Hi all, After spending a few nights reading 100's of posts with problems, questions, answers it seems like a good idea to get some advice before starting the venture of videocapturing and burning DVD's. Hopefully I'll bypass some problems and will be ever grateful for any tips. The thing is that I thought this would be a pretty straightforward thing to do, just like downloading pics from a still camera, convert a file and then make a "Kodak photo CD"-equivalent DVD. But the world of moving pictures seem a bit more complicated than that. Facts: I have a 6 month old son, a Sony TVR14 miniDV camcorder, a fast computer with firewire and a DVD+RW burner. Reasonable computer experience but a limited budget (lot went to cam and computer). Task: capture pictures from cam to burn DVD's with good quality to be played on my (European PAL) TV through a DVD player. Question: Which programs make up a good, reasonable user-friendly kit for this? With the camera came a Sony software called ImageMaker. I've done some capturing but quality (on computer screen) is horrible compared to when I plug in the camera to the TV and view the pictures that way. I read that Mpeg1 (which seem to be the format in that program) is capable of far less resolution than PAL. And I obviously want to burn DVD's with a quality as good as when the camera is attached to the TV. Sorry for this lengthy post, I'll really appreciate suggestions. Thanks.
Do you already have Nero ? You may want to check out Nero Vision Express that comes with Nero6 Ultra - can be found at www.ahead.de. As well as the video shots Nero Vison Express also works great for making slideshows out of your still pics.
Thanks urlybird, I'll definetly check it out. Can it do all the things I am asking for; capturing video from cam and then burn a DVD (w good quality)?
You should be capturing in AVI which I'm sure the Sony software can do. (You may find that it can do everything you need have you read the manual?) You can then edit the AVI and then render it as Mpeg2 (DVD format) You'd then need to author it to DVD files (VOBs and IFOs) To do all of this I use Video Vegas and DVD Architect (either of which can also make slideshows) by Sonic Foundry (now bought out by Sony) But they aren't cheap. If you have Windows XP then Windows Movie maker will capture and edit your footage (I have never used it though) the advantage being that it is free. Ulead http://www.ulead.com/ (site seems to be down just now) make reasonably priced software to capture and edit. It will probably also do slideshows.
Rascar: You can get a free 30 day trial of Nero so you can try it out. I am not familiar with your Sony camcorder, so I am not sure how you will transfer the video to your PC ? Does your camera have firewire ? You may need to add a capture board as well if you don't alreay have one. urly
