made first DVD video and need some guidance

happyhero

Hi I have old camcorder tapes which I am hoping to transfer to DVD. They are Sony Video8 tapes. I transferred my first tape to WMM thinking that this program would be for making movies for DVD. I spent hours and hours editing adding music and transitions fading the music in and out and cutting some short. Seemed like a great program. But when I got to the end you can imagine how I felt, oh no what do I do now. Anyway after loads of reading I got hold of Nero essentials and Ulead 11plus.

Quality was very important to me so as advised on the net I saved a copy of my project on the HD as a DV-AVI which made a huge file of about 13GB.

I then used Nero to burn it and was surprised that it took over 2 hours to burn. I also added a menu or title screen in Nero.

Quite happy with the result, I played it on a Panasonic DVD onto a 42” plasma but I can’t say it is the best it could have been.

What has lost me the quality and what could I improve on for my next one?

Are any quality losses due to the fact the video came from video8 in the first place, or does WMM lose some quality or is it as good as any other program ( maybe I should have done the whole lot in Nero or Ulead but WMM is very friendly to use and I think effects are easier in it).

Or are there any settings I should have set to improve quality of visual and sound i.e. I keep seeing settings for 5.1 but I don’t actually have 5.1 at the moment so should I select it for better audio or not? There are some setting which I don’t know what they would do or maybe you have some tips or tricks to improve things?

On the net I read to make the movie with DV-AVI the way I did if using WMM but I also read something about using Huffyuv (no idea what that is)?

If I had done the whole thing in Nero or Ulead from the start would it have somehow started with a better quality or not?

In Ulead and Nero I found altering the added tracks much harder to fiddle with than WMM which I find amazing as they surely are the more powerful programs. And I had lots of trouble trying to add mp3’s to my Nero slideshow I was playing with. It does not seem to like mp3’s unless I am doing something wrong.

Basically I want to just add jpegs and mp3’s and alter them all to bits and get really high quality, but maybe what I want is not quite right for best quality and you can educate me a little…. ……please.

Any help appreciated.

Donnie

Nero Essentials is a cut down version of Nero 7, so you'll lose out on some functions.

It's possible that you captured your initial project in Window Media Video 9(which is highly compressed), instead of DV-AVI. WMM defaults to WMV9.

http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Tutorials/HowToCaptureVideo.aspx

It's normal for Nero to take the long, as it has to convert the DV-AVI format to MPEG2(DVD compatible format) before burning it to disc.

You can download a full trial version from their website; http://www.nero.com/enu/Downloads.html

happyhero

Hi Donnie I did download the Nero7 as you advised from the net, although I have not noticed an awfal lot of difference yet.

I captured my project from the camcorder with the program defaults and was not aware I could change that, could this make a big difference then? Could I have captured it in DV_AVI, straight off and if so what difference if any would it have made to editing it? I assume if I did manage to capture it in DV-AVI straight off, that I would have a huge file and it may take longer accessing it for editing.

Connection-wise I just connected phono leads from the camcorder which is the only connection it has to the phono connections I have on my PC, so don't see that I could improve on this part.

Donnie

Is it still represented as Nero Essentials on your computer?

Did you download the free trial or the upgrade?

Of course, the capture mode will make a difference.

Imagine recording a DVD on to a VHS video cassette and then hoping to render it back to DVD quality at a later stage. Not going to happen. Especially as further format changes need to be made.

Two things are affecting your quality. The first is that your computer is having to convert your video in 'real time' and the second is the choice of video compression format that you choose.

If you have to convert to a compressed format, make sure that you choose the highest quality mode WMV9 can offer(check the link that I entered earlier in the thread for details).

Excerpt:

However, if you do go with WMV9, I recommend not using the “recommended” setting for capture. Go ahead and set the capture quality level to the absolute maximum (called “high quality” at 720 x 480) as you should always start with the highest quality source video before you begin editing.

Don't do anything else on the computer whilst capturing and converting video. Don't even look at it.

happyhero

With Nero it said that it would check for updates and when it found them it said it had to remove my existing Nero first so I let it get on with it and assumed it was putting the better full version on. But yes it does mention Essentials still, have I done wrong?

I understand now about what you mean about capture mode and have read your link which was very helpful.

I have checked now because I captured from an old video8 ( I assume this is the reason) DV-AVI is a dimmed out version so my next option going by the link you gave me is WMV9 and both the link and you say pick the highest quality but looking at the options 720 x 480 is not available. Highest appears to be HIGH QUALITY(large) which is 640 x 480 and offers variable bit rate but a few of the others offer the same resolution but with different bit rates. So do I want variable bit rate or a high bit rate, as some have a low bitrate? I suppose in this case I wont be able to capture at 720 x 480 unless you know a way.

When I burnt my DVD I was doing other stuff on the PC as it seemed to cope, not like the old PC's I had which ruined a cd if I tried to do anything at all while burning, and the result didn't seem effected as far as I know but you advise not touching at all and perhaps disabling any screensaver I suppose?

Donnie

That is because when you removed Nero, you didn't remove your Essentials serial code. Therefore you just have an updated version of the same Essentials package, instead of a fifteen day trial of the full program. I'll send you the trial code for you to enter via Nero Product SetUp. Remove your old old one from the same place.

Video 8 quality doesn't meet DVD quality specification. So it seems that 640 x 480 pixels will be the best you can do in the circumstances. Use Variable Bit Rate.

Check your private messages.

Donnie

It could be that you are also limited by your Video Capture Card.

Anyway, no matter.

You can produce your DVD with the full version in house product of Nero 7; http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/Nero_Vision_4_Features.html

Probably won't have some of the transitions offered by WMM, but worth using anyway, as it's easy to use and well integrated with the burning software.

Donnie

Did you download and install the full trial version from the website or did you go another way?

happyhero

Hi Donnie, thank you very, very much for all this help and the PM. I have been asking someone else for help too and may have some information that may interest you but I will come to that in a minute.

I have changed the information as you advised in Nero Product Setup and straight away Ultra was mentioned. I did a check for updates and it found some and installed them. There is a change ie it does not mention essentials now but I am playing with the install as it seems to be getting stuck after a lot of work on the updating at the install. Odd though as it seems to have done the updates. Thats why I have been so long coming back to you. On the first try it sat on install for hours but on the second try it came up with MSI installer error, return code is:1618.

But just now after a final check it seems to be ok as I checked again for updates and it said no updates available at this moment as you see when you are fully updated. Anyway it seems up to date now so thanks for that.

Anyway the thing I have I mentioned above is to do with something they called pass-through and you use a DV camcorder. It allows you to get DV-AVI out of your video8 analogue tapes. Maybe you know about it already but if you want to know more please let me know and I will explain what I was told.

One of the things I liked in WMM was the ability to fade the music in and out and cut it and use the fades to smooth that etc, but I was just trying with making a movie in NERO and I added some music to some pictures but you don't seem to be able to do anything much with the track. I read somewhere that you have to alter all the music before adding it to the movie which is not as good because with WMM you could slide the ends about to start and finish with different clips and then fade or cut as you need. Unless you can tell me different that seems a gret shame to be a missing feature as you seem to be able to mess around with clips and pictures quite a bit within the movie you make in NERO.

In your last post you ask how I installed I went to Nero Product Update as you say and put the details in and it updated it to Ultra.

Donnie

Thanks. I knew about the 'pass through'. I don't have any analogue tapes nor a digital camcorder. Nor did you indicate that you had one.

Actually what I asked in the relevant post was whether you downloaded the whole program from the link that I provided and then installed it over yours or did you simply try to update from within your existing program.

I feel as if I'm just repeating myself. Let me make it clearer..... Did you download the whole program from here; http://www.nero.com/enu/Downloads.html and then attempt to install it over your program or did you attempt to update from within your existing program?

I don't understand why there would be any updates if you initially downloaded and installed the latest version in the first place.

So, did you download and install this, version 7.10.1.0 in the first place?: http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/nero7-demo.php

Donnie

As to the features of Nero Vision 4 I know little. I have Sony Vegas 7 for video editing.

There are some sound editing features within the Nero 7 Suite in case you haven't noticed.
Do you now have all of these features? http://www.nero.com/nero7/ena/Nero_Home.html