Dazzle or Firewire..help with making dvds..

[bigwurock]

it seems my ending dvds are alittle fuzzy than my master mini DVC tapes..i am going this way to make the dvds.......
my camcorder>Dazzle>USB port
will i lose quality here..i don't have a firewire port...do you get better quality with a firewire connection...also i am using sony vegas 6....

[sadu]

was wondering that too!

[diggrd]

Some good reading on this subject HERE (http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/8691/3804.html) although it deals more with the digital realm. What you need is a way to A/D without quality loss. I doubt you can match the quality of your master analog tapes without using a good quality capture card.

[yeltzin_4]

it seems my ending dvds are alittle fuzzy than my master mini DVC tapes..i am going this way to make the dvds.......
my camcorder>Dazzle>USB port
will i lose quality here..i don't have a firewire port...do you get better quality with a firewire connection...also i am using sony vegas 6....
You will lose quality if you use USB to transfer your video. USB was not designed to transfer high quality video. Installing a Firewire card is the simplest way to transfer footage from your DV camera, it will also ensure that you don't lose any quality during the transfer.
A firewire DV transfer will consume about 13 gig an hour. Any Firewire card will be fine as long as it is OCHI compliant (and they all are...)

[bigwurock]

OK that sounds like the best rout to go....what do i do for VHS tapes then...run the VHS to my camcorder then use my firewire out of my camcorder..??

[yeltzin_4]

Yep. You can use your video camera to convert VHS to DV-AVI if it has the 'pass through' feature. You simply plug the output from your VHS (RCA or SVideo cables) into your video camera and connect your video camera to your PC with a firewire cable. Some of the lower end models don't have this pass through feature and with some cameras you may need to enable the feature through the video camera menu system.

[bigwurock]

Yep. You can use your video camera to convert VHS to DV-AVI if it has the 'pass through' feature. You simply plug the output from your VHS (RCA or SVideo cables) into your video camera and connect your video camera to your PC with a firewire cable. Some of the lower end models don't have this pass through feature and with some cameras you may need to enable the feature through the video camera menu system.


does anyone know if the Canon ZR-40 has the "pass through" feature...i can't seem to find my owners manual anywhere.

[bigwurock]

i did find out that when i was using the dazzle, it was one of the lower end for video capture...was using Dazzle Video Creator 80...which i can't remember the specs but i guess it records with less quality than a VCR....so now i am off to get a firewire card...and also may pick up a higher quality Dazzle for VHS.....wait until i see if my camcorder has the pass through first...

[yeltzin_4]

does anyone know if the Canon ZR-40 has the "pass through" feature...i can't seem to find my owners manual anywhere.
Yep, the Canon ZR-40 does have the analog pass through feature.
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/new_canon_zrs_02_02_02.htm
http://www.mediacollege.com/equipment/canon/camera/zr/zr40.html

[saltman]

drop the dazzle and buy a $15 dollar firewire card.

http://www.videohelp.com/comparison.htm

as you'll see in the link above... dv is about 5 times higher bitrate than dvds.
hence your quality loss..... make sure you render your video and audio sep.
make sure dvdarchitect doesn't rerender your video... and you're all set.