akirk Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 I think that this subject has been covered before, but I was wondering what kind of equipment it takes to transfer analog camcorder videos to DVD? I assume it takes some kind of an analog to digital converter, a DVD burner, and the proper software?? I notice that there are quite a few websites that offer transfer services, so I get the feeling the technology involved to transfer videos is either expensive, complicated, or both. Does anyone have any experience with this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Blacksmith Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 With a converter, pc, software and burner you can do it yourself without much of a problem. The main thing is that it takes a long time. The analog video is run at normal speed, then you chop it up into scenes, arrange as necessary, add music, add transitions then process the whole mess and burn it to a DVD. I have done a few but I have many more to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Sams Clubs and Walgreens does it, $20 a tape... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 ---------------- On 2/21/2005 1:53:19 PM akirk wrote: I think that this subject has been covered before, but I was wondering what kind of equipment it takes to transfer analog camcorder videos to DVD? I assume it takes some kind of an analog to digital converter, a DVD burner, and the proper software?? I notice that there are quite a few websites that offer transfer services, so I get the feeling the technology involved to transfer videos is either expensive, complicated, or both. Does anyone have any experience with this? ---------------- rather than going the computer route to do this.... just buy a stand alone DVD recorder.... they usually have front inputs to hookup your camcorder directly.... just hit "play" on your camcorder and "record" on the DVD recorder and you're set... just like recording to a VHS machine..... it doesn't give you all the fancy editing options (unless you get a model with a built-in hard-drive) but it is cheaper than buying a new computer and the associated software.... my DVD recorder was about $300 (they are going for less than $200 on some sites online now).... there are cheaper models that work fine.... but i wanted a model in black to match the rest of my rack.... i have a panasonic DMR-E55K http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&itemId=69607&catGroupId=11058&modelNo=DMR-E55K&surfModel=DMR-E55K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Plus the learning curve of the operation is steep if you haven't messed with video before. It takes a month to memorize and understand the terminology and then that's not enough. After about 2 years playing around you will be proficient in capturing and editing and burning and most of all spending large amounts of money to satisfy your thirst, then you will have forgotton why you wanted to do this in the first place. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/expert/bridgman_burndvd.mspx The pc route is a good one to take if you're already running XP and you have at least 1GB of ram. The previous link will show you how to use movie maker 2 (it comes with xp) and then how you will need to use another program to actually burn it to a dvd. If you have a dvd burner for your pc, then there's a good chance that it came with some software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclonecj Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 I am using my DV camcorder as a A/D converter & feeding it to my laptop via firewire. When I did a capture, it uses over 22 gigs of HD space for 1 hour of video. I then used Roxio to make the dvd, but when it renders it, the picture came out real bad. I guess the compression engine is not that good. Also, it will only let you get 1 hour onto a single DVD. I then took the captured video to work & rendered it using Adobe Premiere 1.5. I burned 1:40 onto a DVD & it came out great, but it took over 9 hours. The standalone burners do a real good job also, & will let you do a direct-to-disk with up to 2 hours of good quality. Some will let you do 6 hours, but I bet the quality is not good. If you don't have a powerfull computer, this is a good way to go if you dont want any custom editing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 An hour of video should only be about 13 Gig. If you use the wrong codec to create the MPEG2 (all DVDs use MPEG2), the quality will be awful. I use Adobe Premiere, and a lite version of DVD software that came with it. I have had no issues, but it is very time consuming. A standalone DVD recorder is way better for most, unless you want to make chapters, titles, etc. Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclonecj Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 When I do the capture, it always saves it as a full sized AVI file, then compresses it to mpeg-2 during rendering. Is there a way to go direct to mpeg-2 other than direct-to-disk? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 The DV-AVI format that your pc is recording into is the same format as the video on your digital camera, so recording onto your pc with the mpeg-2 codec means you will be doing a conversion stage in the process, which I'm not sure if it's possible to do on the pc or not. If you have a Mac, you can just input into iMovie which takes no time at all, and then it takes a second to dump it into iDVD. But after that, you have a good 45 minutes (entire dvd) of rendering before you can actually start burning dvds. You should be able to get a good 3 hours out of a normal dvd (and 6 hours if you compress it). I would recommend burning onto DVD-R's instead of DVD+R's as it takes far less time to burn them (you essentially get the same quality). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 What pixel ratio is the video when you capture it? It should come in as 720 x 480 (gak, I'm at work so I may not be remembering correctly). Also, what software are you using to capture the video with? If you come in over firewire, you shouldn't be able to change the size on the capture settings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJkizak Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 When you capture video it is in the DV-avi format which is compressed about 5 x 1. All the editing is done in DV avi then it is rendered to MPG (MPEG2) The codec used to render to MPEG2 van be--Main Concept, TempGen, Cinemacraft, etc. and each one has slightly different characteristics. The resultant file is then processed by your DVD burning software which arranges it in a certain format to be applied (burned) to a DVD disc. It is then burned to the disc in either DVD-R or DVD+R format depending on what your equipment is capable of and what floats your boat. If your file is not rendered to mpg after editing you can take the unedited captured file and apply it directly to the DVD processing software and it will re-encode it to MPEG2 as a prepratory process before burning, then it will burn it. Some things can be done in the DVD burning software on an editing basis depending on whose software you have. So using the DVR recorder looks like a good idea for most people. JJK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclonecj Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 ---------------- On 2/22/2005 12:02:53 PM JJKIZAK wrote: When you capture video it is in the DV-avi format which is compressed about 5 x 1. All the editing is done in DV avi then it is rendered to MPG (MPEG2) The codec used to render to MPEG2 van be--Main Concept, TempGen, Cinemacraft, etc. JJK ---------------- This is how mine seems to be working. I have done the whole thing in Adobe, & it always captures in AVI. I then edit it, & export to DVD. It does the render & then burns the disk. I did try it on the Mac with I-movie, & the only difference is that it saves in quicktime, but the file is still huge. Then I can export to I-dvd, edit, render & burn. The quality was the same as Roxio, which was not great. However, I did not expect the included or low price programs to keep up with Adobe, which is the industry standard & VERY expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirk Posted February 22, 2005 Author Share Posted February 22, 2005 Thanks for the answers, guys. It sounds like a stand-alone DVD burner is my best option, since I am just looking to burn my tapes to DVD for archive purposes, and won't be doing any editing. One question though - since my camcorder is analog, not digital, will there be much degradation of the signal running it from the composite analog outputs of the camcorder to the DVD burner? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyclonecj Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 Since I have never tried a recorder, all I can do is make a guess...... My "GUESS" is that it depends on the quality of the recorder you get. They have different quality A/D converters just like anything else, so maybe get some recommendations or look up a few reviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 I use an ADS Instant DVD box to capture the video from my video camcorder (non dvr) and then burn it to DVD on my computer which happens to have a DVD burner as one of its drives...tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted February 22, 2005 Share Posted February 22, 2005 There are lots of good packages for doing this on the pc (or Mac) these days. Premiere, Final Cut, Vegas very cool, and does multi track audio quite well), Avid. All those are pricey. I got Premiere very cheap as I got an educational discount. I think Vegas would only be about $150 for me. It is quite tedious. The capture is in real time. Making the MP2 for the DVD software can be quite time consuming if you don't have a fast computer. OTOH, try rendering an animation sequence out sometime, and you find that your 20 second clip takes 15 hours. Pretty ugly. Make sure the UPS is working. Nothing like the power going off when you have five minutes left. The less expensive packages just don't give you as many options. Not as many video tracks or audio tracks. Not as many effects (just more cheesy ones!). But they can still work just fine. Videowave works okay. I think Sony (Vegas) also has Video Factory. Marvel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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