Unable to Connect to Capture Driver Message

[Blast1]

[Elliot Smith] “I’m trying to improve quality since I saw “digitation” in the highlights of the bride’s forehead at the last wedding I shot on which I used DV to capture. “

DV capture is basically transfering DV thats on tape to a computer file with no loss or change, if you captured DV to uncompressedQT you would have uncompressed DV with higher resolution artifacts as any artifacts you are seeing are already on tape.
Without knowing what causing your pixelation, its hard to recommend any cure, are you viewing the artifacts you are seeing on a computer monitor or a external video monitor? are they in areas of high motion or overexposure?
are you doing any magnifaction to see them?

[Scott]

Also, was the pixilization on the final DVD? Low bit rate can cause a huge amount of pixelization. If your trying to cram 3 or 4 hours of video on a dvd….

Scott

[Steven L. gotz]

The compression happens between the lens and the tape. Too late for uncompressed DV.

What you may be thinking is that the video is uncompressed on the tape. It is compressed at 5:1 – so as I said. Too late by the time it is on tape.

A Mac captures DV from a camera the same way a PC does, but names if differently and puts a slightly different wrapper on the file. But the data is a file transfer, so the data is the same on Mac as on PC, from Quicktime MOV to Windows DV – all the same.

If you want better codecs to work with, you should upgrade your system to Windows XP and get the latest version of Premiere Pro 1.5 – then you will have a better codec (MainConcept) than before. There is a learning curve, but it will be a significant improvement. And the MPEG export is much better in Premiere Pro than in 6.5 as well.

Steven
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 / After Effects 6.5 Pro https://www.stevengotz.com
Learning Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 https://www.lynda.com
Contributing Writer, PeachPit Press, Visual QuickPro Guide, Premiere Pro 1.5

[Elliot Smith]

Thanks for the advice, I’ll look into Premiere Pro. Thanks again.

[Elliot Smith]

The pixelation was in highlight areas, bright light bouncing off the bride’s forehead. I don’t have an external monitor, but it was there on both computer and DVD.

I’m beginning to wonder if it was the camera itself, it was a sony trv-130 (far from high end). I used to copy from camcorder to VHS and I never had these issues, but then again that was all analog and the picture is much sharper digitally. Could it be my firewire card?

I created 2 hour DVD’s, btw.

[Blast1]

[Elliot Smith] “Could it be my firewire card?”

No, firewire card is strictly a high speed serial port and does not affect the data per’se.

[Elliot Smith] “I’m beginning to wonder if it was the camera itself, it was a sony trv-130 (far from high end). “
Actually that series of D8 is a fairly decent camcorder, beats a hi8/8mm, one thing it has is a large imaging chip which lends to low light sensitivity(less noise if set properly) better than some newer model consumer DV camcorders, it has drawbacks though as it has limited manual controls, but it does have a manual exposure and it can be used to tone down highlight problems like you are seeing, its better to slightly underexpose than overexpose, underexposed video can be lightened with minimum loss of detail, overexposure looses detail thats not recoverable, also if possible avoid direct reflection of shiny objects like foreheads, bald heads, it pays to scope out the area and note lighting and possible problems in advance, also play with the cam in various situations to get a feel of what you may need to do it eliminate problems while live shooting, also an item like a Polarizing filter can help a bunch in situations like that, one for a 37mm filter should be very reasonable.
With your current problem you could try to futz with the adjustments like brightness/contrast, blurs etc. available in AP65 to see if you can clean it up a bit.

[Elliot Smith]

I’ll do that. Thanks alot, you’ve been very helpful.

Elliot