Minidv to PC recommendation
 

So I see a lot of VHS to digital conversion. I'm not sure if MINI DV process is similar. I know that I need to play back with the camcorder to capture the video.

My main goal is to archive the video and also burn a copy to either dvd or blu ray.

Question is, I see a lot of people recommending ATI AIW cards. What card would you guys recommend on the card for what I am trying to accomplish? You can assume I have a Windows XP that can handle this type of task.

The format that I read so far would be capturing in MPEG-2 broadcast, is this correct?

Please recommend a card and file type.

Thanks.

Welcome.

Dv video is played with a MiniDv camcorder or player, but that's where the similarity ends with VHS processing. DV is never captured.

I'm afraid not. DV is copied (not captured or re-recorded) to a computer as DV, in it's original format 1:1, using a DV transfer app such as WinDV. DV content is copied by the transfer app via Firewire. You must have a computer with an IEE 1394 FireWire port or you can install a Texas Instruments FireWire add-on PCI card to most computers. Your computer operating system is important, as apps such as WinDV work only in Windows XP or earlier. Analog capture cards for VHS are not designed for DV transfer. If it's not possible to obtain a PC with Firewire connections, you can have the miniDV tape transferred using a transfer service, which will deliver the results to you as a 1:1 DV copy of your DV tape. I believe digitalfaq offers such a service (Others can correct me on that if necessary, as I don't work here).

DV transfers have to be re-encoded to another, more universal format anyway, as DV is an obsolete format not supported by external playback devices or the internet. DV is PC-only playback. MiniDV is interlaced 720x480 standard definition (720x576 PAL) that can be encoded to DVD or to standard definition BluRay, both of which are interlaced formats. I would advise that you not attempt to upsample SD-DV for HD formats. HD requires higher resolution sources to be effective. DV can be reduced in file size by archiving to high-bitrate MPEG, or saved as-is.

[/quote]Question is, I see a lot of people recommending ATI AIW cards.[/quote]AIW and similar cards are designed for analog capture, not for DV. You need FireWire and software such as WinDV, which are ideal for XP.

Can't I just playback over the RCA connection for the camcorder? I thought play back was involved and you had to playback to capture and not just copied over like a file?

I also have a bunch of Hi8 tapes as well. I think those might need a agp video card?

Sure you can do that. It's your video. Expect some quality loss and frame timing/av sync problems.FirwWire doesn't "play" DV video. It copies it.

What would you use to capture the minidv and hi8 video to get maximum results?

Don't capture DV. It has never been recommended in this forum or any other. You'd be going from digital DV to analog to digital again, with quality loss and timing problems. You already have XP. A FireWire PCI/PCIe card is a mere $30 USD, and WinDV is free. An AGP board, AIW legacy card and outboard tbc will cost a lot more and you'll lose quality. It makes no sense to use an analog device for DV transfer.

Okay, the mini DV use the firewire to "Copy"

Now what about the Hi8 tapes, what card do you recommend?

Hi8 is analog. For that you can use an AIW agp or newer USB analog device, and capture using VirtualDub to YUY2 lossless AVI compressed with huffyuv or Lagarith lossless compression. Then clean up with Avisynth/VirtualDub and encode to whatever final format you want.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post13441
Favorites from the legacy line are the AIW Radeon 7500 and 9600 series AGP. But they all give excellent results.
You will also need a VCR with built-in line-sync tbc and and an external frame-sync tbc. It's possible that a Hi8 playback camera might have tbc built-in.

Thanks for the suggestions I am going to look into those cards for the Hi8 tapes. I have many Hi8 and MiniDV to transfer.

Capturing analog to lossless media is your best bet. Capture directly to lossy MPEG would work, but for edits and cleanup it's the wrong way to go. The forum has hundreds of capture and restoration threads confirming this.

[EDIT] The newer PCIe All in Wonders work just as well as the older AGP cards.

http://windv.mourek.cz/

the site mentions capturing instead of "copy". just Symantec?

Yes, just semantics. WinDV copies, it doesn't "capture" in the way the term is applied to analog video.