Capturing from a video 8 camcorder

timbo2 wrote on 8/15/2003, 11:43 PM

Needs some help with VV4 capture settings
I'm using the video in connection on a nVidia Geforce 4 card to feed a Sony Video 8 PAL camcorder to VV4.

What I don't understand are the setup options in VV video capture
1. I have a choice of several PAL settings PAL_B, PAL_D ect how do I know which one I want?

2. There is also a setting for output size 640x480 through to 720x480 what do I want?

3. I have experimented with most settings but still get a poor quality capture with horizontal black lines and horizaontal blur when ther is lots of motion in the video.

looking forward to some help on this - thanks

Comments

farss wrote on 8/16/2003, 7:41 AM

This is not the recommended way to capture but I guess if that's all you've got there maybe no other way to go. You're probably going to do better using the TiVo program to capture as mpeg2 and then use VV to render back to AVI as mpeg 2 is a pain to edit.

If you want to get serious I'd strongly suggest an upgrade to a D8 camera that way you can read your 8mm tapes into VV via firewire, have a better camera AND use the camera as an A/D, D/A converter.

What you want to end up with is 720x576 25 fps, interlaced, lower field first.

If you cannot get exactly that don't panic, just use VV to convert to that by doing a Render As, PAL DV. If VV has to transcode it then its going to take a while but you don't have to spend money, just be patient.

If you're in a EC country just be careful if you do go for a D8 camera, lots of gear sold there has the pass through capability disabled so the camera cannot record from the A/V inputs and hence invoke tarrif protection as a VCR.

timbo2 wrote on 8/16/2003, 8:06 AM

thanks mate - I've sort of solved my quality issues with some driver updates but think I'll try the DV camera pass through trick.

timbo2 wrote on 8/16/2003, 7:41 PM

one more question - if i have to capture and something less than 720x576 (to reduce frame dropping) and then render to PAL DV in VV am I losing quality and what trade off should I make between some droped frames vs a smaller capture size? thanks again

farss wrote on 8/16/2003, 9:31 PM

I'd think dropped frames are a real no no as they may also result in drop outs in audio.

They would also make the video jerky, I'd much rather loose some resolution.

Ideally I'd be doing whatever to avoid that sort of compromise.

You could probably drop the resolution down to 640x480 and even capture at 15 or 20 fps without too much degradation if your only coming off video8. But if you use pass through on you miniDV camera you shouldn't have to face any of these issues.

I'd do some brief tests to see how it looks. VV can convert both frame rates and res but it sure takes a lot of time.

timbo2 wrote on 8/16/2003, 10:11 PM

I can keep 720x576 and increase fps up to 24 fps with no dropped frames - its just that one more fps that triggers heaps of drops. So close.
I'll borrow a friends DV camera.

HeeHee wrote on 8/17/2003, 10:53 AM

I have noticed that with analog captures at full frame rate can get dropped frames right in the beginning of the capture, but clears up within a few seconds and the rest of the video is fine. Did you check this capture with dropped frames for jerkiness thorughout the video?