i just recently dig into dv format a bit more and found some weird problems going on when trying to capture via firewire:

1. whatever software i try, only 1 channel of audio is captured on my machine (the 1st one) - yeah, i did try every possible camera and software combination there is...
2. if i capture on some other system where for example canopus dv codec is preffered, then premiere will do 1st digital generation by just importing the avi files into the editor... - that is when you place them on the timeline (wtf?)
3. there seems to be quite a big - unexpected quality decrease even on the 1st digital generation (in premiere) - again wtf?

any comments, explanations?

Hmm. Not sure what you mean about 1st digital. Is your project editing mode set to AVI and DV?

I use this to copy DV from my camera.

http://www.scenalyzer.com/download.html

Can't get any more simple than that. You can archive back to tape as well.

What kind of camera do you have? My sony was set to 44.1, 16 bit stereo right out of the box and I've never had a problem. Now if I could only plug a better mic into it.

this one http://www.computervideo.net/feb04-3.html

i think the problems were due to recording to actual dvcam casete, today i came home with some minidv material and all the 'capturing is working as expected', the actual problem is still unknown thought....


about generations http://www.adamwilt.com/pix-codecs.html

(i should probably say 2nd generation, since the 'original' is allready compressed)

Yow. I won't even say what model mine is.



True. Considering the bandwidth used I'd expect much better results. I think I used mainconcept a while ago. Now you've got me curious about comparing them.

oh, well, it is not mine actually (doing something for the school, school camera...)

http://windv.mourek.cz/

I have a sony cam and the software that came with it was pretty horrible. I searched around and found this little program. It's free and works great.