I need to enhance the quality of my videos and am absolutely stuck with pinnacle 8 & don't know what to do next. The image once avi'd or mpeg'd, burned to cd remains blurred and pinnacle is supposed to do it all for you. It's bloody crap quality for VHS tapes.I've tried HQ makes no difference. I feel the settings or something should be altered or I need a better capture device just so the videos once captured become watchable on dvd/cd. If anyone can advise me on a way to make better of a bad buy or has any further ideas plse tell me know, be it that I should alter these settings speed/bitrate etc,or what capture device I should perhaps consider? I remain deeply in your debt. Thanks Clive.
More info would be needed to answer this: What capture card are you using with Pinnacle 8? What resolution setting are you using for capture? Do captured avi/mpeg files look bad before burned to disc?
Yes I am using Pinnacle studio with a usb capture device composite lead. Yes it is blurred and slow before you burn it to disk and equally so once on there. The resolution comes with the package software but I think it is set at 720x 576. To be quite honest I think I need another sort of software as pinnacle seems to lean more towards camcorders. But if you can offer any further assistance I would very much welcome it, even if it is another direction. i.e. Virtualdub or something which I have also tried but get no audio and static interference using the pinnacle lead. Thanks
USB devices do not usually give the best video quality because the connection is slow and not always stable. I would stay away from anything USB and use an internal PCI card or a Firewire connection device. Pinnacle is picky about what capture device will work with it, but they have their own capture cards like Studio AVDV. Also the Canopus AVDC-100 will work with Pinnacle Studio. Both of these devices capture in DV format which takes up about 13GB of hard drive space per hour of video. Neither of these solutions is cheap, but I have no other answer.
Well mine holds 80GBs, would I then be able to compress it somehow to put it onto disk. People have spoken to me about ATI capture card as being an option but am I still looking at 13GB per hour whatever option I go for?
Only DV format takes up 13GB per hour. You don't need to capture in DV, but you'd need to find out what other devices Pinnacle will recognize. Other video formats such as MPEG1 or MPEG2 take up a lot less space, but since they are much more compressed they are not easy to edit like DV is. If you simply want to transfer tapes to DVD without a lot of editing, you should consider getting a DVD recorder. They aren't much harder to operate than a VHS machine. Unfortunately, these machines don't record CD's - only DVD's. I don't know how many tapes you have, but doing everything on a computer can be very frustrating and time-consuming. If you are determined to use Pinnacle and your computer, you can ask for advice on the Pinnacle 8 forum: http://webboard.pinnaclesys.com/read_forums.asp?WebboardID=1&SectionID=143&lng=1
Well thanks for getting back. I am open to all options not just pinnacle, it was only cos I already had pinnacle that I thought I could save myself a couple of bob but it seem more trouble than its worth for vhs downloading. I am happy to settle for other options, as long as the quality is equal/better than vhs, reliable & reasonably priced and oh doesn't use 13GB ph lol. Virtualdub gives me an ok pic on pc but it'complicated, burns with pixillation & has no audio, it could be due to the pinnacle device of course. Again thanks for your help. Is it all so complicated
I have Pinnacles Studio 9 USB break box, a Facet Video Clarifier, which is great. But I have a lot of VHS Tapes and want to change them to a DVD format. I am very open to try new things or programs,so I would like some feedback on a better way to do this!
You've lost me a Facet Video Clarifier What's that? Anyway Pinnacle 9 comes with a card and USB 2.0 doesn't it and cost around £129. Is the picture any better than the video? I have bought adaptec videOH it's not fantastic but better than pinnacle studio. Also with Pinnacle you have to bring down every frame on to the storyboard one by one which is too time consuming. Is it the same with Pinnacle 9. I'd like to know if it really enhances the pic once digitised from analog VHS?
There are Absolutly not "Good Quality" USB 2.0 Capture devices for under about $300...Out of all of the USB Capture devices I have tried which are about a dozzen or so different devices the only one that produces good Quality was the "Canopus MpegPro" which costs over $300.... If someone Must have an external device then they should go for a Hardware DV Compression device like the Canopus ADVC-50/55/100/300 which Produces about the best Quality Possible from a VHS source..... There isn"t a Quality Pinnacle Capture device Internal or external for under $1000...I would recomend selling the USB Device and Pass the Problem On to someone else and Invest a Bunch more money if you have to go USB or if you have a PCI Slot Free in your PC then even a Cheap TV Card will produce better Quality than a Pinnacle USB device.... USB 2.0 might be 40 times faster than USB 1.1 But PCI is 4 Times faster than USB 2.0....
Go to facet video.com and take a look,it takes the encription off the VHS. I used Studio 9 and it worked really good with a clean VHS and then on to a DVD. Pinnacle makes a good product,but support is poor. In the edit mode you do not have to pull all the frames down,just one but the rendering takes about 2 to 3 hours. The only thing I had to work out was to find the right dvd disk to use for the copy, looks like 3M fits the bill. Iam not about to put down 300.00 on a card.
