My weekend with Pinnacle Studio 9 (VHS to DVD)

Minion: I just wanted to thank you. I successfully used a borrowed Sony TRV38 for analog to DV capture via Firewire. Huuuuuge, but great quality, no compression files via Premiere Pro (borrowed work copy). These things look pristine.

I did this after giving up on the 3 capture card options I had tried and reading your reccomendations. Now I have some research for getting them onto both DVD and SVCD.

Are you the same Minion from the RC forums?

 

hi bjamin22,
how did you connect your analogue source to the the sony cam? i understand its a mini DV camera; that means you are using the pass through feature that is hooking your analogue cam to the the TRV38 and then connecting the latter to the firewire. Please let me know. From the posts above it seems you get better quality if you use a DV cam which allows your 8mm tapes to play on it and then transfer through firewire(sony DCR TRV460).

 

Thanks Minion, your inputs are fascinating. As for the freeware, I think I have it. You have helped me get over my fascination for Studio9-lol!

 

Studio 9 sucks big time. I've given up on it.

 

Saurabh:

Based on the info here, I just used the built in analog input cable from the TRV38. It has a 3 section mini plug on one end and the other has 3 RCA plugs (Video, L/R Audio). I connected the other end to my TiVo's video output and then connected the Firewire direct. I thought I'd want the SVideo, but the quality was top notch. I played with a few apps, but had access to Premiere Pro and it was the easiest to do an uncompressed capture (simply select capture, then turn off the preview audio and video and click the red record button - done).

It has little to no upper banding on all the recordings (so far: 27 episodes of "Good Eats" sans commercials). I wanted uncompressed for the initial rip, so the DVD would be the greatest possible quality. The SVCDs will only have one compression cycle too, so they should look great as well.

 

Minion,
You were right Pinnacle does not give a choice for selecting the codec. For that matter even WinDV does not have a codec option.

But I captured using both the programs and i doscovered that 10 mins of capture was around 2.3GB, which means that in one hour it would take around 13-14GB.

That means the signal while being captured has been hardware compressed by the camera into DV AVI.

Does that mean I cannot get an uncompressed AVI signal using a Sony Digital Cam playing my 8mm tapes?

How does one get an uncompressed AVI signal which takes 30GB per hour of disk space?

 

Hi guys,

I'm just trying to figure out how to select the analog composite video port. Somehow I dont see it listed, while trying to select - I see only the digital IEEE port! This is hoping to capture from VHS. I have a Sony P4, and the ports are recognized with software like "Click to DVD". I tdoesn't show an option to select any analog ports - please HELP!

Thanx,
George

 

saurabh: Yes your Camcorder Compresses the Signal to DV AVI format and Transfers it to your PC Via firewire...
You could Possibly capture to Uncompressed AVI but there would not be any Quality Gains and the Files would Be Huge this is Because the Signal is Allready compressed when it gets transfered to your PC were with Analogue Capture devices the Signal is Raw Uncompressed Video when it hits your PC...

So you are better off Just captureing In DV AVI format, and with DV AVI you can render it many times without any Noticeable Quality Loss....

Cheers

 

I upgraded to S9 because it was compatible with PCTVusb2, which it is but OMG...rendering is horrible!
The bulk of my work consists of simple edits with no transitions, titles, or special effects. Studio7/8 was great for this work with virtually no render time. But now, in Studio 9 the same tasks take forever to render!!. Tech support says this is because S9 is a much more "robust" program. I think I'll scrap S9 and go back to S7/8 unless I absolutely need the features of S9