Video camera to PC?

Finally just got me hands on a video camera (not digital) do people generally use digital cameras or do you tape on a normal camera and then use a video capture card to move it into digital format?? If you use the capture card, which I'm thinking I'm gunna have to do, do you lose quality at all.

Thanks in advance.

J

you can usually tell which people have used based soley on the quailty of the videos and the sharpness of the picture (resolution)


if you go from nomral cam corder (analogue) to vcc (digital) it doesnt lose quality at all...cos the picture quality in a digital camera is better than on a analogue one um...ahh...ive lost meself...i had thought of the perfect phrase to explain this but i cant remember it..

poo...

so basically digital is beeter but if you use analogue then the pic quality is not downgraded..

Cheers man, anyone have any recommendations on a decent but affordable video capture card.

dont worry mate...many a timne have i hit reply then thought of something i wanted to add then hit stop...added bits then reply again..


can t think... try

www.rlsupplies.co.uk

www.dabs.com

for vcc's

Yup, I was trying to tie my shoe laces at the time.

analogue will degrade every time you copy it - the signal loses quality every time it is sent down a wire. its the rules

digital doesn't lose quality on transfer. generally though, i think you'll find you lose a lot more picture quality when you encode the video for distribution on the net than you do from just the capture (as long as you always capture from the original tapes).

be careful when choosing a capture card though. mine captures into avi-2 format and some programs (specifically adobe premiere) won't import video in this codec.
i've now got the problem of being able to capture but not being able to edit cos premiere likes avi-4 and i don't know how to convert or even what program would do it for me (not that i can afford to actually buy codec convertor software right now!).

hope that helps a bit

Do you reckon you could find premiere on Kazaa?
500 yoyo's seems a bit steep for software even if it is the best.

Is it generally the more expensive cards that capture in avi-2?

How much should I spend on a card?

coleman mate..

best program on the entire web...

its called konvertore ..bascially its a onverter program that can convert any type of file in to any other type of file...really really really good..

www.downloads.com and search for converter...or something like that..

cheers fur - will check it out asap

my (avi-2) capture card is pretty cheap - it came with pinnacle studio 8.
decent ones will capture into avi-4 (or a whole choice of formats) but will be more expensive.

you can get a half decent dig camera for 500 quid nowadays, i sugest that buying one with DV in/out so you can export you finished videos back to tape.
avoid pinnacle software its shite and worthless, any editing program should have capture means.
virtual dub is the best editing and codeing tool out there and its free, it will do what you want and it is good for working with avi and divx files.

if your capturing from analogue, your output quality is going to be poor what ever you create, i know i have been there.
digital just gives you that crispness and ease of capturing, a fire wire card will cost you pitance from www.ebuyer.com

get premiere 6.5, you can get it on WinMX its an easy tool to use once you have got the hang of it. figuring out different codecs is a pain in the arse and most of all quick time format is a complete bitch.
cole if your around at the weekend i will bring some wares down with me and i will be staying with jez, so if you need copies then your more than welcome. i will also be bringing all the latest te POOKa releases for consuption of the masses.

wont have net access for the next few days, but if you have any requests or need to get in touch you can reach me on 07798 828323.

be kewl, hope to see you in brighton or london in the next few days.

I'm back in a "gotta get video on the pc phase again". I've decided that since I already have a decent sony hi8 I might aswell try a card and see what happens.

Seems like a long shot but I don't suppose anyone has a capture card that they don't use anymore and would like to sell?

if you already have sony hi8 footage and want to copy it to pc, you may want to find someone who has a newish sony digital8 camera and firewire card. They can (including the cheapest (300 quid) model) read hi8 tapes and transfer to PC using firewire (some have usb too). This would give you much better quality/less loss than a crappy hauppauge tv card. Obviously not a long term option, but useful for converting old footage to DV.

excellent advice re:video capture on this thread.
/tips silly hat in 1112's and flid's general direction
one other thing to add, if you're locked into using a Hi8 video, as i used to be, then one added consideration is to de-interlace the output video. hi-8 works by video lines, and not by mpeg compression, so the analogue video will be interpreted with nasty black lines, depending on your AV capture card's capture settings.

In english, that means that Hi-8 video -when captured on computer- has nasty black lines that you want to process out, even if the output resolution is the same was the video camera's number of horizontal lines.

additionally, timewise, AV capture is a 1:1 affair, meaning that to capture 3 hours of footage will take... 3 hours

kudos for your video work matey, cus HoPers will definitely ultimately benefit from all that hard yakka! keep us up to date with your progress, k?

Big Brother is watching

Alright. I got a GeForce 4 lately (Mainly for gaming mind you) but there is a S-Video input and Audio input on the card next to the monitor connector.

Now all I'm looking for is a program (I already have Primere 6.0) that will capture Analog video. Primere requires a firewire cable to be hooked up and I'm not ready to fork out a few hundred dollars for a new Digital Video Camera.

Preferably this program is fairly cheep (as in... free).

Cheers,
Kinudin

if your card has inputs as well as outputs, then i guess it supports MyVIVO. In which case it should have come with software to support it. If not, have a look on the manufacturer's website. Once you've captured it using that sofwtare you can open it in premiere