Capture and save .WMV files.

[Ted.]

Hi, All,

As I'm only interested in saving clips from my various old video tapes and storing them on my PC, I've been capturing and saving the clips in WMV format. They are much smaller and the quality doesn't appear too diferent from ones I've captured in AVI and saved with other formats.

heinz-oz, your response to akuhl's queston interests me:
I've been capturing a file as WMV and after trimming it have used the "Share > Create a Video File" method that he has. I now tried trimming the captured WMV file and using the "Clip > Save Trimmed Video" option. This is much quicker, but the video quality is not good as the other. Which is the correct method to save a trimmed clip in the captured format?

I could use Windows Moviemaker, but I prefer the large preview screen on VideoStudio.

[heinz-oz]

The problem is the fact that a file in WMV format is heavily compressed while retaining good quality. Editing that and rendering a new file will deteriorate the quality noticeably. There is no other way though if you want to edit such files.

In order to get the best quality clips you need to capture with as little compression as possible. If you are unable to capture to DV-AVI because your source is analog VHS, capture to mpeg2 at as high a bitrate as you can get from your system. Once your editing is done you can convert that to WMV with very little quality loss because the mpeg2 compression at high bitrates is less lossy than WMV.

I'm not the right person to ask though because I do not recommend or use compressed file formats for my editing because of problems I had when using such file formats.

[Ken Berry]

Are your analogue tapes VHS or are they 8mm or Hi8 tapes from an analogue video camera?

Either way, do you have a digital video camera which will allow pass-through i.e connecting your analogue camera or VCR to it via RCA/composite cords or S-Video/RCA audio cords, and then connecting the digital camera via Firewire to your computer? The signal is sent from the analogue souce and converted to a DV signal in the digital camera and sent on to the computer in that format.

This will give you about the best quality video you are likely to get from an analogue source.

I personally bought a Sony Digital 8 video camera which accepts both 8mm and Hi8 analogue tapes and allows me to capture them directly over Firewire. The quality is truly excellent and I remain surprised at how close they appear in quality to captures from a digital video camera.

And of course there are a number of specialist devices out there which allow capture of DV from an analogue source. Canopus is one company which makes such devices, though they are a bit expensive. Plextor is another...

And if you have to go the way of capturing mpeg-2, then a good quality device is the Adstech DVDXpress DX2 which gives very good quality from analogue sources using their proprietary software CapWiz. Once captured, this can of course be opened in VS for editing and authoring.

[Ted.]

Hi,
heinz-oz and Ken Berry,

Thank you for your help.

My analogue tapes are VHS and I'm capturing from a Dazzle DC-80, not the highest quality, I know but sufficient for my wants.

As my capture input is analogue, I've set my File>Project Properties to "Upper Field First" and checked "Show message when inserting first video clip" and also checked Default Field Order > "Upper Field First" in File > Preferences. When I insert a new video clip I get no popup message, though and if I right-click on an unedited captured file there is no record of Upper or Lower fields shown.

Does the Clip > "Save Trimmed Video" option just save the trimmed clip without re-rendering it?

[Ken Berry]

I think 'Save Trimmed Video' amounts to a render since it actually saves a new file. The video it is Trimmed from remains unchanged. But I had thought the Trimmed video itself is saved using SmartRender and as such, only the parts where the cuts were made at either end (plus any other editing you might have done to it) will actually be rendered.

Mind you, given that you say the quality of the saved video in these cases is clearly inferior, I am quite willing to be found wrong on this. I personally use Save Trimmed Video all the time, though not with WMV files, and I have never noticed any deterioration in quality at all.

What about my suggestion of using your digital video camera as a pass through device?

[Ted.]

Hi,
heinz-oz and Ken Berry,

Thank you again for your helpful suggestions.

I've experimented with different WMV profiles and have managed to get much better capture now with reasonable Video/sound sync.

I've noticed that when capturing (to AVI or WMV) I capture for about 20 seconds then drop about ten frames. This ten frame drop is repeated approximately every 20 seconds. I have turned off my virus checker and defragged my drive etc before capturing. I do notice a slight hesitation on the preview screen as I get the frame drop.

One thing That does confuse me is: A few of my WMV PAL profiles use 30 FPS. Isn't 25 FPS mandatory for PAL?

However, my Windows Moviemaker still produces far better results, than what I've achieved so far, so I'll use that in future and leave my VideoStudio 7 ES DVD for other projects.

[Ted.]

Hi, again,

Although I said I'd use Windows Moviemaker for capturing my WMV clips in future, I didn't mean to imply that I was abandoning VideoStudio. I am still trying to find the ideal WMV capture and save profile for my System using VideoStudio.

Therefore, I am still interested in answers to the questions I raised in my previous post.

Many thanks,

Ted.
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