live capture>export>dvd question

[Jonathan Coryell]

Hello,
i have a 3-pronged question as my title implies:
i am working with a church t.v. ministry, and i am trying to bump their video quality as high as i can with the resources i have available (i'm sure that concept is familiar to us all...)
(1) we live encode digital video into windows media encoder (creating a .wme)
[Q1.a] is there a better FREE encoder to live capture? (we shoot for about 1 hour if that matters)
(1.2) i then change the .wme into a .avi in ULead
[Q1.b] is there a more lossless way to do this (maybe in conjunction with another capture
method?)
(2) finally, i use dvdit/record now! to create a dvd
[Q2] is there a newer/better way to make a dvd?

any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
thanks,
jonathan
[forum mod, forgive me if i put this question in the wrong section..i'm quite new to this :) ]

[Seth Bloombaum]

What camera(s) do you have, what is the output to the computer with WME? Eg., composite video on coax, firewire, hdmi, etc. Basically, I'm asking about the hardware that gets the camera's signal into the computer.

WME - an ancient product, end-of-lifed by Microsoft, difficult interface, slow... but it will capture Windows Media. However, WM is usually thought of as a distribution format, not a capture or editing codec. If you give it enough bitrate, it can be pretty good - what is the bitrate of your captures? Are they SD or HD?

Doesn't ULead have it's own capture module?

[Jonathan Coryell]

seth,
thank you for the response. i am very new to video production, and am in the midst of a big learning curve. here is the work flow for our production:
we shoot with 3 cameras:
canon xl1
gl2
xha1s
all in sd.
due to certain limitations, we run s-video out> into a mixer (analog) >convert back to digital with a pinnacle device> usb out into computer with WME.

1) i did not know ulead had capture ability. that is very good to know. thanks! i will try it tomorrow to see if it captures for us.
2) looking to get another analog>digital converter for less than $200 (the pinnacle is pretty bad from what ii have read) so anything you can recommend. our computer has firewire..camera's ports do not (they are broken..hence the s-video out..)
3) is the dvd software we use decent?

[Battle Vaughan]

Suggest you look at the various Grass Valley analog/digital converters, here is a good one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/349146-REG/Grass_Valley_602029_ADVC_110_Bidirectional_Media_Converter.htmlThey make several models. Formerly the converters were known as Canopus. The Canopus ADVC300 -- expensive, but maybe you could find one on ebay --- is very good, with real time filtering that improves image quality. I've used it for live streaming with excellent results.

If you have access to a Mac, look at Quicktime Broadcaster. We used to us it at the newspaper website I worked for.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Battle's suggestion of the GV ADVC-110 is very good. With your present setup, adding this device to the output of your video switcher and audio mixer, firewire to your PC (PC must have firewire card) is just about the best SD capture method and not very expensive.

Ulead - I'm not familiar with this software, but it should allow DV-Firewire capture, which is what the ADVC110 puts out.

The system specs and setup for your PC start to come in here, because that's a lot of data coming in. Conventional wisdom says: a dedicated 7200RPM capture drive (not the system drive), can be external or internal, minimum of a Core2Duo processor, adequate RAM for the OS, and a pretty clean system that hasn't visited hundreds of malware websites or has 20 extra services that run all the time. In other words, it's of adequate processor speed and storage, and isn't devoting system resources to unneccessary cr**.

Sorry, no experience with your DVD authoring software.

[Jonathan Coryell]

seth and battle,
thank you both for your responses (why does this forum not have "thanks" buttons?) i will surely look at that GV 110. it's price is right about what i'm looking at. as for using Ulead to capture; i will give that a try sometime this week. i often dump dv tape via fire wire into our computer, and i dont have much trouble doing that. so, i expect using the GV converter with firewire out will be fine. i'm still in the dark about using dvdit/recordnow! for dvds. i'm not sure which forum i should post a question like that in, or if i should just use the general forum. i really thank the both of you again for taking the time to help me.
jonathan