video capture quality
by Pieper1
on
Jun 12, 2006 at 6:56:51 am
what should my settings be to get te best possible video quality. i have a firewire card installed and i'm using the external video capture program that comes with vegas. i have a sony sd dvcr 525-60 video camera.
i also wanted to learn a little more about video data rates. it says on my pci card video card that i can get data rates of up to 800 mbps. but when i record video and look at the video data rates it says that its only 3.3 mbps. im just really confused because the quality of the video that im getting is really really bad and i just want to know how to increase the data rate or anything that will improve the video quality
Re: video capture quality by jeditdv on Jun 12, 2006 at 1:08:08 pm
If you capture via firewire, it simply copies the information from the tape to your hard drive like copying a file. There's no "settings be to get te best possible video quality" - you just get an exact copy.
Re: video capture quality by Pieper1 on Jun 12, 2006 at 3:21:31 pm
i have a sony dcr-trv480 digital video camera and i just went out and bought a usb/ieee 1394 pci card. and im using the video capture program that is an extension of vegas 6 to capture the video.
Re: video capture quality by jeditdv on Jun 12, 2006 at 3:58:19 pm
Assuming capturing via firewire, what you capture should look identical to what is on the tape. If the footage on the tape looks good, so should the captured video.
Re: video capture quality by Steve Mann on Jun 12, 2006 at 6:52:25 pm
As Ed said, if you capture via Firewire, you are only doing a file transfer, so the video is exactly the same. The problem may be in how you are viewing the captured video. You aren't making an apples-to-apples comparison with the LCD on your camera and whatever display device that you are making the judgement from.
Steve M.
Stephen Mann,
MannMade Digital Video,
San Jose, CA
Re: video capture quality by Pieper1 on Jun 12, 2006 at 7:47:25 pm
ah ok i understand that, but how come when i plug my camera into lets say a dvd recorder using the dv connection i can get good picture quality? why cant i get that same quality transfer to my computer?
sorry if these are really stupid questions, but i'm very new to firewire and im kinda confused
Re: video capture quality by jeditdv on Jun 12, 2006 at 8:03:21 pm
One thing to try: Connect the camera to the computer via firewire. Open Vegas Vidcap, rewind the tape, start playing the tape, and after about 5 seconds press "Capture". If you only want to test this, wait 30 to 60 seconds and press Stop. How does THAT clip look?
Re: video capture quality by Don Bloom on Jun 12, 2006 at 11:12:38 pm
Maybe I missed something in the other posts but if the footage looked good straight from the camera to a TV and it looks bad after capture, it's probably not the software but more than likely the display unit you're viewing the footage after capture. If you've captured in VidCap from the Vegas software and then looking at it on the timeline how is your preview set? Is it set to DRAFT or GOOD or BEST or???? The only reason I'm saying this is frankly I've never had a problem using the VidCap in Vegas-the footage doesn't change between the camera and the computer-all you're doing is copying the from 1 to another.
Anyway, take a quick look at the video display you're viewing th efootage on after capture. I have a hunch the problem could be there.
Re: video capture quality by Pieper1 on Jun 13, 2006 at 5:27:41 am
no i was just saying that if i hooked up the camera directly into a dvd recorder via firewire the picture is perfect...but what i dont understand is why when i hook my camera up to my firewire card on my computer and try to capture using vidcap its really bad quality.
i guess just to sum all that up...why cant i get the same quality on my computer that i get on my dvd recorder?
Re: video capture quality by Don Bloom on Jun 13, 2006 at 10:28:59 am
FW transfer is no different than whats on the tape. It is simply copiying the information from th etape. It is not doing anything to the quality of the footage so there are only 3 possiblities.
1) The computer monitor you're looking at th efootage on sucks and it looks worse than it actually is
2) there is a problem in your FW connection somewhere
or 3) you aren't really decribing the problem quite as well as you can (no offense please but its hard to solve a problem without all of the information up front)
Now to try to solve it.
If its 1 then beg or borrow another monitor and check it out (I've had it happen where one monitor looked a lot worse than another)
If its 2) then pick up another FW card and Cable -they're both inexpensive - and change ONE at a time and see what happens. I don't think its 3 anymore as you've now given us the information to try to help you solve this. Again remember t ocheck the preview settings on the Vegas Preview-Draft qaulity doesn't look so good.
Keep us informed of how its going-perhaps start a new thread as this one is getting farther down the list now.
Re: video capture quality by jeditdv on Jun 13, 2006 at 1:28:35 pm
[Pieper1]"i guess just to sum all that up...why cant i get the same quality on my computer that i get on my dvd recorder?"
And the short answer is - you CAN. As we've said, capturing via firewire using VidCap will give you an EXACT copy of what's on the tape. If you're not seeing full quality then something else is going on. As an alternative, you may try capturing with Scenalyzer Live and see how that looks.
Re: video capture quality by Terje A. Bergesen on Jun 13, 2006 at 3:00:04 pm
There is something weird going on, as the other guys are saying, most likely your monitor or something. Can you capture a few seconds of video and put it on a web- or ftpserver somewhere?
Re: video capture quality by Pieper1 on Jun 13, 2006 at 7:47:37 pm
no i dont have anywhere to put the video for viewing on the web and i dont think its my preview settings or my monitor because even when i render the video and burn it to a dvd and pop in a dvd player the video is really bad
i dunno maybe everything i bought is just really cheap or i dont have a very good camera or something
but i really really appreciate all the quick responses everyone has given to help me solve this problem
Re: video capture quality by Pieper1 on Jun 13, 2006 at 7:50:03 pm
[Terje A. Bergesen]"There is something weird going on, as the other guys are saying, most likely your monitor or something. Can you capture a few seconds of video and put it on a web- or ftpserver somewhere?"
could i possibly email you some video so you can check it out?
