Mini DV Camcorder Capture Settings

[paulwho]

Hi > could someone tell me what capture settings should I use with UVS 11+ to capture 60 min tapes from my Sony Mini DV PAL Camcorder ?
I want to edit them & burn to DVD.
Regards Paul

[lancecarr]

Just import natively as DV AVI, there are no "preferences" as such. Just capture as "DV" and the program will do the rest.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Paul

Also use Firewire connection to your PC (Dv out)

[paulwho]

Thanks guys > I thoughht you needed to fill in the Project template properties. That's why I asked. Upper Field First or Lower Field First or Frame Based, Mpeg or AVI, 3000 or 9000 kbps ????
Regards Paul

[Ken Berry]

You do that after you finish editing the DV. You then convert it to DVD compatible mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD). In this, you must use the native DV field order (Lower Field First) and the PAL frame size 720 x 576 (or smaller, compatible frame sizes). But after that, the properties will vary according to the size of your project and the quality you want the end product to have.

HQ will use a video bitrate of 8000 kbps which will allow you to burn one hour of video to a single layer DVD using high qualiity LPCM audio. But you can fit about 10 minutes or so more video on the same disc is you use one of the more compressed audio formats compatible with DVDs, which are Dolby AC-2 and mpeg layer 2.

If your project is 90 minutes long, then the bitrate will be about 6000 kbps (or a little more with those other audio formats). The quality will still be good. If your project is 2 hours, the bitrate will need to drop to around 4000 kbps, and the quality will be 'reasonable', though of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

[2Dogs]

Hi Paul,

it seems that VS has at last got some fairly sensible default values. The default for NTSC-DVD is set to lower frame first, which is what you want for capture from MiniDV, and 8000 kbps variable bitrate for the video, LPCM audio.

I'm in NTSC territory, but if I change the project properties to PAL-DVD, it changes the bitrate to 6000 kbps variable. That seems a bit low to me, so you might check the project properties in your PAL installation. If you only want to fit an hour of video onto a single layer DVD, you should be able to get up to 8000 kbps. (it could just be a consequence of the higher vertical resolution of the PAL standard, however, 576 against 480 for NTSC.)

Do also check that you are set to 4:3 and not 16:9 - the latter appears to be the default format, in which case it's good to know that VS hasn't given up on all its idiosyncratic defaults!

[Trevor Andrew]

I'm in NTSC territory, but if I change the project properties to PAL-DVD, it changes the bitrate to 6000 kbps variable.

Do also check that you are set to 4:3 and not 16:9 - the latter appears to be the default format, in which case it's good to know that VS hasn't given up on all its idiosyncratic defaults!

Hi 2dogs

I am in pal country
The default bit rate for Pal is the same as Ntsc at 8000 variable
The aspect is 4:3 unless you change it on the splash screen.

i tend to use 16:9 widescreen at 6000 constant, get very good results.

[paulwho]

Again MANY THANKs for your help > all your input has been very helpfull.
So when I hook up my DV firewire from my PAL Camcorder to the computer, I select Capture in UVS 11+ & then select DV from the drop down or should it be Mpeg ? Do you then go with the default settings ?
Regards Paul.

[2Dogs]

So when I hook up my DV firewire from my PAL Camcorder to the computer, I select Capture in UVS 11+ & then select DV from the drop down or should it be Mpeg ?

I would suggest you go with capturing to DV type 1 avi, at least initially. Your cpu will be doing hardly any work, as it's essentially just copying the footage to your hard drive. You should have no problems with any modern 7200rpm drive - keep an eye on the dropped frame counter whilst capturing - it should remain at zero.

Make sure you don't have any other programs scheduled to run things like anti-virus scans and so on, And I prefer to disable any screensaver too.


You could of course capture directly to mpeg-2. This has the benefit of potentially saving time, as you can later SmartRender the footage when creating your project in the "Share > Create video file" or "Share > Create disc" step. It also swaves hard drive space.

There are drawbacks, however, and the preferred workflow tends to be capture directly to DV avi and then encoding the project to mpeg-2 in the "Share" step. It might depend on how picky you are - editing mpeg-2 files can result in some visible artefacts, especially at transitions, which you can avoid by editing DV avi files on your timeline, and encoding the whole thing to mpeg-2 when you're done. The avi workflow also allows you the flexibility to change the output video bitrate to whatever you want, whereas if you work with footage captured direct to mpeg-2, the aim would be to not re-encode the clips at a different bitrate in order to maintain the maximum picture quality.

Do you then go with the default settings ?

For a typical one hour long project, the default settings would be fine. Depending on the length of the whole thing and how fancy the menus are, you might have space on the disc to tweak the settings if you wish, say upping the bitrate to use all available space on the disc - but not many people could tell the difference in picture quality between a DVD using 8000 kbps and one using 8500 kbps.

I'd say start with the defaults and then experiment a bit. Have fun!

[paulwho]

Thanks 2Dogs,
Sorry to be asking these questions but I just needed to know where to start. Between you, Ken & all the others, I'm now ready to start capturing, editing & burning.
Cheers guys./

[Trevor Andrew]

I would suggest you go with capturing to DV type 1 avi, at least initially. Your cpu will be doing hardly any work, as it's essentially just copying the footage to your hard drive. !

Just to add, the footage on your Mini-Dv tape is in the form of DV-Avi.

By using the DV option the data is transferred / copied to the pc, no re-coding is required.
What you have on the camera is what you get on the pc.
This is the best capture option even though the files are about 13Gb per hour.

If you were to capture to any other template you would have to select the capture settings, the data being re-coded during capture.

Good luck

[paulwho]

Thanks Trevor > this is a great forum , you are all very helpful & have heaps of knowlege on this subject. I will be doing what you say & capturing using the DV-Avi option.
Regards Paul