Are there any Speilbergs out there who can help me?

I've been transferring digital video footage (tape) onto my computer, but the quality deteriorates big time.
(Crystal clear when I hook video camera directly to TV for playback, terrible when I load it onto the computer)

I use a DV cable and windows movie maker.
Is either one of these the problem?

If WMM is the issue, what software programs are better?

Hey Bondy I will bring you a copy of a better program to the beach. It will capture your dv at full quality and let you pump it out onto a dvd. I have a firewire card in my PC to connect the camcorder to [I dont use the usb port]. Not sure if you wil be able to use the usb port, I think a card is about $50 and you will need a cable.

I guess stehsegler, you are being your usual helpful self.
Bondalucci, you may want to check what resolution your video camera captures at.
Non HD TV is actually pretty low resolution and non HD digital video cameras may have pixel resolution as low as 640x480. When you view this on the telly, it looks fine, but if you have a LCD monitor for our PC, the resolution can be 1800x1600 or greater.
If you watch the vide full screen on a hi res monitor then it will look grainy and pixelated as the software will try and smooth off the image when it has to fill the rest of the pixels on the screen.
Hope this makes sense.

sflack said...

stehsegler said...

well... I guess you should have bought a Mac... it comes with all the necessary software out of the box. And the quality is second to none...

Red thumb'd for having a mac! [}:)] At least i can play games!!!

well... I got an xbox360 and Wii to do that... tend to use computers to get work done. Just happens to be that after years of frustration with Windows PCs I finally tried out a Mac Laptop when it came to upgrade. Haven't looked back since...

... I guess you get what you pay for. You buy a cheap PC don't expect to be the next Speilberg. Then again you can always get a Sony (which costs exactly the same as a Mac)...

My experience is that most people that complain about Mac not being this or that is because they actually have to go out and buy software for the Mac rather than getting pirated warez for their PC from friends.

and waiting

superbly put

oh dear, you've opened up a can of mac vs pc youtube worms now

That was pretty good flacko.

if u haven't already got it - this is quite a popular freeware lossless codec u can use in an .MOV or .AVI container. Good balance on cpu taxing v hard drive taxing (space & speed) and editability

www.stokebloke.com/video/huffyuv.php

Reflex Films said...

the fact is that the Windows operating systems is also pretty damn good these days.

Windows XP yes, Vista definitely no. Speaking from my own experience. In the end I gave up and bought a mac.

Editing is much the same whether you are on Pc or mac - the software is quite similar to navigate - i jumped on Adobe premiere on a PC recently and was totally confident straight away.

I'd say yes from a software point of view. Regarding hardware reliability and hardware integration you'd have speak to people like Windwarrior... they'd have a very different story to tell.

At the end of the day either platform is just a tool - no real point getting emotive about it -

Exactly my point. After years of building my own PCs I simply got tired of spending my time being a PC builder and customizer... instead I wanted to focus on getting my work done quicker so I can get out on the water faster. Right now for the type of work I do there is no easier way than a Mac. Period!

In 2 years when Windows 7 is out things might change again but for now that's what works for me and most of people I work with.

although a Windows or OSX machine trying to run software outside of what it can deal with will suck no matter what - and this is primarily where you hear complaints from both camps.

Not entirely true. The biggest problems Vista has is driver compatibility. It's getting a bit better but at the end of the day I need to get work done now not in 5 years when they finally manage to fix things.

Heres some real advice - I reckon Sony vegas on PC is the go - its only a couple hundred bucks and it is a very powerful bit of software for the price.

I can second that... as a matter of fact if you need a PC my recommendation would be buy a Sony.

With External Hard drives - - speed is your friend - spring for the Firewire 400 connected version - the usb cable connected external hard drives are a little sluggish for my liking...

USB 2 runs at 480mbit/sec vs 400mbit/sec for firewire. The speed really depends on how many drives you are running on the same bus and what speed the external drive is.

External hard drives are a must as they leave your operating system hard drive to do the hard work like transcoding on capture while running the operating system - (and all the other programs you forgot to close down )

This where FinalCut with the ProRes or Apple Intermediate Codec has the upper hand in my opinion. I have used Premiere and Vegas but found FinalCut is the only software only editing solution that can handle video material from different sources well.

As for everyones argument that Mac are for dummies... well, as I said I used to build my own pcs but got tired of wasting all this time to research and source the components and putting it together.

As a friend of mine puts it. When you are younger you but a little Barina and start tinkering with it... buying a new muffler, a new suspension etc. etc. . In you mind you tell your self that's just as good as a Porsche. Then you finally have the money to buy the Porsche. Within the first 5 minutes of driving you realize that you have been fooling yourself all those years.

educational stuff for anyone following this thread..

i have found that firewire 400 runs way quicker than USb - i believe Firewire has a greater sustained speed whereas usb has a greater peak speed.

firewire is certain held as the base standard for DV / HDV editing / live capture / live print to video) speed in the video world - whereas as USB is generally avoided - i certainly found that the one usb ext hard drive i use is a little troublesome.

There is something "nice" about working in the mac os environment each day.

since we're on the topic - anyone locally want to buy 5 of IDE icecube external enclosures with 2 daisychainable firewire 400 & usb 2? I'm finding firewire 400 & 800 too slow with multiple stacked tracks of 1920x1080 footage in ceneform or huffy and I've replaced them with e-sata enclosures. They basically just sat on the table and never got moved. Look like new and are nearly 2 years old. The empty enclosures are currently about $120 new from local computer shops, and was hoping to get maybe just under half that for each. I know that sounds rich for external enclosures, but the firewire interface is the oxford chipset (not the prolific) so it guarenteed reliable on both mac/pc.

yeah, i wish it was that cheap and easy for me too.

thanks for the link - no denying the price is great, but as u know it's just that usb2 speed is too inconsistent, or have i missed something and should i have been looking for external sata enclosures inc drive for $250 on that website? I found the shintaro e-sata enclosure for $75, i just not sure it will work with my sata2 card. I've read that some folk are having problems with the cheaper enclosures and the adaptec cards

anyway, i got 2 new esata enclosures now and so far they work fine, but exy$

that's pretty good. works out about $45 cheaper for me per drive+enclosure if they work reliably

i'm using the esata stuff so i can jump between mac and PC quickly without copying stuff, and so i can use the lappys if need be with sata express card

Bondalucci said...


Man, this thread got pretty technical, pretty quickly.
- I feel like the guy who asked "whats the time?"...and they told him how to build a watch!
Anyway, thanks to all the guys who pm'd me. Jman has put me onto a Pinnacle Studios Plus software program that seems way better than WMM for retaining picture quality... and still only using a DV cable.

Sorry if I don't get back to all those who offered help.
Sounds like other people got new info too, cheers.

I thought I new something about video editing, but couldn't follow half of the info
you got, way to high tech for me