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How-To Guide

for Burning Timecode, Date etc With the Enosoft Enhanced DV Decoder and VirtualDub

The Video for Windows support offered by the Enosoft Enhanced DV Decoder makes it very easy to burn timecode, date and other information onto DV footage. This guide shows the simple steps to take to do this. Make sure you have installed the latest version of Enosoft Enhanced DV Decoder (currently 1.6.0.0) and VirtualDub.

The first step is to obtain a suitable DV AVI file. For this guide, we will capture from a camcorder using VirtualDub. Before doing that, it is helpful to verify that the camcorder is connected and that the Enhanced DV Decoder is functioning.

Connect your camcorder to an available Firewire/IEEE 1394 port on your PC. Dismiss any dialog boxes that may pop up asking what you would like to do.

To check proper functioning of the Firewire connection and the decoder, simply open the camcorder in My Computer:

Choose Start (1), All Programs (2), My Computer (3) and then the DV device you have connected (4) - in this case "Sony DV Camcorder". Note, depending on how you have Windows configured, you may have to open My Computer in a window instead of have it pop-up on the Start Menu.

You should see a new window similar to this:

In this case, the camcorder was in camera mode. In VCR mode, make sure a tape is inserted and it is playing. If the Enhanced DV Decoder has been installed correctly and is enabled, you should see various text items overlayed on the video, as above. Close the window. (This highlights a major advantage of the Enhanced DV Decoder - integration at the operating system level rather than application-specific. Viewing timecode etc on your computer doesn't get any simpler than "plug in the device and open a window"!)

Launch VirtualDub and choose the Video/Compression... menu item (or press Ctrl+P):

Select Enosoft Enhanced DV Decoder (Video for Windows Version)

(Optionally, Click Configure:

This will confirm which DV encoder is currently being used with the decoder. In this case, it is the Panasonic DV Codec (pdvcodec.dll). Click OK to close.)

Click OK to close the Select video compression dialog box. It is important that you select the right compression settings prior to the capture and saving of the video files later on.

Select Capture AVI... from the File menu:

(If you get the following error, make sure the window that you opened earlier to display the video from the camcorder has been closed. While it remains open, no other applications can connect to the video device.

Try Capture AVI... again.)

VirtualDub Capture Mode

VirtualDub will change to capture mode and you should see the video from the camcorder.

Now, provide a name for a capture file via File/Set capture file... (or by pressing F2):

and then begin the capture process by selecting Capture/Capture video (or by pressing F5, F6):

When enough video has been captured, press ESC to stop capture and then select File/Exit capture mode to return to the main VirtualDub window:

Now open the file you have just captured using File/Open video file... (or by pressing Ctrl+O):

(Note, if you already have files and don't need to capture, you can omit the capture-related steps above but you must still pre-select the appropriate video compression.)

When you open the file, VirtualDub will show two video windows. Make them smaller by right-clicking once on each and selecting a smaller zoom factor, e.g., 33%:

With smaller windows, you can also reduce the size of the VirtualDub main window:

(By default, the Enhanced DV Decoder displays information about the decompression being performed (the "color space"). For example, in the VirtualDub capture window, the image shows "YUY2" whereas in the above case, the windows both say "RGB32v". Whenever a "v" appears, it means that the Video for Windows version of the decoder is being used. Without the "v", it means the DirectShow version is being used. Displaying the "color space" is helpful in troubleshooting. Of course, it can be disabled, as will be seen later.)

Save a new file by selecting File/Save as AVI... (or by pressing F7):

You will be prompted to enter a filename for the new file and "dubbing" will begin:

That's it! You have just captured DV footage and burned the timecode, recording date, recording time, camera details and more onto the video. To confirm this, open the new file in Windows Media Player - the easiest way is to locate the file in My Recent Documents from the Start Menu (if you have the operating system configured appropriately):

In this case, there are two sets of overlay information. This is because the video has the information burned into it and the Enhanced DV Decoder being used by Windows Media Player is adding a second overlay. To see the burned-in overlay, you need to turn the other overlay off.

Open the Configuration Utility from the Start Menu:

You will see a window similar to this:

Left-click once on the button shown above with the cursor over it. This will disable the overlay:

Play the video in Windows Media Player:

Now, you will only see what is in the video.

Of course, the same Configuration Utility can be used to change what information is burned into the video in the first place. Full details of how to do this are provided in the help files for the Enhanced DV Decoder. Below is a snapshot of the Configuration Utility being used within VirtualDub to set up the overlay to only show the timecode and have the timecode placed in the lower-left corner of the frame on a transparent background.

This highlights a key feature of the Enhanced DV Decoder - the ability to configure the decoder differently for different applications. We have already seen that applied to Windows Media Player and VirtualDub. In fact, both can be running at the same time and the overlay configured independently for each. The drop-down list in the Configuration Utility is used to select which application to configure:

Again, more detail is available in the help files for the Enhanced DV Decoder.