Need recommendations on some video capture/DVD burning hardware

[KingNothing]

One of my clients has a son with a Sony camcorder and she wants him to be able to transfer video onto their computer and then burn it to DVD. She's going to call me later tonight with the model of the camcorder, but it's probably not digital. She said it came with cables for transferring video to the computer though. Not sure if that means a firewire cable or a composite video cable. Their computer is a newish Dell Pentium 4 with Windows XP.

So I need recommendations on:

1) A video capture card for both analog and digital camcorders
2) A DVD/CD burner
3) If the previous hardware doesn't come with useful software, a basic, easy to use video editing/compressing software package.

Thanks in advance.

 

[weflyrc]

Kinda new here, but I have one of the Dazzle devices that works with USB 2 (comes on most newer computers) and I am still trying various software to find best method of burning DVD's. I am currently running Nero, and Studio 8 and others. I just bought one of the cheap ($49) DVD burners from best buy and it works great. No problems ......yet. I am sure you will get lots of opinions. Good luck.

 

[DaveSimmons]

DVD: NEC 3500a, pay the extra $2-5 for bundled software instead of just a bare drive
Analog: Hauppage PVR-150 (replaces the older PVR-250, just as good but is cheaper) -- don't get the mce version.
Digital: any firewire card if not on motherboard

Software: Hauppage comes with basic software (unless you buy the -mce model by mistake). Also try a Search or Advanced Search in the Software forum.

 

[KingNothing]

Update:

It's a mini-DV camera: Samsung SC-D103

This page says it comes with a USB cable, but that the camera is firewire compatible. So do they even need a video capture card or is this thing just going to act like a portable hard drive? I don't have any experience with camcorders. Is a firewire card a must have or will USB (assuming it's 2.0) be fast enough?

 

[MScrip]

If the camcorder is digital, use Firewire to capture the video, and something like Pinnacle Studio will edit and burn the DVD. Or the new Adobe Premiere Elements. Both are about $99.

If the camcorder is analog, I don't really like the USB products like the Dazzle and others. The box itself converts the video then sends it into the computer... which is much different than the way Firewire captures digital. I've seen the results of a Dazzle type box, and it just doesn't look that great.

Instead, if you got the Pinnacle Studio AV/DV bundle, you get a PCI card with analog inputs. I think that would be a much better way to capture analog video.

I've used both a Pioneer DVD burner and an NEC burner. Both are excellent.

 

[MScrip]

Wow... you relied while I was typing. Yippee for it being a DV camcorder!

You need to put a Firewire PCI card in the computer. Don't worry it's about $30.

Most MiniDV camcorder have a Fireport and a USB port. The USB port is usually used for digital photos. The Firewire port is to transfer video into the computer. Although some camcorders might send video over USB, it's not recommended.

Your editing software, such as Pinnacle Studio or Premiere Elements, will find the camera pluged into the Firewire and you can capture the video onto the hard drive. Then you can edit the video, add titles and stuff, then create a menu for the DVD. After the project renders, you can burn it to a DVD.

So, you need a Firewire card, some video editing software and a DVD burner.... and welcome to the world of video editing! It's so much fun!

 

[Dravic]

been working this same issue for a while now..

my Major issues to be resolved was the huge amounts of disk space needed in order to store raw dv when capturing from dv camcorder to computer. were talking 1/2 a gig a minute.. or more...

best purchase to date.. $150 ilo dvd burner(dvdr04) with firewire in for buring camcorder movies directly onto dvd

so far quality looks great.. on my 57" HD hitachi

I cant burn to disk and watch it at the same time as there are audio drop outs, but the recording plays back fine.. must be a buffer issue with the audio hardware... no biggie.. set it and forget it..

I figure i'll burn the moveis directly to dvd with the ilo dvdr04, then use the much smaller dvd disk and edit the movie on my pc after is been compressed downto mpeg 2.

This way i'm not trying to capture 50-60gigs of raw dv. I also have a much smaller 4.7 gig of mpeg 2 to edit(only tired nero 6 so far).


a bonus will be when i pick up a tivo, i'll be able to dump stuff i want to save straight to dvd.. it has composite, s-video, and firewire in.


aLso see if you can pick up a cheap PYRO combo.. for like $40 you can get a 2 or 3 port firewire card, and an older version of something like ulead video... or only buy a burner that comes with video editing software, but then you'll still need a fiewire port.

 

[KingNothing]

Ok, so firewire card for sure.

Recording straight to a DVD sounds cool, but that could also get expensive in DVDs. Should I just recommend that they purchase another hard drive (external firewire drive maybe?) for storing/editing raw video? I don't know what file sizes this camcorder will produce, is 1/2 GB per minute pretty normal?

Can Pinnacle Studio and Premiere both compress raw video well?

 

[MScrip]

True... digital video uses lots of storage... but that's just the way it is. .

1 hour of uncompressed DV eats up about 13 GB of space. That's normal. I bought an extra 80GB hard drive... since it's just better to have all your video on another drive anyway. And since storage prices keeps dropping... having lots of storage to do video is not unreasonable anymore.

So at any one time, I can have more than 6 hours of uncompressed DV on my hard drive. That's plenty of video! And my 80GB drive seems tiny by today's standards!

Most of my projects are from one MiniDV tape or less... so I can have a few projects going at once. And, after you finish the project, and burn the DVD... you don't need to have the uncompressed video on the hard drive anymore. I just make copies of the finished DVD if I need to. True, you won't be able to edit it again if you erase the raw DV... but it's impractical to have hours and hours of DV stored on a hard drive indefinately.

You can capture directly as MPEG files... but it's not worth losing quality to save hard drive space.

The best thing to do is capture at full quality as uncompressed AVI files, onto an additional hard drive. There is no better way.

Yes, editing programs can use Raw AVI files or compressed MPEG files.... but it's still much better to edit with uncompressed files. Edit the raw video all you want... and when you're done, THEN do a final compression for the DVD.

 

[Dravic]

Originally posted by: MScrip
True... digital video uses lots of storage... but that's just the way it is. .

1 hour of uncompressed DV eats up about 13 GB of space. That's normal. I bought an extra 80GB hard drive... since it's just better to have all your video on another drive anyway. And since storage prices keeps dropping... having lots of storage to do video is not unreasonable anymore.

So at any one time, I can have more than 6 hours of uncompressed DV on my hard drive. That's plenty of video! And my 80GB drive seems tiny by today's standards!

Most of my projects are from one MiniDV tape or less... so I can have a few projects going at once. And, after you finish the project, and burn the DVD... you don't need to have the uncompressed video on the hard drive anymore. I just make copies of the finished DVD if I need to. True, you won't be able to edit it again if you erase the raw DV... but it's impractical to have hours and hours of DV stored on a hard drive indefinately.

You can capture directly as MPEG files... but it's not worth losing quality to save hard drive space.

The best thing to do is capture at full quality as uncompressed AVI files, onto an additional hard drive. There is no better way.

Yes, editing programs can use Raw AVI files or compressed MPEG files.... but it's still much better to edit with uncompressed files. Edit the raw video all you want... and when you're done, THEN do a final compression for the DVD.

I still think you have the ideal way of doing it.

I just brought 360GB (160GB.200GB) of hardrive space for network storage and backups. I'll eventually buy anoher drive for video editing. I think for special projects i'll want the uncompress DV for editing, but for the run of the mill backups its nice to be able to dump to mpeg2(dvd) immediately. With 2 kids i'm finding less and less time to dump 90mins of tape, edit, and wait another 90mins to re-encode.

I've also decided to just keep buying new mini dv tapes instead of re-using them. This way at least I always have the orginal uncompress DV as long as the magnetic tape survives.

so right now i'm keeping
1. orginal miniDV tape
2. dvd backup of unedited minniDV tape
3. editied dvd (title, themes, etc..). either from the uncompressed DV or the mpeg2(dvd) rip/backup - optional

 

[KingNothing]

Ok, so I'm going to recommend that they buy:

1) A DVD burner
2) A second hard drive
3) A firewire card
4) Adobe Premiere or Pinnacle Studio

Anything else I should know?

 

[tiap]

Go to
All you need to know about video

There are a lot of experts there. Read a lot!!
You need a firewire port in the computer and firewire cable to transfer the digital video from the camcorder. The only way for that camera. Digital camcorder video is transferred not captured, that's why you don't need a capture card. The usb is for photos only or for use as a webcam.
You need a program like TMPGE Movie Author to encode your transfer and record to dvd disk. Start with a simple, easy, cheap, capable piece of software like this. It takes a lot of learning.
I use Plextor dvd drives. They come with Plextools software which is very good for all burning etc, plus other software.
If the Dell doesn't have a firewire port then get a card (around $15.00)
Suggest that they use dvd/rw disks until they figure it out. A lot chaeper that way.
Make sure they understand that there is a learning curve and chances are they won't watch their first dvd movie the first night.

 

[Slowlearner]

I have been using Studio 8 on an Epox 8RDA+ that has a on board Firewire ports and thats all you need - no separate firewire card or DVD burning software. A big HD is useful - Outpost and BB usually some good deals going if you can wait for the rebate to come in.

 

[KingNothing]

Originally posted by: tiap
Go to
All you need to know about video

There are a lot of experts there. Read a lot!!
You need a firewire port in the computer and firewire cable to transfer the digital video from the camcorder. The only way for that camera. Digital camcorder video is transferred not captured, that's why you don't need a capture card. The usb is for photos only or for use as a webcam.
You need a program like TMPGE Movie Author to encode your transfer and record to dvd disk. Start with a simple, easy, cheap, capable piece of software like this. It takes a lot of learning.
I use Plextor dvd drives. They come with Plextools software which is very good for all burning etc, plus other software.
If the Dell doesn't have a firewire port then get a card (around $15.00)
Suggest that they use dvd/rw disks until they figure it out. A lot chaeper that way.
Make sure they understand that there is a learning curve and chances are they won't watch their first dvd movie the first night.

Where do I get TMPGE Movie Author from? I googled for it and got a lot of links to forum discussions about it, but no product website. Is this program easier to use than Adobe Premiere or Pinnacle? Money isn't really an object to them but ease of use would help me out a lot. They don't need to do fancy effects or editing.

 

[JonB]

Pinnacle Studio 9 or Premiere Essentials are the $99 answer to all your editing questions.
I use Premiere (the Pro version) but the Pinnacle Studio is easier for a novice to pick up.

http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/index.html

I formerly used TMPGenc as my AVI to Mpeg2 encoder, but now use the Premiere Pro encoder. While I still think the TMPGenc is better, I can save hard drive space since I don't have created intermediate files that are friggin huge.

That model Samsung looks their lowest level model. It has video "out" jacks, but no video "in"
Having input jacks is useful because you can hook up your VHS deck to the camera and it will capture the analog input and send it to your computer as DV over the firewire cable.

 

[halfadder]

To pick nits:
The DV that we often talk about as consumers is 25 Mbit DV, which is already compressed. 25 Mbit/sec = 3.125 MByte/sec
3.125 MByte/sec * 60 sec/minute * 60 minute/hour = 11,250 MByte/hour (plus overhead)
Not too bad.

--Uncompressed-- standard definition NTSC video in digital form is generally 720x480 @ 24 bit color. 24 bits = 3 Bytes
720 * 480 = 345600 (or about 0.35 Megapixel)
0.35 Mpixel frame * 3 Bytes/pixel = 1.05 MByte frame
60 fields per sec = 30 frames/sec
1.05 MByte frame * 30 frames/sec = 31.5 MByte/sec
31.5 MByte/sec * 60 sec/minute * 60 minute/hour = 113,400 MByte/hour (plus overhead)

 

[semo]

don't know too much about all the other stuff but a good dvd burner is the nec nd-3520a. the older 3500 is still ok

 

[JonB]

halfadder, you point out the big advantage to the DV coded. It is considered lossless and as such, it is the preferred codec by virtually all video editing software. I don't know how it does it, but I'll accept it as near enough to truth.

When I capture uncompressed AVI (no codec at all) in 720x480, the files are Gi-normous. Instead of around 200MB/minute, it is more like 2GB/minute. (about a 10 to 1 compression difference, and your numbers indicate similar compression)

When compared to MPEG-2 compression, DV is more editable because each frame is actually a complete frame while MPEG uses a mix of I frame, P frame and B frames and only one type (I or P) is actually a complete frame. So MPEG gets good compression, but in high motion scenes it can get blurry, especially if you encode at low bit rates or use Constant Bit Rate (CBR) instead of Variable Bit Rate (VBR).

If any of you are planning on editing MPEG files, be careful of your software choices. Most of the DV based editors only work by converting MPEG to DV, then editing, then converting back to MPEG. Not good.

TMP/Pegasys (see above link) does make an MPEG editor that says it leaves the file in the original format, and also edits the unencrypted VOB files from DVD discs. The rule of thumb is - once in MPEG, it should stay in MPEG.

 

[frozencoffee]

I use a Firewire card and Adobe software/ Video studio 8 to capture video..

Is AVI the best format to capture the raw file.???eats up a lot of HDD space?.

Is there a way to capture the entire MiniDv in one go?..or one has to play the enitre Single Mini DV on the HandyCam while dumping the raw data on to the computer. Is there a faster way of copying the data on to a computer.


Pls reply....anyone
Thanks

 

[mircea]

Originally posted by: halfadder
To pick nits:
The DV that we often talk about as consumers is 25 Mbit DV, which is already compressed. 25 Mbit/sec = 3.125 MByte/sec
3.125 MByte/sec * 60 sec/minute * 60 minute/hour = 11,250 MByte/hour (plus overhead)
Not too bad.

--Uncompressed-- standard definition NTSC video in digital form is generally 720x480 @ 24 bit color. 24 bits = 3 Bytes
720 * 480 = 345600 (or about 0.35 Megapixel)
0.35 Mpixel frame * 3 Bytes/pixel = 1.05 MByte frame
60 fields per sec = 30 frames/sec
1.05 MByte frame * 30 frames/sec = 31.5 MByte/sec
31.5 MByte/sec * 60 sec/minute * 60 minute/hour = 113,400 MByte/hour (plus overhead)

Is it posible to get uncompressed video from DV camera. Would you see a difference in quality?
With the huge HDD we have now, and the 1hour limit on a DV tape, if there would be visual benefits, why not use uncompressed signals for editing.

 

[Xponential]

Definitely the NEC HD-3520a or Sony DRU-710a for the DVD burner. You can't go wrong either way.

 

[MScrip]

Originally posted by: mircea

Is it posible to get uncompressed video from DV camera. Would you see a difference in quality?
With the huge HDD we have now, and the 1hour limit on a DV tape, if there would be visual benefits, why not use uncompressed signals for editing.

No... there is no such thing as uncompressed from the camera. DV is a standard for recording to tape. As light enters the lens of the camera, it's converted to digital data, compressed 5:1 and then recorded onto the tape. It's built into the DV standard. There's nothing you can do about that part.

But, when you capture using uncompressed to the computer, this uncompressed means the computer isn't compressing the video any more from the tape to the hard drive.

Bottom line... set your software to capture to uncompressed files, and that means it will capture to AVI files... and that will be the best quality. Sure, it will use about 13GB per hour... but that's the best way to do it. Hard drives are cheap!

For more information about the DV standard, visit here.

P.S. - I've used both Pioneer and NEC... excellent drives.