Analog vs. Digital passthru

Larry124 wrote on 5/24/2002, 10:06 AM
After finding this forum (by reading the vw forum) I ordered the VF software even though I have a brand new VW sitting on my desk. Can't wait for the delivery. I came up with a computer question that some of you good people might be able to answer.I have many analog tapes to edit and a few new digital tapes.What is the best way to capture the analog tapes? I can either capture them thru my all-in wonder video capture card direct or run the analog tapes thru the digital camera first and capture thru the firewire card.I read that I lose 1 generation of quality by capturing analog. Do I save a 1 generational loss in quality by using the digital cameras ability to process the analog video to digital first before capture? I know how great a site this is for editing info. I'm hoping someone can get me to the editing stage with the best quality video so I can only blame myself for the poor video at the other end. Thanks for your help,Larry

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/24/2002, 10:26 AM
Larry, go with firewire capture through your camcorder. This will be about the best capture you can get, and the resulting files will be DV format, which is what VideoFactory and Vegas work with internally. Capturing through the ATI card will give you either uncompressed AVI (very HUGE) or MPEG (very bad), and you won't be happy with either one.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/24/2002, 10:52 AM
If your final video output is going to be to DV tape, then I would capture using DV. My rationale is that whatever quality loss that occurs when converting analog to DV will be the same whether it happens before you edit, or whether it happens at the end. The additional quality loss that happens when you render your project is so small as to be undectable in most circumstances. On the plus side, DV video runs at a constant 3.5 Mbs, which doesn't put too much stress on a computer system, compared to "analog" video (which of course is still digitzed, but usually using motion JPEG or some other higher bitrate codec).
JodoKast wrote on 5/24/2002, 1:28 PM
Not totally true, Chienworks. If he has an ATI All-In-Wonder card, he should be able to create a new custom capture template. There he should be able to select DV as his capture format. I am able to this with my AIW Radeon (pre 7500, 8500, etc.) using the newest ATI Multimedia Center (version 7.6). As far as the MPEG quality, I haven't noticed a difference between capturing directly to VCD format with the ATI software or encoding with TMPEGEnc. That is strictly on my system though, as I have not yet burned a VCD with any of the ATI captured files to compare on my TV.
sfdoddsy wrote on 5/29/2002, 2:04 PM
Any thoughts on whether you would get better quality using an external A/D converter such as the Canopus one or using the camcorder?

Cheers
Steve
Chienworks wrote on 5/29/2002, 2:25 PM
Steve, it shouldn't make any noticeable difference unless one of the devices (external coverter or camcorder) has inferior or faulty components.