Unsure which software to use

edanto

I'd like to capture from miniDV into some format like .mov or .avi (but with a minimum of compression).

I've looked at Avid Free DV, but besides the fact that I can't get it to capture, it seems to want to put the files in some proprietary format. The windows movie maker puts them into wmv and I can see the loss of quality.

What other free/really cheap softwares are out there, please? Or if there's nothing cheap, what would you recommend?

decob

edanto wrote:

I'd like to capture from miniDV into some format like .mov or .avi (but with a minimum of compression).

I've looked at Avid Free DV, but besides the fact that I can't get it to capture, it seems to want to put the files in some proprietary format. The windows movie maker puts them into wmv and I can see the loss of quality.

what problem are you having with avid free? are you trying to capture via usb or firewire?
Once you have it captured into avid free you can export it as an .avi or .mov

Dr. Seuss

Avid free is sh*t, so that's probably the problem - and it wants to capture into Avid .omf files. Totally gay.

If you just want an AVI, try getting a trial of Nero 7 - there's a Video capture tool in that (select AVI "Type 2" for the format - it's standard DV compression). Otherwise, if you want to edit, I'd recommend Adobe Premiere.

edanto

Well, the problem with Avid Free is that I'm not getting a video feed into the software - even though the controller will move the tape.

It's probably an issue with my settings (it's telling me that the DVcam is a Generic NTSC device, which is weird). I don't want to edit it, someone else will, so premier is out of budget. I just need to make .movs of some parts of the tape and hand them on.

He'd prefer to have high quality .movs than avis. And I've got a budget of about 50 quid and no experience!

ps - capturing with firewire

flurby

Quicktime Pro. I haven't used it on PC but it can capture your vids and compress them right down to tiny filesize and crystal clear quality using H264. Letss you chop up clips and stitch them together also, but without transitions etc.

If you want to tinker with video editing - get a mac. All the software you need to start comes preloaded.

And they rarely crash. Rarely.

Quicktime Pro link: http://tinyurl.com/22xe55

edanto

That's great, thanks!!

I've also been advised to check out Premier Elements too, which I can get a free trial of. If I hit any problems with that, then I'll spend the 30 lids on Qt Pro.

This isn't something that I'll be getting into, more of a once off - thanks for the tips.

EDIT - a 700meg download is something of a hitch!! Off to quicktime pro...

edanto

update - I used Adobe Premier Elements, trial version is all I need. Lets me export back to DV, no loss of quality and 5h of tape reduced to 1h.

sweet!