Anyone done a Laserdisk rip?

[msbendts]

I've just updated my system to a AMD Athlon XP 1700+ and, while reading the MPEG-4 article, got excited about the new possibilities of movie archiving.

I have a very extensive laserdisc collection (over 150) that grew substantially when the DVD phenomena first hit…all local laserdisk dealers closed out their inventory to make room for DVD's, so I was able to pick up most of my collection at 80% off!

I've had this idea of being able to have a audio & video network in my home that would let me pump music and movies to any entertainment system in any room…and with the price of computers, harddrives, and networking components lowering every day, my A/V home-network is coming closer to reality. During the past year, I have been ripping my CD collecting to MP3 so that my home network server can be used to push music to any computer in my house. I'm expecting that there will soon be the ability to push these MP3 music files from my server to my audio systems as manufactures enable them with network jacks and the ability for me to configure where the server is (why should I connect to Sony's server to pay for music on a per-play basis when I already have 600+ CD's that I own for free? I'll continue to purchase the CD so that I have free usage of my music, thank you very much!)

Now that I have a faster CPU in my main system, and with the knowledge of your article, I want to do the same thing with my laserdisk collection that I have been doing with my CD's…rip them to a digital format that I can then distribute throughout my home.

Here is my question…has anyone in your lab done an MPEG-4 encoding from a laserdisk? Just curious about some tips -n- tricks or pitfalls to lookout for.

Maybe more generically…has anyone in your lab doen an MPEG-4 encoding from an external video source (i.e. VCR, external DVD, laserdisk, video camera, 8mm, etc.)? Here, I'm looking for some thoughts and suggestions on the best method to connect the external source to my system. How well does the new nVidia GeForce 2/3 series video cards with a video input work for being the capture source? Or is it better to find a true video capturing card? With the external video sources that have a digital output, what is on the market that would offer a digital input for my computer so I can be digital -to- digital?



Thanks!!

Mike

 

[lakedude]

I'm not sure but I believe a laser disk is analog and if that is true you could not "rip" to your computer. You could however "capture" using something like an ATI 8500 All In Wonder Radeon or a Pinnacle dv500. MPEG 4 compression is still too slow to do in real time so you would need to capture to MPEG 2 and convert later offline. You will loose a little quality with each step but the end result should still be better then tape. I have an older AIW hooked up to a 32" TV and a nice stereo with a (new) subwoofer. The computer has about 60 movies on the hd and it is really cool to just click and have a movie playing. You can do what you are thinking about for a reasonable amount of money it will just take some work to get all the movies converted.

Nvida is the bomb for games but ATI rules for video. Check out the 8500 AIW Radeon or look at true capture cards from Pinnacle or Dazzle.

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