MiniDV to DVD - how to max quality?

[GoBlue!]

Hi all-

New to digital video, here. I picked up a Sony HC-32 several months ago at a great price, and want to get some of my miniDV tapes over to DVD (editing them down, etc.). I have Nero 6 installed, as it came with my DVD burner.

I can capture & edit tape just fine, and can create a DVD....but the video quality is a little less than I would expect & I'm just wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I captured in NTSC, 720x480, and the file was converted to MPEG-2.

Is there a different capturing modality I should be using?

Thanks,
Jim

 

[PerroneFord]

Massaging AVI format miniDV into MPEG-2 is part science and part art. Good programs to do this cost REAL money. Also be certain to keep the lenght of your DVDs below 2 hours or you will have to compress beyond ideal rates.

I see this issue quite frequently unfortunately, and people looking for top quality DVDs are often disappointed. If you have the budget, you might look into getting a dedicated MPEG-2 conversion card or software, and then cutting your DVD's with that.

 

[GoBlue!]

OK, I probably overstated my needs.... I don't really need "top quality" - just need some DVDs to show the family footage for convenience. So, I just want to maximize what an amateur can do at home on budget. If I'm already doing what is best with my current software, I'll live with it, and just keep the miniDV tapes as the original masters.

Jim

 

[ronrosa]

Hi all-

New to digital video, here. I picked up a Sony HC-32 several months ago at a great price, and want to get some of my miniDV tapes over to DVD (editing them down, etc.). I have Nero 6 installed, as it came with my DVD burner.

I can capture & edit tape just fine, and can create a DVD....but the video quality is a little less than I would expect & I'm just wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I captured in NTSC, 720x480, and the file was converted to MPEG-2.

Is there a different capturing modality I should be using?

Thanks,
Jim

MPEG2 converters are not all alike. How does the MPEG2 file look on your computer ?

The DVD quality should look close to your original raw footage.

 

[PerroneFord]

OK, I probably overstated my needs.... I don't really need "top quality" - just need some DVDs to show the family footage for convenience. So, I just want to maximize what an amateur can do at home on budget. If I'm already doing what is best with my current software, I'll live with it, and just keep the miniDV tapes as the original masters.

Jim

My MPEG-2 Conversions are usually either done with Sony Vegas or Adobe Premier. Neither has "pro-quality" conversion, but they are quite good, and I've produced some commercial products and people have been pleased.

If you're willing to spend money, I would suggest purchasing the professional version of the Sorensen conversion product (someone may bundle this now) or the ProCoder software put out by Canopus. Either will produce quality beyond what most people would ask for. I'm pretty particular about my video quality, and I find that Premier and Vegas produce video I am proud to sign my name to. I am producing corporate videos and so forth using nothing more than that and it's keeping my boss very happy. So happy in fact that I begin a 160 hour video project today... What FUN that will be trying to complete before Christmas.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

I've always liked the resulting encodes using TMPGEnc Plus. Though, I've used Premiere Pro for MPEG2 encodes lately and have had decent results. For the price (or what the price used to be - as I bought TMPGEnc years ago) - it is a great value.

 

[PeaceDog]

I edit on a Mac platform, so this may not be applicable to you, but i have seen definite increase in the overall quality of my video when the original is saved as a reference file as opposed to self-contained.

 

[PerroneFord]

That sounds like a memory/drive performance issue since far less memory is required to access the chunked reference files.

What software are you using on your mac, and how much RAM do you have on it?

 

[PeaceDog]

What software are you using on your mac,

My software of choice is Avid, but I also use Final Cut pro HD

and how much RAM do you have on it?

Anywhere between 1.5 and 2GB, depending on the machine.

.

 

[PerroneFord]

Have you spoken to either manufacturer about this anomoly. That should be enough RAM (unless you really ARE capturing HD) for you not to overrun the hard drive. I assume if you've spent that kind of real money on software, you're using raid arrays which can deliver cleanly.

I've actually be kinda mad if I had to go to reference files all the time, though this was the default behavior with my Canopus setup I used previously. I didn't find it too big a problem unless I was short on disk space on big projects and needed to start moving files around.