Capturing DV straight to MPEG

[rpk008]

Greetings!
I have not found a straight response for my question posted, so, I would like to know if it is possible to capture DV video through firewire with DVD MovieFactory doing the simultaneous encode to MPEG-2. I cannot capture to an MPEG-2 template-if I select one of these I receive the error message:

Cannot start the capture graph.
Capture failed.
The created file is corrupt and unusable.
It will be automatically deleted.

I have found that other users have received the same error message. So far I can only capture video successfully to AVI and then subsequently transcode to MPEG-2. I don't need to do this - I need to be able to, in one pass, capture and transcode-the old versions of Sonic MyDVD would do this. I have been tinkering with the demo of DVD Movie Factory 6 and am really pleased with all of the features, but I really need something that will transcode on the fly, otherwise I will simply use my $50 Magnavox set-top DVD recorder. I already have Sony Vegas Pro to take care of my capture, edits, transcodes and dvd authoring - I need to know if DVD Movie Factory can capture-transcode and author in one step (from an ieee 1394 source), or is this only possible from analog video sources.
Thanks!

[Ken Berry]

First, welcome to the Board!

Second, your question relates to Movie Factory, which has a separate forum. This one is for Video Studio. So you might also want to post your question in the correct forum...

Third, you might not have found a 'straight' answer, since there is no black or white yes and no answer possible -- and certainly not without even knowing what your computer set-up is, including its operating system. You don't even say which version of MF you are using...

A simple answer would be -- yes, it is possible. I have been able to do it on a variety of computers, but all have been relatively powerful ones, using successive versions of VS from VS7 and MF from version MF2. In the past, people who have reported inability to capture direct to mpeg-2 via firewire from a digital source have usually had computers which are not overly well endowed with resources, though that too would be a simplistic response since something about the architecture of the software and hardware on their computers was obviously also conflicting with the capture process.

But even though your MyDVD could do the job, it remains a very resource-intensive job. You are capturing from a high speed format (DV) and asking the program to convert the digital signal on the fly to another more compressed format. At the very least, we usually recommend that people ensure that background operations which are not essential be switched off when attempting the process.

I realise you say you must do it this way. And I can live with that. Personally, though, I have always preferred to capture from a DV source using the DV format. There is no demand on computer resources since you are only transferring video in exactly the same format from camera to computer. Editing DV is far less problematic than mpeg-2. And at the end of it, you can convert DV to mpeg-2 with less chances of something going wrong. Yes, it takes longer -- but whoever said that video editing was meant to be fast (or easy)???

[2Dogs]

-- but whoever said that video editing was meant to be fast (or easy)???

Just the label on the box!

[Ken Berry]

Ah, Corel/Ulead! But since when have we ever listened to them?? They just make the program -- but we have to use it!!

[rpk008]

Thanks for your help guys - in the past couple hours I installed and tried this another laptop that runs xp pro. No problems - and it does the whole capture/transcode on the fly - I am now testing the quality of a 2 hour disc encoded at 100 percent quality with 2 pass vbr encoding to see how it stacks up. Thanks again!