Short, grainy-looking DVDs?

[imbordisux]

Ok, so I just burned my first home-made DVD. I have two problems, though, and was hoping someone could help.

 

1) I have the same camera that Robb uses (Sony DCR-HC32), but when I transfer it to my computer, the footage becomes grainy, which causes my DVDs that are being played on my TV to look pixelated (as opposed to the tapes I dubbed, which are crystal-clear). Do I have to use a certain capturing program to make them record at a better quality?

 

2) I bought some blank DVDs, and can only fit about an hour of footage on each. Well, to be more specific, I can only fit an hour of "high-quality" footage on them, I could record much more at a lower quality. Anyway, as you can tell, I'm not exactly a computer-geek, so how come I can get a 3-hour, crystal-clear movie from "Best Buy", but can only get an hour of jumpy footage at home?

 

Thanks in advance.

[robbalvey]

What program are you using to compress your footage and burn your DVD?

[Carnage]

Are you capturing the video via USB or firewire?

 

If you're using USB, then I'd suggest going out and buying a firewire card. The video quality should be a bit better that way.

 

(firewire is dirt cheap if you need to buy a card)

 

A commercial DVD uses higher quality dual layer DVDs, and are compressed and burned using much more expensive equipment then your average $100 DVD writer.

 

But what kind of quality you get is going to depend on how you're compressing and burning your footage.

[imbordisux]

Yeah, transferring via USB. Thanks for the fire-wire tip.

 

Robb, I'm just using Windows Movie Maker to import the raw footage and create the movie (I'm not trying to do anything fancy), then import the movie into Sonic to create the menus and add chapter-marks, then burn it in that.

 

I'm not interested in making commercial-quality stuff, I don't plan on trying to sell them or anything, I just wanted to make a few copies for friends and family.

 

I miss the days of analog-editing... I used to be great at that... I'm such an old fart for such a young age...

[Wes]

I'm just using Windows Movie Maker to import the raw footage and create the movie

 

That's your problem. WMM is a joke.

[imbordisux]

What should I use, then? I'm not looking for a fancy program with a million different tools, but any free downloads you can suggest? I just want to upload them from the camera to the computer.

[WillMontu]

As long as you keep the movies in DV-AVI format (basically, the same format that the camera uses on the tape), you shouldn't lose much quality. Windows Movie Maker isn't the greatest out there, but it does the job. Just make sure you have plenty of hard disk space, as an hour of raw uncompressed DV footage takes up about 12gb of disk space

[benzo41190]

I kind of have the same problem but I think it is due to my Wide Angle lens. When ever I use it it look out of focus and blurry.

 

Do you think it is due to the quality of the lens or something.

 

What brand of Wide Angle lenses do you use with your DCR-HC30/32 ?

[imbordisux]

I personally don't use a wide-angle lens, but I'm pretty sure Robb listed what kind he uses on one of the threads at the top of this board.

 

And thanks for the info, Willmontu.

[imbordisux]

Ok, I just went into WMM, and the option to change the video setting to DV-AVI is "grayed-out" - is this because I'm using USB instead of firewire?

[WillMontu]

^ You probably do need to use Firewire to allow DV capture.

[imbordisux]

Thanks a lot.