LvR:

That is the infamous Moviebox USB (mpeg capture only) ................... totally different to the USB5xx and USB7xx range of products that can do DV, mpeg2 or MJpeg and that I was referring to before.

Dont think S14 was ever sold with the Moviebox USB at all, and the OP already said he could capture using the DV codec so don't think that's the animal he is using

He said his friend had a capture device that he got with S9 and the OP wanted to know if he could/should use it. I was asking if that was the device, and if it was, I said don't use it because it only does mpeg-2.

loosecannon:

LvR:

That is the infamous Moviebox USB (mpeg capture only) ................... totally different to the USB5xx and USB7xx range of products that can do DV, mpeg2 or MJpeg and that I was referring to before.

Dont think S14 was ever sold with the Moviebox USB at all, and the OP already said he could capture using the DV codec so don't think that's the animal he is using

He said his friend had a capture device that he got with S9 and the OP wanted to know if he could/should use it. I was asking if that was the device, and if it was, I said don't use it because it only does mpeg-2.

Sorry - my mistake

Lawrence all what you said makes perfect sense, progressive scan etc... Thank you...And yes, that is the Moviebox USB I was referring to... Joe, the film you talked about, was that the old Super 8?? Could you please explain this a little more..    btw, a few years after that job, I completely re-did the family video. Where the film had been put directly to VHS tape by my brother, I got the original film and had it converted to uncompressed avi files. From that I re-did it in S9. My brother was stunned by the difference in quality. Things that were unreadable in his tape were clear as a bell on my dvd. 

GlennJL:

Lawrence all what you said makes perfect sense, progressive scan etc... Thank you...And yes, that is the Moviebox USB I was referring to... Joe, the film you talked about, was that the old Super 8?? Could you please explain this a little more..    btw, a few years after that job, I completely re-did the family video. Where the film had been put directly to VHS tape by my brother, I got the original film and had it converted to uncompressed avi files. From that I re-did it in S9. My brother was stunned by the difference in quality. Things that were unreadable in his tape were clear as a bell on my dvd. 

I don't know if it was Super 8 or just standard 8mm. I suspect it was standard 8mm.

My brother got the film when our mother passed away in 1992. Sometime in the 1990's he had the film transferred directly to VHS which is all that was available at the time. In 2004 I decided to put it on a dvd so I took the VHS tape, captured it, edited it, and made a dvd, all in Studio 9. But as time passed I started to learn about this stuff and realized how poor the VHS tape was to begin with. So I started bugging my brother to get the original film so it could be re-captured and I could re-do the dvd.

It took a few years for him to find the film but when he did we took it to a place that specialized in doing video transfers. I specified that it was to be an uncompressed avi file burned as a data file to a dvd. I took those avi files and re-made the dvd. That was in 2009 so I'd had a few years of editing and education under my belt by then. And I made one slight error in my earlier statement. When I re-did dvd I was using Adobe Premiere Pro, not Studio 9. But that had no bearing on the quality of the capture.

Just as an example, there was one scene where I was barbecuing outside our kitchen window. Underneath the window there was a brick with something written on it. It was a total blur in the VHS tape and the dvd I made from it. In the dvd made from the avi files you could read part of what was written. Attached is a screen grab of one frame. Not too bad considering it's a screen grab of a dvd from an 8mm film.

Joe

 

That is good to know. I could tell you almost exactly the same story. I had Mom and Dad's 8mm to VHS done back in 1982. Now I will copy to DVD, but I'd like to do what you had done with the uncompressed avi files. Mom and Dad or gone now, but I do have all of the old film. Going to start in the yellow pages. In Baton Rouge I should be able to find someone that knows this.  Thanks again...

I'll bet there's a lot of similar stories on this forum about how people got started in video editing.

It's not cheap to have the avi's made directly from the film so be prepared. Everything I had was only about 30 minutes long and cost about $100. The other thing I did was give them specific instructions to transfer every single frame regardless of how it looked. I wanted to make the final decision on what stayed and what got cut, not them. The people that made the VHS transfer added some goofy transitions between some scenes and also cut out one or two scenes that should have stayed.

What my brother did originally was take the small reels of film that he had and splice them all onto one big reel. But he didn't do it in any particular order because he's not an editor and he just wanted a format that everyone could watch.

That's what was so great about having something like Studio. Moving scenes around was relatively easy although I wished there were more tracks. That's why I used Premiere Pro the second time. Unlimited tracks. I probably used 35 to 40 tracks to lay out the scenes and re-edit the video.

Joe

I think it was around $80.00 they charged me in 1982 to transfer my 11 8mm reels to VHS. If I remember right they aren't but about 10 minutes each. If you have been reading this post from the beginning, you can see I really don't know what I'm doing in Pinnacle. Most of the stuff that you and others have talked about went right over my head. Is Pinnacle and Avid sister companies? I'm just starting to learn a little and wanting to transfer all of my family movies that I started in 1984 with my daughter being born. Started with VHS as most people I guess. I have 45 2hr. VHS tapes to transfer to DVD. In 1993 I bought a Sony Hi8, and now I'm really glad I also bought Sony's Hi8 VCR then also. Since the kids are pretty grown up now I haven't taken that much in the last few years, but I still have 57 2hr. Hi8 tapes also to go to DVD. So, trying to get this figured out a bit and get to work. It make take me a couple of weeks to do everything. LOL  I'm going with the Kodak Preservation 24 Karat Gold  DVD-R disc. More for archival purposes. Just trying to learn what I can, and do the best that I can. Thanks to all...........   

Avid had professional software. Pinnacle sold to consumers. Avid bought Pinnacle to expand their market. Hence Avid Studio 1 and Pinnacle Studio 15, all part of Avid now.

With that many tapes my suggestion is start with just one or two. Do all that needs to be done to make a finished dvd and learn the software as you go along. You'll develop your own work flow and techniques you're comfortable with as you go along. There is usually more than one way to accomplish certain tasks and you will find the one that works best for you. If you get stuck ask your question on this forum and expect multiple different answers

I found, the more I worked on videos, that I wanted to do more than Studio had to offer. I slowly graduated to better software. I found Studio's menus to be very limiting for example. They were okay but they couldn't do everything a commercial dvd menu could do and I wanted that ability. I already mentioned the fact that at the time Studio only had two video tracks.I needed better than that.

How you progress is totally up to you of course. I still have Studio 9, 14, and 15, they're good programs. I use them just not as much.

Joe

Thanks to all.