Hi there. I am new to this forum. I live in Melbourne, Australia and I am thinking of buying the Leadtek Expert card. I have to transfer my entire wedding video footage from a Mini DV camcorder. The problem is even though I have 2 Firewire ports on my machine (on the motherboard itself), when I try to capture the video from the camcorder, it takes only the audio on Stereo Track 1 of the tape by default. My video coverage has normal audio on Track 1 and extra instrumental music on Track 2 (ST 1 and ST 2 on the camcorder). The coverage was done by a professional back in India using Panasonic DV camcorders. Due to this, I am unable to use Firewire to get the best quality transfer. I then decided to get a PCI card which would do the job and found that the LeadTek card was quite popular and getting good reviews too. My only question is about the audio. The LeadTek Expert card seems to have a separate internal connector that goes from the card to my LINE IN of the sound card in my computer. I do not have a great sound card - it is just a built in one on my Gigabyte 8IG1000 Pro motherboard - which is actually a 6 channel one supporting Dolby 5.1 sound - meaning I can just plug in the 5.1 speaker system and enjoy 5.1 sound, without actually installing a separate Sound Blaster 5.1 sound card etc. I am concerned about the audio quality with this type of connection. The DV tape has excellent audio and I am concerned that the quality would be reduced due to the ordinary sound card I have. I intend to make VCDs and SVCDs now and DVDs after a month or 2 since I can't afford the DVD writer at the moment. Any help on this regard would be very much appreciated. Thanks and regards, Venkat P.S. - My machine is a Pentium 4 / 2.4 GHz / 800 MHz FSB, Seagate 120 GB Serial ATA hard drive, nVidia GeForce FX 5600 graphics card with 128 MB memory / Samsung CDRW 52x / LiteOn 16x DVD ROM drive. I have a 17 inch Samsung 753 DFX flat screen monitor. Hope this is enough !!!
Can't you record the analog audio during you firewire transfer ? Or.. the Firewire "stream" IS a composite of all streams, and must been able to convert by computer software ? Or transfer the tapes with a second (mini)DV camcorder, and set settings different on 2nd one, 1st is player, DVout > DVin on second recording/passthrough camcorder. But i guess you can't access the 2nd (stereo) sound channel on a normal miniDV camcorder because it's recorded in "Pro" DV ? Maybe checkout DataVideo site on the web... but it will cost you..
Hi. Thanks for that. I bought the card. I am now able to transfer the video from the camcorder using the S-Video connection (for video) and normal RCA plugs (left and right) for the audio. The transfer comes out good only if I capture in UNCOMPRESSED AVI mode. In other modes, there is some jerkiness. I am able to change Stereo Tracks between 1 and 2 on the camcorder when I am doing the capture. This is fine. However, the volume of the captured audio seems to be too high. The default was at 30 in the configuration box, and I tried with 100, 50 and even 20. 20 also seems to be high. Isn't there any way to capture the audio at the same level as it is on the tape ? For this, Firewire was perfect. The problem with the Firewire transfer was that I could not change the audio tracks. The audio and video go as a single stream thru the Firewire cable. So it looks like it is impossible to change audio tracks when capturing using Firewire. This is only for those who have home videos with a single track normal audio, either in 16-bit or 12-bit audio mode on the camcorder. I have tried all possible methods. This card is nice with all its features etc. and I am impressed with the quality in the UNCOMPRESSED AVI mode - however, this just eats up space. I have 8 tapes, each 60 minutes - to be captured. Looks like I will have to do one first, convert it to SVCD, delete the main AVI file, and then capture the next tape. If anyone else has any other suggestions on this audio track change during Firewire capture, they are very much welcome. I'd be the happiest to complete it using Firewire, if possible at all. Thanks once again ! Regards, Venkat
It's a shame you can't capture in DV, you have quality loss now, capturing in DV you have a file of 13Gb. for one hour of DV AVI (2) But i guess this is only for this one "project" you should avoid this kind of situations, in the future.
Btw. you're also sure you have also set the correct input and output modes ? (because you mention jerkyness)
Hi there. Yes; I tried all the output settings - DVD PAL, MPEG 2 normal, MPEG 2 Good quality, MPEG 2 optimal etc. Even SVCD and other formats. Jerkiness in the sense - it is smooth, but when panning takes place, in some places you can see a tree or building etc splitting into 2 while panning and then getting back together .... get what I mean ??? I don't know how else I can explain it .... but it looks bad even though the video quality is very good. In the uncompressed AVI format, I have no problems. Clean, clear superb video. No jerks anywhere. As for the sound, what volume should I set ? I remember seeing the default was 30. Even 30 seems too loud though. Looks like there is no way to capture the sound directly as it is on the tape .... instead of all this volume adjustment. I also feel the audio would be better if I have a better sound card like a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 or something. Now, I have done an internal connection from the Winfast TV 2000 XP Expert card to the AUX input on my motherboard. The sound is good, though not as crystal clear as it is on the DV tape. Thanks for your input ! Regards, Venkat
btw. which software you use for encoding to MPEG2 ? does it also perform good at lower bit rates ? I'm using CCE Basic, very happy with this one, can set average bit rate, and it predicts the file size at the same moment, also for the audio, but i encode the wav into AC3 with Besweet, to preserve the Dolby Prologic, because i don't have a digital receiver yet.
