Unsatisfactory video capture

devzoo · #1 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 09:08 PM

The video that I capture onto my computer from my digital-8 camera doesn't look as good as I want.

When I hook my camera directly up to a tv, the video looks great. But when I capture to the computer, it appears that the resolution and/or framerate are reduced. I've tried fixing it by fiddling with the capture settings in Windows Movie Maker to no avail.

Here is my system:

Dell D810 15.4" widescreen laptop, 2ghz Pentium M
Win XP Pro, sp2; 1 gig ram; 60 gig 7200 rpm hd
320 gig 7200 ext IOGear hard-drive (usb 2.0)
Sony VRD-VC20 "DVDirect" ext d/l DVD burner (usb 2.0)
Sony DCR-TRV460 digital-8 camcorder (usb 2.0)

My camcorder plugs into my laptop via usb 2.0. My camera can also do firewire, but one fault (the only fault) of this laptop is there is no firewire port. I could buy a firewire pc-card.

My DVD burner is very cool, and allows me to burn DVDs directly from my camcorder using the A/V cable. The resulting DVD is of excellent quality, whether I play it on my tv or on my laptop. However when I try to rip the DVD to my laptop (using ImTOO DVD Ripper), the quality is reduced just like with the camcorder.

Is it possible to capture video on your computer at the exact same quality (resolution & framerate) as what's on the camera?

Mihai · #2 (**permalink**) 08-22-2005, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by devzoo

The video that I capture onto my computer from my digital-8 camera doesn't look as good as I want.

When I hook my camera directly up to a tv, the video looks great. But when I capture to the computer, it appears that the resolution and/or framerate are reduced. I've tried fixing it by fiddling with the capture settings in Windows Movie Maker to no avail.

Here is my system:

Dell D810 15.4" widescreen laptop, 2ghz Pentium M
Win XP Pro, sp2; 1 gig ram; 60 gig 7200 rpm hd
320 gig 7200 ext IOGear hard-drive (usb 2.0)
Sony VRD-VC20 "DVDirect" ext d/l DVD burner (usb 2.0)
Sony DCR-TRV460 digital-8 camcorder (usb 2.0)

My camcorder plugs into my laptop via usb 2.0. My camera can also do firewire, but one fault (the only fault) of this laptop is there is no firewire port. I could buy a firewire pc-card.

My DVD burner is very cool, and allows me to burn DVDs directly from my camcorder using the A/V cable. The resulting DVD is of excellent quality, whether I play it on my tv or on my laptop. However when I try to rip the DVD to my laptop (using ImTOO DVD Ripper), the quality is reduced just like with the camcorder.

Is it possible to capture video on your computer at the exact same quality (resolution & framerate) as what's on the camera?

Digital video capture is actually an inappropriate term since all there is to it is a transfer of bits (you know, the little 0's and 1's) which practically makes the process lossless. But your problem comes from using the wrong interface. Forget about USB and RCA A/V, get a FIREWIRE (iLINK, IEEE1394) card. Not as "cool" as copying to a DVD recorder, then struggling to get decent video from ripping the DVD, but it does the job it was designed for.

devzoo · #3 (**permalink**) 08-23-2005, 03:26 AM

svhs,

Thanks for your reply. I will happily get the firewire. Sounds like you are confident that firewire is the way to get lossless capture.

I just want the resolution and framerate of the video captured to my computer to be of the same quality as what's on the camera.

Can you explain to me why firewire is any better than USB 2.0?

Thanks!

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 08-23-2005, 06:56 AM

Because that's the medium through which DV is speced to be transferred.

Mike Thorpe · #5 (**permalink**) 08-23-2005, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by devzoo

Can you explain to me why firewire is any better than USB 2.0?

Thanks!

Although USB2 has a higher maximum data rate, firewire has a higher sustained data transfer rate, therefore is best for high bandwidth transfer such as video.

devzoo · #6 (**permalink**) 09-08-2005, 03:34 AM

I bought a firewire card off newegg.com for very cheap (newegg is great), and Adobe Premiere Elements.

Video capture works way better now. You were right.

Thanks guys.

Sithxace · #7 (**permalink**) 10-10-2005, 11:15 PM

reason why it looks good on tv and not pc is cause ur tv doesnt have as high of a resolution as a monitor, so itll always look shittier