My wife has a "Canon ZR500" camcorder which uses Mini DV tape. I am looking for a good way to transfer our home movies from the DV tape to a DVD-R.
We have an "eMachines" computer with a "Sempron 3000" processor and One gig of memory. Our computer also has an "NEC" DVD burner installed. I am able to conect the camcorder to the computer by "Firewire." The operating system is "Windows XP."
We have the "Windows Movie Maker" software on our computer. Also "CloneDVD2" and "VSO DivX to DVD."
We have tried using the three together for tranfering, but the results have not been good. We can get the home movie burned onto the DVD-R. However the image is slightly fuzzy. The audio seems to be fine though.
Any help and good advice would be greatly appreciated!
First, use a decent beginner capturing program. Something like Ulead VideoStudio or Pinnacle Studio. Make sure you capture as DV-AVI (important). However, this will use up massive amounts of HD space (~3GB/15 min).
Next, use a GOOD encoder to encode to MPEG2. I would call VSO average for encoding QUALITY. Try TMPGEnc. I personally use ProCoder. Choose the highest quality settings and high bitrates. Yes, it will take a long time but you want quality, right?
Once you've done all this, the hard part's over. You can use a DVD Authoring program (Nero, TMPG, Ulead, etc) to create your DVD. If you want complete control over the DVD, use DVD Lab Pro.
Thank you for the advice! For the encoder I am thinking of buying "Tsunami MPEG Video Encoder." It is from the same company that makes "TMPGEnc." Which is one of the encoders you recommended. From what I have read it will do what I want it to do. That being DV-AVI to MPEG2.
I am also going to download the trial version of "VideoStudio." So I can see how well the two work together. If all goes well I will then buy "VideoStudo."
I have a 250GB 7200 RPM hard drive in our computer. So I don't believe storage space will be a problem.
If you have any opinions on what I plan to buy and do I would appreciate hearing them.
