Dumb questions

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I wonder if someone could be point me in the right direction here. I
have a new PC so plenty of space and CPU power, and I want to to
transfer a few choice clips of analogue video from camcorder to CD or
DVD.
I have a capture facility on the graphics card which seems to work well
enough but I'm not sure what strategy to adopt to end up with the best
quality.
It seems I can a) capture with Windows Moviemaker and transfer to SVCD
or b) capture in avi with VirtualDub, convert to M2V /wav with Tmpgenc,
and author a dvd with something like Ifoedit. As this is a one off
operation, I'd like to stick to freeware if possible.
The Moviemaker option seems the simplest but would I be losing quality
this way?
Any advice welcome.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 12 Jan 2005 05:56:11 -0800, stuart_noble@ntlworld.com wrote:
>I wonder if someone could be point me in the right direction here

Read the HOW TO articles at http://www.videohelp.com/


John Thomas Smith
http://www.direct2usales.com
http://www.pacifier.com/~jtsmith

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Thanks, Martin, I'll give that a try. Is the end result going to be
better than SVCD do you think? There isn't a lot of footage so the
extra capacity of the dvd isn't an issue. The trial SVCD run I did had
no sound on my dvd player, but the 2nd time it was fine. If that's
likely to be an intermittent problem, I'd go for the dvd option.
Thanks, John. I'll also check out the "how to" guides.

 

[martin]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

<stuart_noble@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1105538171.942894.175650@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>I wonder if someone could be point me in the right direction here. I
> have a new PC so plenty of space and CPU power, and I want to to
> transfer a few choice clips of analogue video from camcorder to CD or
> DVD.
> I have a capture facility on the graphics card which seems to work well
> enough but I'm not sure what strategy to adopt to end up with the best
> quality.
> It seems I can a) capture with Windows Moviemaker and transfer to SVCD
> or b) capture in avi with VirtualDub, convert to M2V /wav with Tmpgenc,
> and author a dvd with something like Ifoedit. As this is a one off
> operation, I'd like to stick to freeware if possible.
> The Moviemaker option seems the simplest but would I be losing quality
> this way?
> Any advice welcome.
>

I'd suggest that you capture with VirtualDub - use the HUFFYUV lossless
codec to capture a good quality AVI video.
Capture the source audio as PCM uncompressed .WAV format - 48000Hz.

Listen to the audio of the captured AVI - is it noisy??
If so then get the Goldwave Audio Editor - a free trial is available - and
do a noise reduction on the captured audio.

Now convert the captured AVI to DVD compliant video with TMPGEnc - you can
use the free trial version.
With TMPGEnc you can enable the video noise filter which can (very)
drastically improve the quality of the final encoded DVD video.

Then download the TMPGEnc DVD Author demo and author yourself a DVD.

That'll be all you need to do.

Martin.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'll study it before asking any more
fool questions.
The capture in Moviemaker is in wmv format (I think) and apparently
Sonic Mydvd can transfer these to dvd. Version 4.5 is on Ebay for next
to nothing so I'm going to give that a try. No doubt I'll be back
though......

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

On 12 Jan 2005 05:56:11 -0800, stuart_noble@ntlworld.com wrote:

>I wonder if someone could be point me in the right direction here. I
>have a new PC so plenty of space and CPU power, and I want to to
>transfer a few choice clips of analogue video from camcorder to CD or
>DVD.

I assume, thus, it's an analogue camcorder that you have.

>I have a capture facility on the graphics card which seems to work well
>enough but I'm not sure what strategy to adopt to end up with the best
>quality.

Allright.

>It seems I can a) capture with Windows Moviemaker and transfer to SVCD
>or b) capture in avi with VirtualDub

Excuse me, but how do you capture in Windows Moviemaker? Is it not as
an avi? The best capture, in quality terms, is Avi encoded as Huffyuv
(because it is a lossless codec).

>convert to M2V /wav with Tmpgenc

Tmpgenc is free for mpeg-1 encoding, but time-limited for mpeg-2 (I
think it's 15 days for Tmgpenc Pro, and 30 days for ordinary Tmgpenc).

Convert to wav? If you want to do a DVD with the best possible sound,
you leave the sound as PCM ("uncompressed"), but that takes a lot of
space in the disc, and the bitrate used for audio cannot be used for
video. Usually, DVDs are made with Ac3 audio. Svcd uses mpeg audio,
which is very good, although at twice the bitrates of Ac3. Tmgpenc
does encode to mpeg audio at the same time it makes mpeg video, but
you should force it to use a third party tool (tooLame), because
Tmgpenc's own audio encoding capabilities are horrendous. (Mpeg audio
is the standard for Vcd and Svcd, but not for NTSC DVD -it is for PAL
DVD-, but usually it shall play fine).

>and author a dvd with something like Ifoedit.

IfoEdit? You are tough, indeed! There must be are other freeware, or
shareware options available. (I use Tmgpenc DVDAuthor -very easy to
use!).

For the best quality, you should opt for Dvd, because it offers a
wider choice of bitrates and resolutions, some of which are clearly
above Svcd quality.