where did i go wrong ?

[Michael Moore]

Okay so here is my question.

I captured a bunch of video using a DVC80 in VCR mode, that was hooked up to notebook/laptop with a 1024 by 768 res when I was capturing it looked fine (took the video out signal) but now that I am trying to capture the video on my PC using Video Vegas and the images are blurry.

Does anyone know what I am missing?

Thanks
Michael

[Edward Troxel]

Are you capturing via firewire?

[Michael Moore]

yes i am capturing through firewire.

[Glenn Chan]

Are you trying to do a screen capture off your notebook image?

DV resolution is 720X480 (although the pixels are not square, which means, depending on your display device, you will lose some of that resolution).
If your audience is viewing the material on a TV with RCAs or RF, then their resolution is about 400X300 (in computer terms). You need to design stuff so it's legible at that size.

There are various screen capture programs out there (camtasia, FRAPS, etc.) that may do the job better.

[Michael Moore]

Thanks for the responses,

It is not just a still image (sorry I should have been clearer.

What it is, is a walk through for a peace of software (lots of button and text) . What we did was a demo showing how to use the software and I captured it using the video out (analog) from the laptop into my camera.

When I capture the video through firewire in Vegas from my camera the image is (tuff to describe) not blurry but not in focus you cant read the text but you can see that it is there.

When we came up with the idea, we thought it would look just like what was happing on the laptop screen, but that is the issue it does not :(

Any help would rock and thanks so much for the help so far.

Michael

[Edward Troxel]

Change the dropdown above the preview window from "Preview" to "Good"

[Michael Moore]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

Change the dropdown above the preview window from "Preview" to "Good"

The issue happens durring capture and it is not the preview window. thanks for the idea through.

I have been looking around on line and i am trying to find a way to capture at 1024 by 768 in Vegas. this is the windows screen res at the time of capture so if i can recapture it at the same size then may be it will look right

any ideas?

thanks
Michael

[Edward Troxel]

You are capturing via firewire which means you are capturing a DV-AVI file. You can't get any better "quality" than that. In reality, "capturing" is really a mis-nomer. Instead, think of it as a "file copy" from the tape to the hard drive. NO conversion in the process at all.

Bottom line, you can't capture "1024x768" - it doesn't work that way. DV turns out to be 720x480 (for NTSC) which converts to 655x480 if you convert it to an image (because of the square vs non-square pixel issue). Resize your preview to the proper size and it should look fine.

[Michael Moore]

" Resize your preview to the proper size and it should look fine."

that is it!! right on!! .. now how do i do that? i have Video Vegas 5.

[Edward Troxel]

In the capture program, by default it should have been fairly small (like 360x240 or something of that nature). It should just be a matter of resizing the upper area so that it's smaller. However, I still get the distinct impression that you are NOT talking about the preview window in the capture program.

If you're talking about the preview in the main program, just make the preview dialog smaller. Once again, it's really hard for me to "see" exactly what you're talking about but it's probably one of those things that could be corrected in seconds if I sat down in front of your computer.

[Michael Moore]

Hey, I know this is hard to explain,


Okay I will try again. I captured video through the video out of a laptop (so an analog signal) at 1024x768 not sure what the refresh rate was.

So now I am trying to get the video from the tape to the PC. I use Video Vegas and when I capture the video the preview window shows video but it looks a little out of focus. When I am do capturing a clip, I then load it into Windows media player to see what it looks like at full screen. The video is out of focus.

Now I think the issues is in the capture settings. The way I see it is that I recorded the video at a high screen resolution from the video out on the laptop and now when I try to capture the video in Vegas it takes that high screen resolution and make it smaller. Then when I go to watch it, it is distorted because I have a high resolution screen that has been shrunken and then expanded.

I just want to know if there is a program out there that will allow me to capture the video at 1024x768 or something close.


Thanks for all the help
Keep it coming
Michael

[Edward Troxel]

The video on your tape is certainly NOT 1024x768. To record onto tape, you had to use a scan convertor of some sort (probably built-in) to get it down to standard video format. This is what is causing it look "out of focus". Have you tried playing back that tape to a TV?

[Michael Moore]

really so it is not 1024 by 768. hmm I did not use a scan convertor (didn't know that i should). I have also not had a chance to play it back on a monitor (TV), do you know if it is going to look the same.

thanks
Michael

[Edward Troxel]

My guess is that when you play the tape straight to a TV you will see the exact same thing. Your computer is downconverting the image from the original 1024x768 to the proper size for the analog out. THAT is what is causing your degradation. The computer is acting as the scan convertor for you.

Amazingly enough, you *may* have gotten better results simply aiming a camera at the laptop's LCD screen!

[Michael Moore]

Really so you think there is no way around this? can i just get the images without the scan convertor?