Some basic movie capture questions...

[George]

Am using WinXP-pro PC and got a Sony digital camcorder that does movies to
tape and MPEGs to memorystick. I'm about to buy the IEEE 1394 firewire, I
suppose it will come with some software but I think I'll start by using
Moive Maker 2. Ok, for some amateur quesions (but greatly appreciate
patience and answers)...

How does the "transfer" or "record" process work to get the movie off the
Sony Digital tape (Hi8 I think it's called) and into the PC's hard drive?
(In the really old days, when you wanted to copy a VCR tape, you cabled a
player to a recorder, pressed "record" on the recorder, and ran over fast to
press "play" on the player.) Surely digital is far more advanced without
human delays, so what's the sequence of steps to get the transfer started
and finished?...

-Step 1. Connect Sony DV camcorder to PC with firewire
-Step 2. _______
-Step 3. _______
-Step 4. _______
-Step 5. _______
-etc.

Ok, so once it's transferred, does it appear in MM2 and then do I "save" it
as a project file onto the hard drive? What "format" or de facto standard
do I save it as so that it's either non-lossy or the least lossy possible,
i.e. so I could theoretically send it to 100 relatives and they would have
an identical copy.

Is there a "rule" like for every 1 minute of digital movie, it takes ____MB
in the _____ format?

Lastly, let's say I do edits, add titles, transistions, fades and so forth.
Is it true I re-save it in the same non-lossy format of _____, and also save
it in a format of ____ so that people with players can watch it? What kind
of players do they need...is Windows media player the most universal? Is
there a format (like mpeg) that about every player could surely read? Are
recipients able to pull this movie off and transfer it to a DVD to put in
their home Sony DVD player next to the TV? Is resolution any good?

Thanks,
George

 

[PapaJohn]

Hi George,

The Online > Tutorials and References page of my website has a number of
links to places that provide info to help you get started.

You plug your digital camcorder into your computer via firewire and up pops
a wizard that leads you through the capture process. The wizard is smart and
knows what you and your system are capable of doing and only presents those
choices to you.

Yes, it'll appear in your collection of clips in MM2 when it's transferred.
Digital Video comes in as DV-AVI, the same quality file on your computer as
the file on your camcorder tape.... unless you opt for a lower quality more
compressed file. A captured DV-AVI file is about 13 GB per hour of video.

You only save it as a project if you've added it to a project for editing
purposes.... and then saved the editing project. You don't send the project
to your relatives.... you use the project to define your movie. When you
want to send a video to someone, you render or save a movie from the project
file, and then send the movie. It'll be the same identical file that you
send to all.

From Movie Maker you can only choose from two movie file formats.... DV-AVI
at the 13 GB per hour, which you wouldn't send to anyone as the size makes
it impractical..... and the compressed WMV format, which gives you many,
many choices of compression/quality to pick from. The size and quality you
pick depends on the capabilities of your viewers to play it, and your method
of distribution to them.... you might save it in various quality levels for
different viewers.

If you want to send your viewers a disc like a DVD or VCD or SVCD, you'll
need other software to create the files needed for the disc and burn it.....
if you send them a DVD, it'll be as good as the other software will make it.
Yes, the resolution can be very good.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
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[George]

Outstanding, thanks for taking time to provide great insights. I was
wondering...

-After the wizard takes me thru Sony-to-PC transfer...is the movie already
on the hard drive even if I unplug the camera and shut down MM2...or do I
need to "save" it in MM2 or do some last step so it's not lost

-Is there a transfer over firewire rule such as it probably takes ___minutes
of transfer time per 1hour of camcorder Hi8 movie time.

-Since Digital Video comes into PC as DV-AVI, the same quality file on my
computer as on the Sony tape...does this mean that (theoretically and in
practice) I could go back and forth copying between tape, DVD, and hard
drive and so forth an unlimited number of times...or is there some point
that deterioration crops up? More specifically...

-If I keep making small edits along the way...add a title...save it, delete
a scene, save it, insert some new footage, save it, copy it back to Sony
tape, play it, copy it back to c:drive, edit it.... am I chipping away
bits of image quality.

....The analogies are 1) I can open and make minor edits to a simple Word
document forever...and the quality of the document/text/etc. is non-issue,
but 2) if I were to open/edit/save/repeat with jpg files, my understanding
is that the quality is being slightly chipped away with every save due to
compression and so forth (apparently only eps and Photoshop native files
save 100% of the original quality.)

-(Bottom line is...can I throw out my Hi8 original digital tapes since I'll
have perfect/identical digital copies on C:drive and lots of backups in
remote places.)

Thanks again,
George

 

[PapaJohn]

Yes, the video file will be on your hard drive when you finish with the
capture wizard.

Capturing video is a real-time process.... a 30 minute video takes 30
minutes.... you can't speed up the process or slow it down.

You could go back and forth between your computer DV-AVI file and your
digital camcorder tape.... but a DVD is a highly compressed MPEG-2 file, not
full Digital Video..... any editing causes rendering to be done in at least
the edited segment, so an edited segment would need to be different.... you
edit to add value and you accept any deterioration the re-rendering of that
area needs.

IrfanView has a lossless JPG option for pictures too....

I'd never throw away my original tapes.... regardless how many copies I
have..... if the analog tape degrades someday to the point that the digital
files are better, then maybe (but I wouldn't). If you throw them away today,
next year a new version of some software will provide better capture quality
than anything today, including DV-AVI.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
..
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[George]

Thanks again, this is super helpful, could I ask one more...

On making identical backups of the tapes...maybe I meant a CD, not a DVD...
that is... if I (theoretically) copied the tapes to let's say three CD's (or
removable hard drives, or whatever) and stored them in 3 separate places for
security, that's all I need, right? I wouldn't need the tape (which has the
identical DV-AVI data on it) and if I did need a tape in the future, I could
just copy the CD back out to the tape and it would be digitally identical,
so the camcorder wouldn't know the difference, so to speak...it would act
same as the original? Is this the way it works.

What I'm thinking is... as long as there's no difference at all in the data,
and it's secure with lots of backups, why keep the tapes, if ever needed
could just re-create "on-demand" I'd think, so it's one less physical
"thing" in here to manage, keep cool, watch out for magnetics, move when I
move to a new house, etc., etc., etc.

Thanks

 

[PapaJohn]

Yes, your logic is OK.... but maybe not practical for anything beyond small
clips. The size of full Digital Video DV-AVI files is such that a CD can
hold about 3-1/4 minutes of video. I'll put short and special clips on CDs,
but not for anything with significant length.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
..
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[George]

Thanks for the clarification...so even though a CD isnt' big enough, the
removable hard drive (in a safe deposit box) could well be an identical
substitute for the Hi8 tape, right? And could be used to "regenerate" the
Sony Hi8 tapes on demand if ever needed

I'm wondering if when you come back to tape (hard drive > FirewireCopy > Hi8
tape) and put the tape in the Sony, if there will be any odd thing the Sony
camcorder wants to see that isn't there (for some reason), that would cause
the Sony to reject the tape (i.e. not play, or play poorly, or be missing
sub-level info like date and time, etc.).

 

[PapaJohn]

Yes, that would work.... as long as the drive stays in good shape.

When you say Hi8 tape, you mean the tapes that work in both a Hi8 and a
digital8 camcorder..... our discussion is about using them in a digital
camcorder, not an analog one (like my analog Hi8 camcorder).

I don't know about preservation of the original timecode data through
re-renderings. Movie Maker doesn't show the timecode data and I've never
checked it.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2: www.papajohn.org
PhotoStory 2: www.photostory.papajohn.org
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