VS Newbie - DV Video Capture - Help!

[billyjk]

I have many 8mm video tapes that I need to archive digitally. I am using the VS Trial right now, trying to determine the best way to proceed.

After much research, I successfully connected the hardware: Sony TRV-120 camcorder>Firewire cable>Firewire Adapter Card>Win10 Desktop.

Thankfully, after trying other software (VLC, Premiere), VS connected instantly and I was able to capture some test footage on first try. Before I tackle the job of archiving my 8mm tapes, I need to confirm that I am getting the best possible results. Using the camcorder's DV port and using Firewire is reportedly the best way to connect. I know to exit as many background apps/services to provide ample CPU availability. But what are the best settings in VS to get the highest quality captures?

Any guidance or advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
-bjk

[lata]

Hi billy
And welcome to the forums

Connection via firewire is the way to go.
I have never captured from 8mm but assume it to be the same as a Mini DV camcorder
From Video Studio capture there should be a format choice, you should use DV.
Choosing DVD or Mpeg will recode the video whilst capturing and that may affect quality.

Using DV transfers the video data to the pc without any changes so what you have on the camera is what you get. There are no settings to choose from other than DV Type as Type 1
Files will be 13Gb per hour, DV.AVI files
From Preferences (F6) – capture tab has the option to "show dropped frames", tick that and it will show on the capture window, bottom right.
There should be no dropped frames whilst capturing.

There is a free DV capture program called WinDV that will also do the job
http://windv.mourek.cz/
So you could try that, the results should be the same, as I said the process is transferring the data and not recoding it.
Capture to the pc then import to Video Studio to edit.

Post up dated, another option
A quick google and it appears that PlayMemories Home software provided by Sony will also transfer DV from your camera to the pc.

[billyjk]

Trevor,
Thanks for the quick reply!

If what I am getting with VS via FireWire is the best I can get, I am happy to stick with it. VS has a far better user interface that VLC, and I will need to edit once done, so I am probably going to buy VS given the info you provided.

I need to learn VS and I am thinking that it's best to just capture entire tapes at once, and edit/tag later. I have only done short, 2 or 3-minute test captures. I need to confirm that my set up can keep up with capturing a stream for an hour. I'll give it a try and report back.

Thanks again!
-bjk

[lata]

Hi
Your pc will cope with the transfer of video DV to your pc, think of it as Copy and Paste although the data is stored on a tape so has to be moved in real time.
Using Video Studio we can now change/select the File Names not always available with older programs

Then choose a new Capture Folder for each tape.

A cup of coffee or two and the transfer is done

[Ken Berry]

I have a Sony 8mm digital camcorder like yours and have done a lot of transfers of my old analogue tapes via Firewire as you are now doing. And as Trevor has already explained, it is simple and gives the best quality (though certainly not HD quality) if you use DV/AVI as the capture format.

The only down sides are (1) the fact that capture is, as Trevor said, in real time i.e. a 1 hour tape takes 1 hour to capture; and

(2) the captured files are huge. As Trevor has also said, one hour will take up 13 GB of your storage space. So if, as you say, you are wanting to first capture quite a few tapes, and do the editing later, then I trust you have a suitably large amount of free disk space. Luckily these days we have access to excellent 4 TB external USB 3.0 drives which have dropped considerably in price!

[billyjk]

Thanks guys.

Yes, I've got a 5TB drive for the project, and I have no problem if I need another. I backup everything off-prem to BackBlaze so I am covered there.

Looking forward to learning VideoStudio and starting my first full-length capture.

[asik1]

I don't recommend and it has no practical use for home&travel DV's to be stored at "full DV". I captured mine to WMV's
Complete name : F:\DV's\sar3june05 .wmv
Format : Windows Media
File size : 1.55 GiB
Duration : 1 h 2 min
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 3 559 kb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate : 3 572 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-17 16:16:08.368

Video
ID : 2
Format : VC-1
Format profile : MP@HL
Codec ID : WMV3
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Video 9
Codec ID/Hint : WMV3
Description of the codec : Windows Media Video 9 - Professional
Duration : 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 3 350 kb/s
Width : 768 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.303
Stream size : 1.46 GiB (94%)
Language : English

Audio
ID : 1
Format : WMA
Format version : Version 2
Codec ID : 161
Codec ID/Info : Windows Media Audio
Description of the codec : Windows Media Audio 9.2 - 192 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo (A/V) 1-pass CBR
Duration : 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 192 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 85.4 MiB (5%)
Language : English

[Ken Berry]

asik -- we were not recommending that it be "stored" forever in DV format -- just until the user was ready to edit.

And could you explain how you managed to capture from a DV source to WMV. I was only aware of either DV or mpeg-2 capture from a DV source...

[asik1]

Ken, I was capturing with Xp's MovieMaker 2.1 run on 7.

[billyjk]

Ken, Asik1:
Thanks for the input. I've got some questions if I may:

By "DV format" do you mean "AVI"?

Also, once I capture a full tape in AVI, should I just convert the entire thing to .mp4 for storage and can I do that in VideoStudio? I've yet to start this project, but my thought was that I would keep each full tape capture intact (in AVI or .mp4), and tag the scenes. Then, when I want to share a particular scene, I'd locate the footage via tags, and edit a copy in .mp4 for sharing. I thought this would be better than stopping the camcorder after each scene during captuer, tagging it and saving it scene-by-scene. Does that make sense?

Thanks,
-bjk

[asik1]

Ken, Asik1:
Thanks for the input. I've got some questions if I may:

By "DV format" do you mean "AVI"?

Also, once I capture a full tape in AVI, should I just convert the entire thing to .mp4 for storage and can I do that in VideoStudio? I've yet to start this project, but my thought was that I would keep each full tape capture intact (in AVI or .mp4), and tag the scenes. Then, when I want to share a particular scene, I'd locate the footage via tags, and edit a copy in .mp4 for sharing. I thought this would be better than stopping the camcorder after each scene during captuer, tagging it and saving it scene-by-scene. Does that make sense?

Thanks,
-bjk

No need to tag, (unless you realy, realy want to)
VS has great scene detection, so once you wants to edit you can split.
I split my captured VHS's and delete all mishaps and camera drops.

[billyjk]

Awesome! Thanks for your insights.

[lata]

Hi
Capturing DV has the option to Split by Scene this creates separate AVI files for each scene
I think the option is selected by default, if not tick the box.

DV stands for Digital Video it is a codec, AVI is simply an envelope a carrier to hold the video format so is described as DV.AVI

Transferring the footage from the camera does not change the video what you have on the camera is what you get DV.AVI
If you capture rather than transfer to any other format then the video is trans-coded / converted during capture, the user having to set the capture properties.
Video Studio will only allow for DV or Mpeg2 as its capture format.
Yes after editing you will render your project to your desired output

The format is lossless and easily edited

There is no problems in trying several options as the tape will always be available to transfer footage again.
You can transfer as DV, then transfer as Mpeg2, the latter will be approx 4 Gb per hour, as mentioned DV 13 Gb per hour
I believe Split Scene is also available for Mpeg2 during capture

Oh the selected scenes will be each time the record button was pressed when using the camera.

[billyjk]

Trevor,
I am not seeing the capability to capture scenes in the "Capture DV" workspace. I do see it in the "Quick Scan" workspace, but I am not sure that Quick Scan will do the same job as the Capture DV.

Any advice with this?

[lata]

Hi
The attached image is what i see whilst capturing
The lower Split Scene numbers only show whilst capturing, there are 3 scenes

the lower icon shows dropped frames, activate this option from Preferences ( F6) Capture tab

click image for larger view