I am copying from my analogue camcorder, using a Sony mini DV as a pass-thru to my pc. I use Windows Movie Maker to capture the film, in AVI format. I am then copying to DVD using Nero Express 2. The quality I get on my DVD , when viewing it on my widescreen tv is ok, but not as clear as when copying direct from the old camcorder direct to the VHS recorder. Am I resigned to losing some quality here , as going thru more steps , or for example, will using different software to capture than WMM improve my picture ? Thanks in advance.
If you want dvd quality, id suguest you not use windows movie maker to capture. Use programs such as Pinnacle Studio.
It is not the software program that you use to capture that determines the quality. It is the format in which you capture and the hardware that you are using to capture. For example, if you capture directly to MPEG your quality will suffer because your system needs to encode to MPEG in real time, which can only be done atlower quality settings. Best is to capture to DV-AVI and then encode to MPEG using a decent encoder. Read this: http://www.digitalvideoclub.com/basics/transfer.php