Firewire 1394 Card Issue

oka · Post by **oka** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 7:31 pm

I have three FireWire cards I had a while back. One by Actiontec 3-Plugs, the other one by Dazzle (Dazzle DV-Editor) with 3-Plugs, the third, name unknown with a 2-Large and 1-Small plug. When I plugged each of the cards, I can watch video on my computer, from my Sony DCRTRV-280 Digital8 camcorder. However, the video looks nice on the LCD screen on the camera, but on the computer, the video looked much darker than the camera's.

The cards are older now, and I can't find any new driver to install since they were originally made pre-Windows XP. Since the cards accept the default's Windows driver, would I need a separate driver from the manufacturer?

Just bought a new one an hour ago, installed the card from Adaptec (AFW-4300), the same issue.

Bye the way I am using Microsoft's Movie Maker

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:07 pm

As far as I am concerned, firewire is firewire is firewire (unless it is Firewire 2). The XP driver is all you need. (At one time -- I think before XP -- there was an issue if you used a Texas Instruments firewire driver and not the MS one, but I suspect that is well in the past.)

Now that being said, I have two firewire cards (no longer have a third), plus one on my laptop. And with all of them, when I capture using Video Studio (and for that matter with any other program) the captured video looks darker and of lesser quality than what appears on the camera's LCD. But I think this is only a function of the preview screen in the computer program being no more than that. It is only there to give a rough idea of how things will look.

I simply ignore the apparent difference in quality, do my edits and burn a DVD, and the latter always looks great when displayed on a TV. Back to much the same quality you see on the LCD.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Sun Mar 04, 2007 10:36 pm

I second that. Never worry too much about what is seen in the preview screen. It is only that, a low quality, low resource using indication of what is being worked on. The final result will look like the original if you don't stuff it up by trying to "improve" the preview with filters etc to make it look more like what you see on the camera.

LGO · Post by **LGO** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:39 am

To echo what Ken and Heinz-Oz said, the preview screen is "basic" at best. I take a small snippet of every video I've captured and play it on my TV before I do any editing, etc. If it looks okay on my TV, I don't look back. Only once have I had to adjust anything.

Good luck,

LGO

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:41 am

I think the darkness or lightness is to do with the software.
Easy enough to check what I mean. Open a video on your computer with
Windows Media Player, then open that same video with another player such as PowerDVD, WinDVD or Nero etc.

It is unlikely they all display the colours exactly the same.
For what its worth the LCD preview on my camcorder is a lot brighter than the video on the computer screen.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:11 am

LGO wrote:To echo what Ken and Heinz-Oz said, the preview screen is "basic" at best. I take a small snippet of every video I've captured and play it on my TV before I do any editing, etc. If it looks okay on my TV, I don't look back. Only once have I had to adjust anything.

Good luck,

LGO

I have put a tripple head video card (Matrox Parhelia) into my machine and permanently hooked up a small TV to one of the outputs. MSP as well as VS can preview on the TV monitor instead. All that is seen on the TV is the actual video preview.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 2:13 pm

From a similar post (http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... hlight=lcd)

Interestingly in my case the CRT monitors are the only ones affected (one Philips, one AOC), the same card on an LCD monitor (one Philips, one Acer) have correct levels...

It seems an LCD monitor, whether it be on your camcorder or attached to your pc, gives a brighter picture.

railroadguy · Post by **railroadguy** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:20 pm

Black Lab wrote:From a similar post (http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... hlight=lcd)
It seems an LCD monitor, whether it be on your camcorder or attached to your pc, gives a brighter picture.

You got that right

oka · Post by **oka** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:28 pm

I really appreciate all your replies.
I have returned the newly bought card I got since the older ones are quite okay.

I thought the LCD screen is the WYSIWYG concept. So What I See I Not What I Get. That holds true since the brightness of the LCD screen can be adjusted. I should have known that.

Anyway, I still have an issue. Where I am getting to is on the quality of the video. Some years ago, I owned a Sony Digital8 (forgotten the model, but it is a model one step above my current one). I remember taking much better video than the one I now have. I took pictures from the bleachers at a sports court, indoors, and on my computer, the videos were all "crisp". With my current camera, same tape type, the video is not acceptable when used indoors, in a big living room, and well lighted. The one difference is that the first one was new and this camera is used. Maybe I just need to adjust some of the camera's settings.

I captured the video through FireWire and RCA to compare, and both are same.
The people in the video were somewhat dark, the living room walls which were off-white color looked like washed-out pastel. (No the camera setting is NOT on the Pastel setting.)

The exposure is set to AE. I will go back to see what might been the cause of the bad quality.

Again, thanks y¡¦all.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:03 pm

I thought the LCD screen is the WYSIWYG concept. So What I See I Not What I Get. That holds true since the brightness of the LCD screen can be adjusted. I should have known that.

TV video (NTSC or PAL) is generated differently from computer video (VGA, SVGA, etc.). So, the only way to accurately judge the image is with an composite NTSC/PAL monitor. (It would connect to a yellow RCA jack, rather than a 15 pin VGA connector.) Professionals use calibrated NTSC/PAL monitors. You may be able to adjust your computer so that it closely matches your TV, but don't expect it to be exact.

You should also be aware that TVs are adjusted for overscan. The picture will be cut-off a bit on all sides. But, you will see the entire picture on your computer. So, keep the important parts of the image (and the titles) inside the safe area.

I have three FireWire cards I had a while back... on the computer, the video looked much darker than the camera's... I captured the video through FireWire and RCA to compare, and both are same.

The firewire connection does not affect the brightness or color! It's a digital connection, and you are just transfering digital data.

The RCA conection is analog. The camera's digital-to-analog converter, and your capture device's analog-to-digital converter can (and will to some extent) affect color and brightness.

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:54 pm

caxtin wrote:...
I captured the video through FireWire and RCA to compare, and both are same.....

Now, here you lost me a bit. How, exactly, did you capture via firewire and RCA and got the same result? The RCA connection is analog and needs to be converted to digital first. What was the capture format?

Firewire is digital and, in case of DV-AVI capture, no conversion is required, you just copy the tape contents straight across to the PC. The quality is definitely the same as on the camera, it might look a bit different on the PC's monitor but it is essentially identical data to what is on the tape. What was the capture format via firewire?

oka · Post by **oka** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 10:32 pm

Heinz-Oz, I got me too there. I don't know how I captured with Firewire and RCA and go the same quality. That is exactly ONE of my points. This is all I did. I installed the Firewire card, connected the wire from my camera to the card on the computer, opened Microsoft's Movie Maker, (and UVS 10) set it's settings, and captured the video to my computer in AVI format. I did the same with RCA, but this time from the camera's one port to the three ports (RED, WHITE, YELLOW) lines, and then to AVI format.

Why I know the video is not good is on the issue of past experience. As I mentioned in my early post that I took videos of my daughter at a cheerleading competition, in a gymnasium, and the video and audio were excellent. This time, I don¡¦t' have the same camera (though it is a level higher the one I have now). The video I just took is not acceptable. The video I took from my digital camera came out even much better than with the Digital8 tape. Maybe the camera had issues from the person I bought it from on eBay.

When I get home, I will do a test with an old tape of the ones I took at the gymnasium, capture to my computer. It that comes out good, then I know my new video is bad. But it is comes out bad, then I know it might be from the computer, or cable. I will post the result of my finds tonight after the test.
Thanks

heinz-oz · Post by **heinz-oz** » Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:38 pm

caxtin wrote:Heinz-Oz, I got me too there. I don't know how I captured with Firewire and RCA and go the same quality. ...

What do you know?

Better still, check the default settings of your capture card (since you didn't change them). Your problem might be there

Post by **Ken Berry** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:48 am

Capturing with the Firewire card, you would be capturing AVI, yes, but specifically DV/AVI.

On the other hand, capturing with the RCA cables, you would be capturing .AVI, but full, uncompressed AVI. That runs at about 65 GB per hour of video, and your computer just might not be able to handle files that size with ease...

Right click on the respective files within VS -- either in the timeline or Library panes -- and copy their properties down here.

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Firewire 1394 Card Issue

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