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I have started dabbling in video capture, initially to transfer my digital8 tapes to DVD for archiving, and more recently in an attempt to transfer some of my VCR tapes to DVD to save space. I am about to give up on the whole affair, since the result is always poor quality and/or "jerky" video.
Without going into the tedious details of what I have and haven't tried, I have used different inputs (DV camcorder into Firewire card and composite video to digital converter into USB), and tried several capture programs.
I have problems rendering to DVD, but I also have significant problems with the capture process with "jerky" results (dropped frames?)

Do I just need more horsepower?
I have an AMD Sempron 2600+ which runs at 1.8GHz, 768MB RAM and XP SP3 (problem also seen on SP2).

In people's experience is this just inadequate for capturing video in real time? I am happy to upgrade if necesary but don't want to throw good money away.

If you are using the mini DV camera > Firewire route, there should certainly be no problem as long as you are capturing in DV format and not mpeg-2. This is because DV capture imposes no strain on system resources -- it is merely transferring the video from camera to computer in exactly the same format as it was filmed in. It is, as you would know, done in real time and creates large files (around 13 GB per hour of video). But it is the best quality possible. You do your editing in that format, then at the end of editing go to Share > Create Video File > DVD to convert it to DVD-compatible mpeg-2.

But if you are using the min DV camera > Firewire route and capturing direct to mpeg-2, you probably would have problems because that is far more demanding. The computer has to convert the incoming DV signal from the camera and convert it on the fly to mpeg-2. If the computer cannot handle all that data quickly, the data builds up in what is called a transcode buffer, and when that fills, everything stops while the data is processed and buffer emptied for another load. Sometimes the process, instead of being stop-start, just stops altogether... And on top of that mpeg-2 is more difficult to edit, and people going that route often found, among other things, that somehow or other the video and audio got out of sync.

This is also the situation with the sort of USB video converter you mentioned unless it is like the Adstech DVDXpress DX2 which has a hardware chip built into which does the conversion in the device itself, rather than imposing on computer resources to manage it. That's fine and you get good quality mpeg-2 captures from such a device. But devices without such a chip are very common, and in addition, some of the older ones would not let you play around with the format they used to capture in. Some would also only capture to mpeg-1 format, which frankly is just not up to the job of later being up-converted into DVD quality mpeg-2 (or indeed being burned directly to DVD in mpeg-1 format).

Thanks very much for your advice; on that basis I will keep plugging away at it!

Incidentally the analogue capture device I mentioned is an EASYCAP DC60 (Syntek 1160) which I know is cheap and people have had mixed results with on this forum.

I don't suppose anyone could recommend a good beginner's guide to video capturing/processing? I quickly got the impression that all these "one button conversion" claims were myths.

I have extensive PC/software background but little/none in video processing.

Thanks again
Martin

We have an extensive Tutorial section on the main index of this Board. You might start with http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 512#101512

There is also a tutorial there on VHS/Hi8 to DVD preparation.

Many thanks for your time.

Please view:
From Camcorder to DVD with Video Studio

Just out of interest, I have finally succeeded in capturing VHS tape footage onto my PC in good quality after many months of frustration and stop/start attempts.

In summary:
1) Ditched the Easycap. Never managed to achieve a capture which wasn't jerky. Possibly didn't have enough CPU to do the conversion to MPEG on the fly.

2) Tried the suggestion of using "passthrough" or "A/V->DV" on my digital8 camcorder (Sony TRV-355). This resulted in perfect, rock solid captures with no dropped frames, and I now have the footage safely in DV format. This was a bit of a "d'oh" moment; I hadn't really appreciated the camcorder could do this (if you saw the manual you'd understand).

3) Use WinDV to capture, not VS (11). If I capture with VS, it tries to take control of the camcorder, starts the tape playing, gets into all sorts of trouble, and needless to say doesn't capture anything. WinDV doesn't try to take control of the camcorder (unless you tick a little box).

It is a bit awkward having to hook up the camcorder to do the transfers, but it should be a case of transferring everything I want then not needing to use it again. Also, it's significantly cheaper than a Canopus which I've seen recommended on this forum!

I actually bought a Sony Digital 8 DCR-TRV480E specifically to play and capture my old video 8 analogue tapes via firewire -- rather than a Canopus, which would of course have done the same job (although not able, like the Digital 8, to actually play the analogue tapes themselves). I did this to also have a Digital back-up camera. For the higher end Canopus devices, the price differential is insigficant.

But I am glad you had your 'doh' moment -- the difference in quality this way is fantastic!

specifically to play and capture my old video 8 analogue tapes via firewire

Same reason I did - I have 16 years of video of the kids, the first 10 or so of which is on analogue video8. I must crack on with capturing it all, as I've already found one tape unreadable :cry: .

The TRV355 was quite expensive at the time but was one of the few models around which could record digital8 and play legacy video8 tapes. I love it, it's a powerful little device and I still haven't used it to its full extent (proved by my previous post).
I am also aware that if it breaks my options for recovering the video8 tapes are more limited (I'm assuming no-one makes combined digital8/video8 camcorders any more...)