camera quality
4: DVD compression
When capturing video from a DV camcorder, always capture it as "uncompressed avi" or "DV avi" format. When you use other lossy compressions, like MPG or WMV, you lose quality. Most prorams can capture uncompressed or original DV format video, you'll have to search around in a capture options window. I know for a fact that even the cheapest programs (i.e. Windows Movie Maker) can capture AVI.
If your PC is dropping frames and is not able to keep up with the video stream, you will be able to tell; the video will be choppy and occationally stop on a frame. Your capturing software may even tell you that it is dropping frames. If this is an issue, then the problem is, simply, that your PC is too slow to capture real-time DV video. There are a few ways to improve this, though. You can try capturing the video and audio seperately, turning off all other applications, and increasing the process priority of the capture program. If you do al this and still have choppy video, then your PC is simply too slow to do the job.
If you have a cheap, 1CCD camera, then your video quality won't be that good in the first place. Keep in mind that the quality of the video is dictated by the camera as well as the capture. Your camera may not be up-to-spec for producing top-quality video; obviously, a home video camcorder won't have quality that matches a professional video camera.
If your video is compressed again when going to DVD (and it probably is) then you will experience additional quality loss. The compression is dictated by the DVD authoring program that you are using. Often, these programs have to compress the video in order to fit it on a 4.7 gb DVD disk. If you wish, you can buy DVD9 Dual-Layer disks instead, and this will offer you more space, hence your video dosen't need to be compressed as much.
As far as software goes, better software often does have better capture encoding, but really this shouldn't be an issue. Adobe Premiere has an encoder that works great, and I see no reason why this software should be a problem. I personally use the Sony Vegas video capture program, and then edit using Premiere. Honestly though, it dosen't matter much. Even Movie Maker has a decent capture encoder. These other issues are all much more important than the software.
I use a Sony DCR-HC40 Camcorder. It's a descent camcorder but probably not the top of the line. I have noticed interuptions in the video when capturing on my pc. My PC is a Dell Dimension 8250 with 256 RAM and 80GB Hardrive. I think I may need to upgrade it.
Maybe my PC is part of the problem like you suggest.
Why to use Vegas Video to capture opposed to using Premiere Elements? Does Vegas Video do a better job with capture?
I dont know, considering that I have never used Premiere Elements to capture. I think, considering that both are high-end, they quality won't be very different. I capture using Vegas because I always have, and it has always worked. Then again, I have a PC built for digital video editing.
If you think that your Pc is the problem, try capturing audio and video seperately, as mentioned above. This lowers the strain on your PC, although it will take twice as long.
Looking at your PC specs, I'm pretty sure that this is the problem. You should get AT LEAST 1gb of ram, a decent processor, and probably a bigger hard drive. You can do it with an 80gb, but you'll run low on space.
