Capture quality very low in AVI/DV

[mtalbotnz]

Hi

I am trying to capture from a MiniDV tape to AVI/DV using VS9 (with update pack of 2005/08/12). Ive read the recommended procedures and done lots of reading/searching but I cant get this right.

This is the problem:

When I capture, using firewire, I choose AVI/DV Type 1. Im in NTSC country

The recommended procedures say

Set the Capture Properties

If you want the best quality and plan to burn to DVD, set a high video bitrate property (Variable, 8 Mbps) and the best frame size (720 x 480 NTSC, 720 x 576 PAL).

However I cannot choose a bitrate property in AVI format (it is an option if I try to go to MPEG direct - but my system specs are just not good enough (see below)).

The very first time I did this it actually worked. I got an .avi file of about 13 GB and was able to get it onto a DVD looking fine. However, ever since, a one hour tape has recorded to 5GB, then 9GB ... and obviously the quality is terrible, producing very shaky, stuttering video and audio in the preview in edit mode (and when I run the avi file in something like Windows Media player.

I just captured 30secs as an example and here are the various settings:

Project Settings:
Microsoft AVI files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps
Lower Field First
DV Video Encoder -- type 1
Check data rate: 8000 KB/sec****
DV Audio -- NTSC, 44.100 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo


Video Properties:
Microsoft AVI files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps
Lower Field First
DV Video Encoder -- type 2
Check data rate: 2173 KB/sec
PCM, 32.000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo

I actually got these from the info box that is asking me if I want to change the videos properties to match the video's properties.

**** I realise that above I said that I couldnt find anywhere to set the bit rate property, then in this experiment, I clicked the advanced button on the AVI tab of the project options that you get to when you click on the edit button of the Project Properties. From there I saw a check box that allowed me to 'Check data rate' - so I set that to 8000 kbps (with 0% tolerance). So the above 2 sets of properties is the first time Ive seen 'data rates'

Interestingly, the project is now at Type-2 DV, which I didnt choose.

Ive spent countless hours trying to get this to work and am on the verge of giving up. Please help.

Computer: Dell Latitude X200, Pentium III CPU-M 800Mhz 797Mhz 632 Mb RAM and 20GB free space on hard drive (very unfragmented). I turn off all other software when I do the capture to give it everything.

[2Dogs]

Hi Matthew!

Yours is an interesting case! I think you should have gone out on Black Friday and picked up a cheap pc, but you should be able to get your system to work.

For starters, you must capture in avi format - your pc is not fast enough to do direct to MPEG-2 capture. Your post suggests that you are at least attempting to capture to avi, but I suspect you may be getting a little confused between capture properties and project output properties.

First of all, go into the "Capture" tab of "File >> Preferences" and make sure that the "Show drop frame information" box is checked. This will enable a drop frame counter to show up below the preview window when you are capturing, which will tell you if your system is up to capturing - the counter should remain at zero at all times.

When you hook up your camcorder by firewire, and go into the "Capture" mode, you'll see some stuff to the left of the preview screen.

At the top, there should be a box labelled "Duration:". If you want to capture a long sequence, you can leave this set to "0:00:00:oo". If, however, you want to limit your capture to, say, 5 minutes, you could set it to "0:05:00:oo".

Below that is a box labelled "Source". If all is in order, it should show your camcorder, or at least its make, eg Sony, JVC, etc.

Next, and importantly, the "Format:" box. This should show "DV".

There's a checkbox called "Split by scene". Checking this will split your captured footage into separate files based on changes in the timecode - so if you shot on different days, or different times of the same day, you'll get separate files for each of those segments.

Below this it shows "Capture folder:", and the box below it will show the path to the captured video folder. By clicking on the folder icon to the right of this box, you get a dialogue box that allows you to point to a suitable folder - make sure it's on a drive or drive partition that has enough space. By default, lots of pc's, even today, have just a single C: partition.

Below the checkbox is a blue cogwheel labelled "Options". When you click on this it brings up a dialogue box with two options - "Capture options..." and "DV Type...". Make sure "Capture to Library"is checked and "DV type-1" is checked in the dialogue boxes. You'll have problems with DV type-2 with your P3.

You should then be able to capture some footage as DV Type 1, that is with the audio and video combined, and a clip or several clips will appear in your clip library to the right of the preview screen.

Now you're ready to move on to the edit phase. Before you use your captured footage on your project timeline, you might want to trim the video, or split it into different chunks. The best way to do that is by keeping it as DV type 1 avi, so don't get confused by MPEG-2 video bitrates, and don't mess with the "advanced" avi output properties.

By default, VS will probably insert your captured clips into the timeline - but let's say you want to trim them separately before using them. I would open a new project. In the "General" tab of "File >> Preferences", make sure that the "Show message when inserting first clip into the timeline" box is checked.

Then insert your captured clip into the timeline for trimming. This will bring up an alert dialogue box which shows "Do you want to change the project settings to match the video's properties so videoStudio can perform SmartRender?" to which you should click on the "Yes" button.

Then you can trim your clip and use "Share >> Create Video File >> Same as Project Settings" An alternative workflow is to put all the clips in your timeline and trim them without saving the trimmed clips as new files. Whichever method you choose, when you check your clip properties in the clip library, they should show:

File format: Microsoft AVI files .. OpenDML
File size: xxx,xxx KBytes
Frame rate: 29.970 Frames/sec
Duration: xxx.xxx Seconds
Data rate: 3512.11 kbps (ignore this, it's not reported properly by the program)

Video
Compression: DV Video encoder .. type 1 (Very important!)
Attributes: 24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3
total Frames: xx,xxx Frame

Audio
Compression: DV Audio .. NTSC
Attributes: 48,000 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo (might vary according to your camcorder)
Total samples: x.xxx.xxx Samples

If everything is in order, you can move on to apply all your transitions, effects, audio and so on, and then perhaps try outputting to an MPEG-2 project file, as per the "Recommended Procedure" which you should of course be familiar with.

Go into the "General" tab of "File >> Preferences" again and make sure that the "Default field order" box is set to "Lower Field first"

To output the whole project to an MPEG-2 file for later burning to DVD, use "Share >> Create Video file" and select "NTSC-DVD 4:3" for the output type. Doing this will automatically set all the MPEG-2 parameters to give good quality DVD output. If you manage to produce the MPEG-2 file, it should appear in your clip library to the right of the preview screen. Check its properties, which should show as:

File format: NTSC DVD
File size: xxx,xxx KB
Duration: xxx,xxx Seconds

Video
Video type: MPEG-2 Video, Lower Field First.
Total frames: xx,xxx Frame
Attributes: 24 Bits, 720 x 480, 4:3
Frame rate: 29.970 Frames/Sec
Data rate: Variable bit rate (Max. 8000 kbps) (this seemed to be where you were getting confused before)
Audio
Audio type: LPCM Audio
Total samples: xx,xxx,xxx Samples
Attributes: 48000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo
Layer:
Bit rate:

Be warned, though - your P3 system may take a very long time to create or "render" the MPEG-2 file from your project. It would be advisable to test-render a short sample avi clip to MPEG-2 first, just so that you can get familiar with the process and make sure that things are working properly and the settings are all correct. If you apply video effects and filters, it will slow things WAY down.

Good luck!

[mtalbotnz]

Wow, thanks for all that. I will try this evening when I get home. Some of what you told me Im already doing, but I will go through it step by step and see what happens and report back.

Im now in a bind since Ive promised all the relatives DVDs of the new baby for Christmas!!!! Oh well.

[Trevor Andrew]

Do not get confused by Dv and Avi

This is the way I see it.

Dv is Digital Video

DV-AVI video format is derived from digital camcorders and as such has been compressed by the camera software codec to 13Gb per hour.

From the capture screen if you select DV and the format remains DV then you are capturing/copying DV-AVI.
Video Studio will recognise the camera, which will show in the ‘source box’

Each manufacturer will use its own compressor codec, but will be very similar.
When you capture from a digital camera you connect using a Firewire or I-link cable.
The transfer of data is the same as copying, there is no recoding/ trans-coding. What you have in your camera is what you get in video studio, no losses.
There are NO capture properties to select.
The only Options you have is to select the Dv-Type.
Select Dv-Type 1
DV-Avi is the best way to get your video onto your pc giving you maximum quality.


From the capture screen if you select AVI format and Avi remains Avi you are not connected to a digital source.
When you ‘capture’ the data is re-coded.
Whatever the source, the footage is re-coded to Avi

The properties for the capture/re-code are set by you via the ‘Options Cogwheel’ in the same way you would select Dvd-Mpeg capture properties.

So when you say DV I know roughly what your settings are.
DV------ you are capturing an Avi file.

When you say AVI your settings could be anything.
Avi you are re-coding a file to Avi

Trevor

[2Dogs]

Im now in a bind since Ive promised all the relatives DVDs of the new baby for Christmas!!!! Oh well.

It could be worse - you might have promised the relatives new babies!

[2Dogs]

Hi Matthew,

I just re-read your first post and if you only have 20Gb of space on your drive things wil be tight if you're looking to end up with a one hour DVD! One hour of avi capture will amount to around 13Gb, and your MPEG-2 project file would be 4Gb or maybe a little more. That doesn't leave much, and when you burn to DVD, Video Studio will create temporary folders.

It may well be that after you've created your project and created a single large MPEG-2 file, you might have to consider either deleting the original source avi files (which would be a shame if you want to change stuff later) or perhaps burning them to DVD and freeing up the space on your hard drive. There might be other files you can delete too. What's your operating system, by the way?

Otherwise, you could save a considerable amount of drive space by deleting all those baby pictures!

Whilst I believe Trevor's post concerning the differences between avi and DV was entirely valid, I got the impression both from the content of your post and the description of your system and MiniDV camcorder that you were actually almost there on avi capture by firewire from your camcorder.

[mtalbotnz]

To confirm some of the questions/details from above:

1. I have the "Show drop frame information" box checked.

We may be getting somewhere here, because the counter does NOT stay at zero. Lots of frames get dropped everytime. My understanding is that this happens when the CPU is struggling. Sorry if I should have mentioned that earlier. Is there anything I can do to stop this (aside from the following)

In my attempts to give as much grunt to the exercise as possible, I have tried it with Write Cacheing both on and off. I also have the DMA settings on. I defragmented several times in a row after I removed ALL the baby photos to DVD, all the mp3's to DVD, transfered the successful movie I captured earlier in DV format to a spare PC, deleted all extra software etc etc. Then I closed down everything from my software-monitor programs through to my virus protection so the bare minimum was running.

2. In Capture Mode, I:

a. originally left the Duration at 00:00:00:00 to capture the whole tape (however in the last few attempts Ive set it at 30 secs because I dont want to waste the whole night)

b. The Source box shows my camera, with no issues at all.

c. The Format box shows DV (and changes back to DV if I choose AVI), so, Trevor Im pretty confident that part is ok. And as I made passing reference to in my original post; the first time I did all this, it worked. I followed the procedure and ended up with a great DVD. I still have that tape's DV file (movie1.avi) which Ive saved off to another PC. And in case it was a problem with tape#2, I switched back to tape#1 and had the same problem.

Trevor:
The transfer of data is the same as copying, there is no recoding/ trans-coding. What you have in your camera is what you get in video studio, no losses.
There are NO capture properties to select.
The only Options you have is to select the Dv-Type.
Select Dv-Type 1

Thats my understanding also and what I believe Im doing.

d. I dont use split by scene (esp for 30secs)

e. The capture folder is pointing to a designated folder Ive created on the C drive (I only have one other external hard disk that is only 9Gb and connected by USB 1.0 so of no use anyway)

f. The Capture options are always set to Capture to Library

g. The DV Type is always set to DV Type-1

So then I capture.
The 30secs appears as 1 clip usually (sometimes 2)


3. The edit stage:


I always have the "Show message when inserting first clip into the timeline" set. And when the alert message appears I accept.

When I begin to prview in order to split it into different scenes (still in DV - I dont go to MPEG until right at the end like the procedures tell me), I get a terrible shaky video and audio experience. Ive read that the preview isnt necessarily that good quailty so I open the test.avi file in windows media player - just as bad. I open it in Media Player Classic - just as bad.

Whereupon I stop, theres no point in adding transitions, titles or effects because its so bad I could even tell when to add a title!

I also make sure the Lower field first is chosen, I stay in NTSC-4:3 (I realise this comes a bit later)

4. Im prepared for each stage to take a long time as I know my machine isnt the newest/fastest anymore.

5. Since I cant think of a smart-alec comeback to the babies comment, I'll make no comment

6. F2Dogs, re the 20GB, you may be correct. However it worked the first time (the 13GB and 4GB files had no problem living together - both are now transferred off to the other PC for storage. And before you ask, the other PC (with no firewire) has abut 20GB in total so its not a viable alternative).

It may well be that after you've created your project and created a single large MPEG-2 file

At this point I cant even create a quality .avi so I have yet to get to the point where this is a problem for me.

7. Im using XP Sp2.

almost there

Yeah, but close only counts in horseshoes as my Dad would say.

8. One more thing, and Im going to do this tonight... remember the baby. Well 'said' baby did apply saliva with her mouth (the word for that is censored haha) to the firewire cable plug once, so just in case its that, Im going to get a new one. Im not sure whether to hope its that or not.

[Ken Berry]

If you are getting lots of dropped frames capturing DV, then - to state the bleeding obvious! - something is radically wrong, regardless of whether you got a good capture earlier.

I don't think you have ever said exactly what the Operating System you are using, is... Can you tell us please? If it is XP, have you tried capturing using Windows Movie Maker? If so, what are the results.

Another option would be download the free and very small program called WinDV, which does one thing and one thing well: capturing DV! It is also quite non-demanding of computer resources, which might be helpful in your particular case. You can get it Here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/WinDV.htm

[2Dogs]

Hi Matthew,

Well at least you are making progress of sorts. Even though a P3 is slow by comparison with more recent cpu's, it should be able to handle capturing. Your cpu shouldn't be too stressed during capture - in effect it's only copying a file - so run task manager in the "performance" tab to see how hard it's working next time you try.

The dropped frames could be caused by a dodgy firewire cable, but it could also indicate a problem with hard drive performance. The usual recommendation is for at least a 7200rpm drive. Transferring DV avi results in the need for a data write of 3.6Mb per second. That doesn't sound that high these days, but hard drives rarely reach the peak speeds claimed in their specs in the standard configurations found in ordinary pc's.

Were you able to check if you had any avi files that you could play in Media Player or Media Player classic? There might be some sample ones with video Studio. (and of course you just archived your previous project to DVD) If you find something suitable, it could at least rule out a problem with those programs.

When you play a DV avi video from a CD, the CD drive has to read at approximately 24x speed. When I was in the market for a pc a couple of years back, I went around the big box stores with a sample avi file on CD-R, and it was amazing how many pc's had trouble playing it. Most laptops couldn't handle the task. (for a DVD drive, it has to read at just under 6x to play a DV avi file)

I have captured avi onto my wife's Celeron laptop in the past, however, without dropped frames, and that only has a 5400 rpm drive. In fact I did successful captures with both Windows Movie Maker and Video Studio 6SE basic. So there should be no reason why your system shouldn't be configured to capture properly.

The main thing to look out for is having DMA enabled - but you say you have DMA on, so that should be OK. Perhaps when you do your next attempted capture, with task manager running, check to see how many services are running, and if you switch to the "processes" tab in task manager, you should see which ones are using the cpu. I can get my XP Home SP1 system down to 12 services, including task manager, when running VS. That's maybe not too important, but it might just be that you have some hungry resource hog in there. Do try Movie Maker too.

Only 18 editing days to Christmas!!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Matthew

You Said

We may be getting somewhere here, because the counter does NOT stay at zero. .Lots of frames get dropped everytime.

8. One more thing, and Im going to do this tonight... remember the baby. Well 'said' baby did apply saliva with her mouth (the word for that is censored haha) to the firewire cable plug once, so just in case its that, Im going to get a new one. Im not sure whether to hope its that or not.


BUY A NEW CABLE

Trevor

All the Best

[2Dogs]

Hi again Matthew,

just found out the Latitude is a laptop! So not only do you have to manage with a slower processor, you also have to deal with a slowish hard drive and so on. Everything becomes more critical.

You might try using WinDVD Creator 2 as your video editing program, and there may be a downloadable trial version for it. It's an Intervideo product, and Intervideo recently took a controlling interest in Ulead.

By contrast with Video Studio, it has a very clean and tidy looking interface, and it's a very easy program to learn. It's not as powerful as Video Studio, but there are far fewer parameters to set (and mess up) I've also found it to control my particular camcorder, A JVC, flawlessly - in contrast to Video Studio.

The program features some very nice effects - like a video wall and a raindrop filter, for example. I'm not too keen on it's titling though.

Of particular relevance to you, however, is it's great speed in rendering AVI to MPEG-2. Using an AVI file that took Video Studio 95 seconds to render to MPEG-2, largely irrespective of the bitrate settings, the same AVI file rendered in Creator 2 in less than 40 seconds. It was even quicker at lower bitrate settings.

The output video quality is perhaps not quite up to the best that Video Studio can achieve, but you might give it a shot.

[mtalbotnz]

Guys

Thanks for the advice and info. Ive had internet problems over the last few days, so havent been able to repspond. Heres the latest:

1. Im using Windows XP. On a laptop.
2. The new firewire cord made no difference. Darn it.
3. My IT person couldnt figure out how fast my hard drive is. So Im not sure what Im working with. Hoping for an upgrade next year!!
4. I can play avi files in Media Player and others without a problem
5. The MovieMaker capture was better, but far from perfect. I also tried the WinDV capture and it also still dropped frames.
6. I removed as many processes from the Task Manager as I could and it didnt help.
7. I will try the WinDV creator next and let you know how it goes. If that fails I will see if I can borrow a friends machine...

You know if the first Tape capture hadnt worked so well I wouldnt have these expectations. Argh. At least I got that one, so the Christmas presents will go out!! Even better news is I got it to work in PAL format! I will keep plugging away and try to convince the wife we need a new machine.

Thanks again.
Matthew

[2Dogs]

Hi Matthew,

if you really did successfully capture that first one hour tape to a 13Gb AVI file, there should still be a chance you could do it again!

You may even have applied the SP2 patch after that first capture. There's all kinds of extra fat in SP2 which might adversely affect your system.

Maybe you should send Trevor your old firewire cable as a Christmas present! Hope you didn't pay much for the new one!

Good luck!

[robtywlak]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but...

I think your laptop PC is just too slow to do it under windows XP with anything but a virgin hard drive. Current defragment programs DO NOT defragment free space - which is likely the problem. Also to capture DV and not drop frames the hard drive needs to sustain a 3.5 Mbyte per second data rate and should have a random rate 4x that high to not drop frames (14 mB / sec) on a fragmented drive. My Athalon XP2500 laptop is BARELY fast enough because a typical notebook 5400 RPM hard drive is maybe 5 mByte per second sustained transfer! (That is what mine measures). You need unfragemented free space to even have a chance.

Download and run this benchark utility to see where you stand - I think you will find your PC is just too slow. Notebooks are traditionally much slower than desktops of equal clock speed because of hardware limitations (chipset / hardrive / buss speed). My Athalon XP3000 desktop is easily more than 2x faster and 10x faster hard disk speed at 50 mByte per second sustained (ATA133 7200RPM drives).

http://www.sisoftware.net/index.html?di ... angx=en&a=

Regards,

Rob

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Matthew

Sorry you are still having problems, as 2Dogs said if you were successful before it should work again.
So what’s changed?

With Cpu mind.
I have just run a quick test comparing Cpu usage when capturing with Video Studio and Win Dv.

Interestingly Win Dv had little effect on the Cpu, which ran at about 12 %
Whereas Video Studio used a massive 40%.
I did not turn off any background processes, but it was a test to see the difference rather than quantity.

Have you checked your Cpu usage during capture?

It looks as though capture is easier on your pc using Win Dv.


Trevor