what programs can be used to convert DV footage to DV files on PC?

[HunterGather]

A friend of mine needs to rip video from his DV camcorder to DV files on his PC to eventually send to me.

Problem is, im not sure what program to recommend him to use.
He can't find the disc (if any) software that came with it to rip the video.

He uses WinDV to rip the camcorder video to AVI files, but i quickly looked at the WIN DV site and it doesnt appear that it converts to DV (unless i missed something).

Basically, is there a good, Windows software to do this?
Im a bit rusty on PC knowledge as far as software for video goes, what with mac being so convenient and all.

Thanks!

 

[NeoMayhem]

If you want to edit the files using iMovie or FCP, then they need to be in a quicktime container. I am not aware of any windows apps that will put a DV stream in anything but a AVI container, so you will not be able to edit them without some work and possibly quality loss.

I could be wrong, but I have never seen an app that does this.

 

[HunterGather]

hmm..

ok

so would you recommend that my friend sends me the AVI's and i convert them to Quicktime-DV on my end...
or
to somehow send me the DV files, and I convert it to Quicktime-DV...

Assuming he can find something to convert to straight up DV, what would be a bigger quality loss?

 

[NeoMayhem]

You should borrow his camera and import the tapes on your mac.

I dont know of any apps that can convert a dv-avi file to a dv file in a quicktime container without transcoding, so you are going to get quality loss either way, unless you use the original tape.

 

[HunterGather]

Well the problem is, my friend is halfway around the world.
Its too much of a hastle to get his tape, and then send it back, and he can't make a copy of it, and it's a whole thing.

He's gonna send me the data via a DVD-R.

I guess its not the end of the world if I have to lose some quality (for this project, anyway), but it'd be cool to know which method would be better off for him to rip to.

So windows user can't convert to quicktime DV, period?

Also, dumb question.
Why is it that quicktime files that contain DV play nice with the MAC apps as opposed to regular DV files. I know DV files will load into these programs, but it usually requires more rendering time or the audio doesn't show up...

Thanks again

 

[NeoMayhem]

So windows user can't convert to quicktime DV, period?

I have not used a PC for more then a few minutes since 2002, so I really dont know. But, from what I remember, there was no easy way to do it.

Also, dumb question.
Why is it that quicktime files that contain DV play nice with the MAC apps as opposed to regular DV files. I know DV files will load into these programs, but it usually requires more rendering time or the audio doesn't show up...

What is a 'regular' DV file? The original DV stream on the tape?

If you are using final cut, then it will load .dv files from iMovie, but the audio will need to be rendered. If you use .mov dv files from FCP in iMovie, they work fine. You can play .avi dv files on a mac if you have Perian or VideoLan, but if you try to edit them you can expect a lot of crashes or strange results.

 

[Poeben]

Shouldn't Quicktime Pro do this?

Edit: * QuickTime 7 Pro for Windows currently supports audio capture only.

 

[HunterGather]

What is a 'regular' DV file? The original DV stream on the tape?

If you are using final cut, then it will load .dv files from iMovie, but the audio will need to be rendered. If you use .mov dv files from FCP in iMovie, they work fine. You can play .avi dv files on a mac if you have Perian or VideoLan, but if you try to edit them you can expect a lot of crashes or strange results.

Regular DV file, as in...
In MPEG Streamclip, you can convert video to DV or convert to DV under the Quicktime settings.

And yeah, i know that final cut and such doesn't really let you edit AVI files.

Ah well. I'll see what i can do with this.

Thanks for the help guys.