Analog to DVD's...what I plan to buy..will it be enough?

Ok,I'm a Newbie

I have read this board for the past 4 hours & the below is what I have learned & will like to put in place so that I can burn my old analog HI8 & VHS tapes to DVD's.

1. I plan to purchase a Canopus ADVC100..I might upgrade to the ADVC 300.
2. I intend to buy the Vegas 5.0 Authoring program.

After all my reading in respect to capturing files via AVI....I prefer AVI.. and having a authoring program that will not degrade ( any further) my completed edited AVI movies upon conversion to
Mepeg 2.. I belive what I have above will get me what I'm looking for...decent..if not great DVD's of my old HI8 / VHS tapes.

I'm have a Gateway system (just got it 3 days ago)Windows XP, 2.8 Ghz, 160 GB hard drive,
512 ram, Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 video card

Thus I have the following questions;
1 Am I right? What I intend to buy above..will that take care & hopefully avoid most of the problems I have read here on this board?
2 DO I still need to invest in a stand alone "codec" to convert my incoming digital files from my ADVC 100 to AVI ??
3. Do I still need a stand alone AVI to Mpeg2 converting program? (I've read that Vegas 5.0 has a great AVI to Mepg2 within it, hence one of my reasons for buying it.)

If I do need a stand alone "codec" or/and a stand alone AVI to Mepg2 ..please tell me which one I should buy or download?

Please Help..!!!
RahJah_1

 

I am also very new to this as well, but what I have found in the last 48hrs is this.

I have now a Camcorder that allows signal pass through, (Panasonic PVGS200) Using that I get firewire in (the same as if you buy the ADVC100).
I don't know about Vegas 5, but I have tested a couple of programs, including Panasonic Motion DV a bunch of Windows programs and some free ones I found on the net. The best program for capture live Audio and video signal is WinDV_1.2.3 It is a free program writen by someone in Cech repullic and will capture live AV signal and save as .avi using 1536kbps and captures at 225MB/min with 720 x 480 pixel resolution. Then from here you may want to use Vegas to get it to Mpeg2 and burn to dvd.

Why I am telling you to use WinDV is first its free, has really no limit on caputure (million frames) which is almost 10 straight hours. But it is the only one I have tested that has a large capture buffer. I have not had a single droped frame and was able to do multiple other computer proccess when captureing. Also other programs would not properly capture live video signal.

 

Well there is a differance between a DV Camcorder Passthrough and a Canopus ADVC-100 like the Audio Lock feature which eliminates any chance of Sync problems even if you drop frames...Pluss the DV Codec in the ADVC-100 is better than in Most Consumer Level DV Camcorders and it also captures better Quality audio than Most DV Camcorders and it has a way to dissable macrovision detection....

There is no Reason to get vegas 5 unless you are Doing some Major editing because to use it as Just an encoder is a total waste because it is as slow as Molassus at encodeing and the Standalone Version of the MainConcept encoder produces as good or better quality and at 8 times the encodeing speed Pluss you can also use the Standalone encoder to capture from your ADVC-100 ,Even directly to Mpeg-2 if you wanted to....
Pluss Vegas 5 Is Not a DVD authoring program it is only a Video editor and Converter you would need seperate software to add your menu"s and Chapters and author the Mpeg-2 files to DVD ,You would also have to Buy the Mpeg-2 encoder Plugin for Vegas 5 seperately, that is unless you bought DVD architect with vegas 5 which is a pretty complicated program and doesn"t Have the Features and Flexibility as something like DVDLab Pro....

 

Minion,

Thank you for your input. I have one more question & I hope you come back to this post to see this.

I am using Pinacle 9 to edit & author. My problem with Pinalce is that it's slloooowww when rendering to MPEG2 & it renders AGAIN when it's time to burn my file into a DVD. I have no problems with quality of the finally product. My burned DVD's look great (thank you ADVC100). But the rendering to MPEG & then the actual burn of..lets say 45 min of of AVI... takes a hour & a half to burn due to the dual "rendering" from AVI to MPEG & then to DVD.

Do you have any suggestions on software I can buy that is much faster in these two areas? I want to find a software that allows me to do both the encoding & burning at a fast speed. I'm trying to avoid having multiple software doing each part as they may not work well with each other when I have to transfer a AVI file to the MPEG2 encoder & then to another program to burn my DVD.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

Well sory to say this but there are absolutly No High Quality Fast encoders Built into any DVD authoring programs that is why it is allways Best to use a specific Software for each step in the Project as No "All In One" Programs do any one Thing Very well....

That Sucks How Pinnacle Re-encodes your Files Twice, That Must really destroy the Quality compared to if you were to use a Real Encoder and a Authoring program that doesn"t re-encode?? That Sounds Very Mickey Mouse....

I would suggest that you use seperate Mpeg encoders and DVD authoring Program and that way you would get the Best Quality in the Shortest ammount of Time....

I would suggest Maybe the "MainConcept Encoder" to encode your Files to Mpeg-2 as it is one of the Fastest and Highest Quality encoders, and then Maybe DVDLab for DVD authoring or use Pinnacle if you know it won"t re-encode your Files.....

I have Literally about 200 different Video editing and encodeing programs On my system and never had any Problems with Conflicts and I have been running this PC Like this for Close to a Year without any problems.....

Cheers

 

Minion,

Thank You. I will try the programs you suggested & let you know how it works out.

Side note...
I haven't noticed any loss in quality due to the re-encoding while using Pinnacle. My wife & friends agree that it looks great considering what I had to do to get it on DVD. At this point I'm very satisfied with the quality. Of course my only complaint now is...... Speed.

 

RahJah, is it possible to capture as mpeg then just edit and author rather than capture to avi? That would save some time no? Or do you need avi for editing purposes?
I'm new to this too.
All my captures so far have been mpeg and haven't messed with avi.
p.s.
From what I've read, minion seems to knows his stuff.

 

PFH,

Yes Minion knows his stuff.
As for capturing in MPEG.?? Pinacle Studio will not allow me to capture or edit in MPEG. Pinnacle offers Liquid Edition 6 which allows this but that's a $300 upgrade. (ouch)..!!! Most editing programs on the low end (price scale) do not allow editing if the file is captured in MPEG & Pinnacle is one of them.

Lucky for me my PC is 2 weeks old & I haven't had any of the problems I've read that others have had with Pinnacle. My only problem is it's speed, but the quality is great so I think I'll stick with slow speed & great quality...