Hi All,

My first thread in this part of the forum so please excuxe me if it sounds basic!

For the last year or so, ive been recording things onto my digi camcorder, via mini dv.

Ive not had any luck when it comes to transferring them onton disc, so now have a pile of mini dvs. I originally tried to put stuff onto my laptop, but the recordngs were just to big, something about recording in "raw" mode!!!! I was told the best/easiest way was to record them directly onto a dvd recorder. NOt sure as to how true this is.

Ive just bought a new plasma and am going to buy a dvd recorder, could anyone tell me what the easiest way is to transfer material onto dvds. If via dvd recorder, can anyone suggest me a decent one around the £100-£150 range (needs to have hdmi).

ANy help/advice qwould be appreciated!

Thanks

[redsox_mark]

Not sure what is meant by "raw mode".. but DV does take up a fair amount of disk space (1 hour of DV is approx 12 GB). It's perfectly possible to edit and create DVDs from your PC (even a laptop), but you may need to add an external drive for storage of the video files.

But you are right that by far the easiest way is to use a DVD recorder... better yet a DVD/HDD recorder, so you can do some basic editing and then save to a DVD video. Best if you get one with Firewire input, use this to connect the camcorder to the recorder.

Your price range seems a bit low for a quality one, but you are probably best asking on the dvd recorders forum for advice on models.

[senu]

You might find this thread helpful.

The DVD recorder in question LG 177RH .
It is IMHO value for money at £199 with an HDD of 80Gb. Its playback is OK though not comparable to the Denon 1920 Player :cost the same and upscales well) but it does output component with progressive scan very nicely

( In the past I had a Panasonic with a 40Gb HDD which died just out of warrantee: it cost £800 at the time)

Recordings on the LG via firewire from your MiniDV camcorder should at best PQ be very good.
It does not have HDMI , a DVB tuner and DVD-RAM support . You will need to spend even more than the £199 it costs to get any of those in addition to what it does have.

You can trim,cut out, divide up ,and combine video clips recorded to HDD before burning to DVD disc. This is almost a need, not want if you have many tapes and wish to combine the material on same disc. You can get 2 hrs on a disc at standard quality. Lower quality is less desirable

You can get cheaper DVD recorders ( not by much) and certainly there are Panasonics /Sony models without HDD costing even more. If you have waited this long I suggest you save up a bit more for a decent kit to avoid buying twice!. HDMI and upscaling (of dubious quality) would cost more and possibly not show better PQ at 720p. or 1080i

"Raw Mode" probably reffers to DV AVI, the format in which the video data on tape is transferred to PC: it is minimally compressed in-camera but for practical purposes considered uncompressed
As such one hr of video in that format uses up 12.7Gb of HDD space.
In contrast a DVD disc of 4.7Gb can easily hold best quality video
The video format the DVD is mpeg2. Very efficient compression has allowed the video fit 4.7Gb from 13Gb with almost no loss in quality.
The compression is called encoding
HTH

Wow, gonna take me a bit of time to digest that info you guys have given me!

I have been told though to get a dvd recorder with hdmi so i can make use of my 1080 thingy on my plasma, wasnt to bothered about hdd, as i was thinking of getting an external storage and do the editing on my laptop (if i can ever get it to work!)

Thanks so far for the advice!

[daveb975]

Originally Posted by redsox_mark

Not sure what is meant by "raw mode".. but DV does take up a fair amount of disk space (1 hour of DV is approx 12 GB).

I have recently bought a camcorder, and have just dumped my first DVs down to my Sony RDRHXD710 DVD recorder via firewire. I managed to get 55 minutes onto 1 DVD (making it less than 4.7Gb).

Does this mean that it will be more compressed that if I had downloaded it to my PC?

I used HQ+ mode (highest) on the Sony. You can tell the difference in quality between the DVD and the original DV on a 42" plasma, but it is very marginal.

[redsox_mark]

Yes, but DVD is always going to be more compressed than DV (but it is different type of compression, and can still be very good).

If you have shot DV and are going to edit on a PC, you want to capture DV and edit that.. and encode to MPEG for DVD at the end.

If you feed DV into a DVD recorder, it will do the encode to MPEG then. It is best that you avoid multiple encodes if you can.. isn't the HQ+ higher than DVD allowed bitrate.. so you would need to encode it again to go to DVD? Would be better to use a quality setting that just fits on a DVD in the first place.

[daveb975]

Originally Posted by redsox_mark

Yes, but DVD is always going to be more compressed than DV (but it is different type of compression, and can still be very good).

If you have shot DV and are going to edit on a PC, you want to capture DV and edit that.. and encode to MPEG for DVD at the end.

If you feed DV into a DVD recorder, it will do the encode to MPEG then. It is best that you avoid multiple encodes if you can.. isn't the HQ+ higher than DVD allowed bitrate.. so you would need to encode it again to go to DVD? Would be better to use a quality setting that just fits on a DVD in the first place.

Thanks. I will download it to the PC directly from the cam as well for the edited version.

I think you are right about the HQ+ mode on the Sony. I have the recorder set to that when I record directly to the HDD but very rarely record direct to DVD. When I recorded the DV, I did it directly to the DVD (not via HDD), so I think it must have used the best setting to fit the disc.

[senu]

Also, although in pure data sizes , one is going from 13Gb to 4.7Gb ( almost 1/3).(DV to Mpeg2)
For the minimal PQ drop, mpeg2 encoding in which video makes its way to DVD is very efficient

The DVDs from Hollywood have exactly the same format (mpeg2) .

The difference is that they have a very hi-res starting material and the fact that they use very high quality encoding.

Not all mpeg encoders ( soft or hardware) are equally efficient at keeping the last vestiges of PQ.
If you have a "fussy" or large Display it becomes easier to notice the difference.

If say you made the same footage into a Video CD which can fit 1 hr on a 700Mb CD you would see much more difference in PQ.

Practically, If you record to HDD at best PQ ( HQ+ mode) shave off a bit( if required) , then DUB to DVD you will get the best that a settop DVD with HDD can offer. I stress dub so that no reencoding takes place from HDD to DVD as you may cause a PQ drop if re-recording from HDD to DVD.

Lastly, when the DV tape playing on your display it is "streaming" huge amounts of data at a much faster rate ( incomparable to DVD bitrates) .As such comparing PQ from Dv and a well encoded DVD,the DVD actually does a great job.