I was working with my digital camcorder a few days ago and ripped some video from the camcorder to my PC via the USB cord. I used the software that came with the Sony camcorder. When the video finally got on my PC (I know the picture was not that great but I was playing around with it until my Firewire cord came in the mail) the file was in a .avi. Well I searched the forums here and found the program to conver .avi to .mpeg so that I could burn the movie onto a DVD. Now that I have my firewire cord I captured the video using Windows Movie Maker and it made the file I do believe .wmv. Now can I go directly from .wmv to .mpeg and what program would I use? Or do I have to go from .wmv to .avi and then to .mpeg? Thanks for the help. Well I did a little playing around with Windows Movie Maker myself and found that you can capture to .avi. So now my question really is what is the best way to get the best quality from camcorder to DVD using Windows Movie Maker. I notice that capturing as a .avi takes up A LOT of space.
Avi or wmv, really doesn't matter. You may convert them directly into dvd compliant format with e.g. VSO DivxToDVD (free version), then burn with e.g Nero: http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_encoders/vso_divxtodvd_free.cfm Happy dvd burning!
What would be better to capture the video as .avi or .wmv. O does that part not really matter either. I just didnt know if either one of those files tend to have better quality. Sorry I am still a noob with the digital video stuff.
Oh yes, it does matter very much... wmv is much more compresssed than DV-AVI. Check this article: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/tutorials/moviemakermistakes.php
