Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
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Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Hello, anybody got any ideas/ name of a good video editor that can capture digitally from a Sony DVD Handycam through the USB2 port. Surely analogue capture defeats the object? enquired with Sony & Pinnacle, but they don't seem to care.......they've had my money!
I can capture through USB2 with supplied editor from Sony, but editor is far from good & files are incompatible with Pinnacle Studio 9. I can convert files to a suitable format, but loss of quality is unbelievable, or am I just using the wrong converter?
I can't believe I am alone with this dilemna? I'm not kidding, you buy the latest camcorder & latest editor & still have problems. I could understand if one was a lot older than the other.
I can capture through USB2 with supplied editor from Sony, but editor is far from good & files are incompatible with Pinnacle Studio 9. I can convert files to a suitable format, but loss of quality is unbelievable, or am I just using the wrong converter?
I can't believe I am alone with this dilemna? I'm not kidding, you buy the latest camcorder & latest editor & still have problems. I could understand if one was a lot older than the other.
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RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
A Firewire capture card would be in order here. If its a new DVD cam there should ne a firewire port on it, and you'll just need a PCI Firewire card, there are tons of brands out there, and you can usually find a good one for under $50.
Losing consciousness,
in the arms of an angel,
I find only peace.
in the arms of an angel,
I find only peace.
RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
www.tigerdirect.com - fire wire card less than $30.00 with cable and some Ulead software....
DVD cams record to a pretty highly compressed MPEG version. You could try grabbing the file directly from disk rather than doing a download. I don't know about the pinnacle software, but you should be able to open them in Premiere. I haven't played with any of the DVD cams, yet, but theoretically they will have a sightly lower quality than DV due to the encoding to Mpeg and lower bit rates required to write to disc as opposed to writing to tape. Still should not be anything rally noticeable however. What format are the files in on the DVD media when you look at the disc on a PC?
DVD cams record to a pretty highly compressed MPEG version. You could try grabbing the file directly from disk rather than doing a download. I don't know about the pinnacle software, but you should be able to open them in Premiere. I haven't played with any of the DVD cams, yet, but theoretically they will have a sightly lower quality than DV due to the encoding to Mpeg and lower bit rates required to write to disc as opposed to writing to tape. Still should not be anything rally noticeable however. What format are the files in on the DVD media when you look at the disc on a PC?
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RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Vob files. Definitely no firewire on cam! What makes you so sure files will open in Premier?
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- Joined: Sun Apr 18, 2004 5:12 am
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RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Cripes! You're right, your camcorder has no Firewire port, that sucks. I know this is shitty advice, but think about getting a DV cam. Editing through USB is just no fun whatsoever, the quality loss is astounding. Don't know what to say, I don't have Premiere, so I can't help you there either, sorry.
Losing consciousness,
in the arms of an angel,
I find only peace.
in the arms of an angel,
I find only peace.
Re: RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
I was afraid you would say VOB, that is the MPeg2 stream from DVD, Unfortunately a lot of those cameras weren't made to edit the footage they are made to just pop the disc in the DVD player and watch teh unedited video. Premiere will open an Mpeg stream, but not sure if it will handle the VOB directly. You actually may have to rip the the VOB to get it to read.Vaioman wrote:Vob files. Definitely no firewire on cam! What makes you so sure files will open in Premier?
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RE: Re: RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Thanks anyway folks. Thought the camera was too good to be true! Still impressed with it though & bundled software isn't that bad, just doesn't give professional wipes/titles. Although it was £700 I will still buy another one & I'll make sure it is DV this time. I'll then have two camcorders for 2 uses eh? able to recommend a good cam then? I know you can get them now for around £250. Are the mini DV's of inferior quality? or just the same, but smaller?
RE: Re: RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
If you can capture with the included software, what format does it save it as? No reason you couldn't cap with that software then edit and finish using Premiere or Vegas and other tools...
Until you get up into Higher end amers... over $6000 USD, then you are looing at mini-DV - even cameras like the Sony PD-150, that can record in DVCam format still use the mini-DV. Understand tho, that teh term DV is generally used generically to describe the encoding format which for Mini-DV and DVCam is exactly the same 25 Mbps. DVCam runs the tape through at a faster tape speed, spreading that data out across a larger protion of the tape. The result, recording in DVCam mode resords 40 minutes of video on a 60 minute mini-DV tape. The purpose here is to reduce the effect of dropouts on the scene. DVCam is SONY's Proprietary 'Pro' format - and their higher end cams record on a cassette roughly the size of an 8mm videao cassette. Panny's Pro version of DV is DVCPRO-25 same encoding scheme however.. Go min-DV to make it affordable
Until you get up into Higher end amers... over $6000 USD, then you are looing at mini-DV - even cameras like the Sony PD-150, that can record in DVCam format still use the mini-DV. Understand tho, that teh term DV is generally used generically to describe the encoding format which for Mini-DV and DVCam is exactly the same 25 Mbps. DVCam runs the tape through at a faster tape speed, spreading that data out across a larger protion of the tape. The result, recording in DVCam mode resords 40 minutes of video on a 60 minute mini-DV tape. The purpose here is to reduce the effect of dropouts on the scene. DVCam is SONY's Proprietary 'Pro' format - and their higher end cams record on a cassette roughly the size of an 8mm videao cassette. Panny's Pro version of DV is DVCPRO-25 same encoding scheme however.. Go min-DV to make it affordable
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RE: Re: RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Files may open in Premiere, like you say, but it's a bit late when I've bought it to find out I'm wrong. Do you have it coz I could always send you a short clip to try! I've no doubt as I said earlier that Premiere will open it when I convert the file type, but unless you know of an excellent converter, The quality of the ones I have used are far from Ideal.
RE: Re: RE: Digital capture from a Sony DVD Handycam?
Send me short clip of what you capped with the Sony software - bud@theundergroundtv.com
The UNDERGROUND
[url]http://theundergroundtv.com[/url]
Music television for unsigned bands
[url]http://theundergroundtv.com[/url]
Music television for unsigned bands