Recommended Capture File Format

AreJay

Newbie Joined: Dec 31, 2021 00:38 Messages: 3 Offline

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Dec 31, 2021 01:04

Hi, as a real newbie in the world of digital video editing, I've (finally) taken up the massive project of transferring my years of video recordings on various tape formats to digital. My first basic question: What are the recommended file formats I should be capturing the videos when capturing them? I will be capturing from miniDV, Hi8, and VHS tapes.

I've got my miniDV camcorder connected to my PC via FireWire. I plan to connect my HI8 and VCR via SVHS to my miniDV camcorder input in order to output the video to the computer (at least that's the theory, I haven't tried it yet).

My thought is to capture using the best file types, edit the videos, then produce the final files for output to TV. Sorry, as a newbie, my technical knowledge in this area is somewhat limited 😝

Recommendations for the file capture format as well as any newbie gotchas I should be aware of?

tomasc

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 25, 2011 12:33 Messages: 6464 Offline

Dec 31, 2021 08:48

It is all up to you how you want to do it. If you have a miniDV camcorder capable of the feed thru then I would recommend that you use the WinDV to capture as DV-AVI type 2. This is the best format in my opinion. You can use PD20 to edit and produce a DVD folder, mp4, and deinterlace using other tools, etc.

AreJay

Newbie Joined: Dec 31, 2021 00:38 Messages: 3 Offline

Jan 01, 2022 22:41

Quote It is all up to you how you want to do it. If you have a miniDV camcorder capable of the feed thru then I would recommend that you use the WinDV to capture as DV-AVI type 2. This is the best format in my opinion. You can use PD20 to edit and produce a DVD folder, mp4, and deinterlace using other tools, etc.

Thanks for the suggestion. So capturing as DV-AVI type 2 better for editing than using PD to capture the video as MPEG-2?

BarryTheCrab

Senior Contributor Location: USA Joined: Nov 06, 2008 22:18 Messages: 6240 Offline

Jan 02, 2022 07:45

Quote
Thanks for the suggestion. So capturing as DV-AVI type 2 better for editing than using PD to capture the video as MPEG-2?

What exact VCR?
Do you have any Time Base Correction in the workflow?
For the DV tapes you are stuck with DV, and it can be crippling to quality if you try to fix colors, antishake, etc. It has to do with how DV encodeds/compresses your video.
Same thing with MPEG2 or any other capture that does lossy compression.
If you plan on restoring anything capture using S-video and MPEG2 at a bumped up bitrate, say 12,000, and do it at 720x480.
This will provide the best possible outcome within PD.

Lossless capture to HuffYUV using free VirtualDub 1.9.11 will yield a huge file but it's got all the info you need and it's barely compressed at all. It's considered lossless.

That way you eliminate an entire round of compression.
It's night and day with results, but you will need a capture dongle, such as a Hauppage or a VC-500, no HD units, SD only!

I know, everyone, it's me, blah blah lossless blah.

Note: Try a brief capture using the AVI container in PD, just 2 minutes, Svideo and a dongle. It's very uncompressed and NOT 720x480 (WHY CYBERLINK?) but you'll see the difference, just waaay too big for files.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Jan 02. 2022 09:02

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