Comments

ScottW wrote on 3/17/2007, 8:17 AM
You really should be using Vegas to do your encoding, not DVDA - you have much more control over the encoding options.

--Scott
gOGU wrote on 3/17/2007, 12:55 PM
thanks scott
i have just installed vegas and the capture engine is missing: cirrus usb 2 something even though i am using i link so i did capture with windows movie maker (which by the way is very good but the encoding bad) and transfer to dvd with dvda but dvda is not accept wmv files i used u-lead and other by in vista they don't work good anymore
i am recording some good programs on dish net and to transfer them to dvd
do you have ideas?
i would appreciate
adrian
Chienworks wrote on 3/17/2007, 1:06 PM
Adrian,

It's a little hard to follow your steps without punctuation.

If you're capturing using ilink you should be getting DV .avi files. You should also be rendering to either DV.avi or MPEG2 if you want to burn to DVD. WMV is a poor choice as DVDA will have to convert it to MPEG2 anyway.
gOGU wrote on 3/18/2007, 7:53 AM
do you know what capture codec is vegas using?
i did install vegas first time, after trying pinnacle(what a joke)
ready to capture i got an error: cirrus logic usb 2 ...etc missing.
even though i am using I link; i did find out later that was left from pinnacle
now, vegas is ready to capture but it shows that is using microsoft DV engine
when i am using movie maker the capture is using the lates wmv 9 codec compressed in wmv file, which is better so far out 5 other codecs. At this point i was looking for a better encoding program to improve the quality of the final picture after tryinf 5 programs. WMV 9 has an excelent quality but the quality is diminished when compresed in mpeg

Chienworks wrote on 3/18/2007, 1:25 PM
DV will be far better than WMV.

Are you using Pinnacle's capture hardware? How is your capture hardware physically connected to your computer?

If you are capturing through iLink / firewire, then you're actually using the capture hardware's DV codec for the original files. The capture program doesn't do anything with the data coming in other than dump it verbatim into an AVI file.

When rendering, Vegas will use SONY's own, vastly superior DV codec instead of Microsoft's scummy DV codec unless you specifically tell it otherwise. Even Microsoft's scummy DV codec is better than WMV, since it's far less compressed. But if you have Vegas and DVDA installed there's no reason to render to any DV codec other than SONY's. Or, you can render directly to DVD-compliant MPEG2 straight from Vegas.
MPM wrote on 3/18/2007, 1:41 PM
*If* you have the ability to grab your video using FireWire, please do so as already posted. If no, I'd suggest spending some time in the capture forum sections at doom9.org & videohelp.com to see if you can find info on your capture hardware, what software works well with it etc.

RE: Moviemaker... It's extremely rudimentary compared to free and inexpensive alternatives. While wmv will do an OK job for capture, it only begins to compare with alternative capture codecs at high bitrate IMHO (2500 - 3500). It won't save you much if any disk space, & your handling times (to decode, re-encode etc.) will be much, much longer. In short, there is no compelling reason to use it, especially if you're transcoding to mpg2 for DVD.