Hi, Have loads of miniDV tapes I want to convert to divx and stick on pc so I can stream them to TV via XBMC. Have tried a few different apps, but all seem to have their downfalls. Ulead Videostudio slow, crashes a lot, not sure if output is all that good. TMPGXpress limited also in transitions AutoGK good output, but can only seem to do one avi at a time. Basically what I do is use windv to capture a tape onto hard disk. This results in x number of avi files. What I then want to do is be able to create a number of divx files, some may be just one original captured avi file, but others may be a combination of captured avi files, which I'd like to be able to join with a basic transition effect, like fade for example. Surely theres loads of people out there who have a routine/set of apps for this exact purpose? Anyone?
There are a few good capture apps.. I quite like the one that comes with nero7 and up. Had a few problems with windv thing.. mostly stuttering.. If you happen to have a hd camcorder the capture/import in nero8 is the only one we have found to work properly so far. Of course these are the shop jobs.. I don't use any of that stuff at home as cinelerra does everything that nero does.. and more. http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php open source multimedia editing comes of age.
WinDV is great. It outputs DV-AVI. You can edit DV-AVI in Windows Movie Maker or VirtualDub or many other good editors. After editing save again as DV-AVI. Pass the DV-AVI to DivX. Rich
core2kid, could not get Movie Maker to import any of my movies. Tried different formats, but no joy. Many others seem to have exact same issue. Rich48, love WinDV too, great little app. So what I should do is capture using WinDV, use these DV-Avi files in my editor, save as DV-Avi, then convert using DivX Converter or something similar? I was going about it a different way, trying to convert files to divx before editing, but maybe this is the wrong method, loss of quality, etc?
That is correct. However I prefer Microsoft .WMV over DivX, Xvid etc. WMV has been easier for me over the years for several reasons. Yes, there will be an abnormal loss of quality and you will will have a difficult time editing DivX as compared to DV-AVI. You will lose video quality and probably introduce other problems by going from DV-AVI to DivX then to editing which will decode Divx, make the changes and then endcode back to Divx. Rich
Rich, Thanks for info. Did some editing using the DVAvi files in Ulead last night, and saved as same format. Looked well on the PC. Dimensions were 720*576. But when Iconverted to Divx using both Divx Converter and AutoGK, it produced a 720*544 video, which looked more square and stretched on the pc. Tried to force it to keep same ratio, but it didnt work. Any ideas?
Garland, Sorry, I can not help you with the DivX, I just do not use it. It sounds like there is an aspect ratio issue, it is most likely a setting someplace, but again, I have no clue, your going to have to dig through some help files and ask the DivX experts what to do. Rich
DivX will always be lower quality than the raw DV-AVI files. That's where the compression comes in. If you were to burn them to DVD and watch them on an SDTV, it would look fine. The resolution on your computer monitor is somewhere like 1280x1024 +/- some and a TV is 640x480. It'll look a whole lot more natural on a TV.
