video capture and dvd

[Guest]

I emailed this to Tom's, just wanted comments from others..thanks..t

i just read your 2 part series on building a video capture system. The dvd+rw community is coming out with their drives now that you can record straight from camcorder/vcr thru your video capture card to a dvd. Have you or can you folks address this process and if it is as easy as it seems. Would this mean that you would not need the storage space and speed as you recommended on the hard drive? I am totally new to the world of dvd and just want something that is compatible with dvd players, that I can put the home movies of my daughter on and play later. Something that I can transfer the video and audion at the same time and bascially make a copy of the vhs to the dvd. Any thoughts? advice? would I still need a system as you described with this drive and process? the drive right now is the HP dvd100i. Thanks for your time and response..t

 

[lakedude]

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking so I'll shotgun in for you.

If you don't mind spending a lot for blank media the dvd-rw will take a big load off your hd. Thing is hd's are pretty cheap and reletively fast. You would very likely record your video to your HD first because the HD is fast. Then you would monkey around with the video and edit it while it was on your HD and finally you would burn a copy of the finished product to DVD-r/rw.

The most important thing is the video capture card. Spend a big chunk of your cash on the card. The DVD-rw can take a load off your HD. With a DVD-rw you should only need a big enough HD to hold one movie. Then you would burn it off and make room for the next movie. I would not like having to erase movies to make room for another so I would buy a big enough hd for a few movies.

To me a DVD-rw is too expensive and similar results can be obtained with cd-r/rw and mpeg4 compression. I am fitting about 2 hours of near dvd quality a/v on one 50 cent cdr using mpeg4 compression. In my system the capture card causes a lot bigger quality loss then the compression to mpeg4 does. This is how I know the card matters a lot because mine is not good enough. I have an ATI-AIW, it is fun and I like it but the quality is a bit sketchy. It records as good as an EP-VHS tape but I would prefer better quality. Maybe someone else can recomend a better card to capture with. Good luck! If you need more help post here or private mail me.

Remember if you ain't Muslim you ain't Shiite.

 

[Guest]

Hi Lakedude and thanks for your response...actually I am looking at getting the new dvd+rw instead of the -rw...the format is supposed to be more compatible with more dvd players...I had thought about cd's but want something that will play in a dvd player for the tv. I have a 20gb maxtor drive 7200 rpms to use..(i have two 20's but 1 is blank)... I currently have the asus v7700 deluxe vid card and am looking at getting either the v8200 or the forthcoming ati radeon allinwonder8500....I guess what I am asking is,the way I understand it is that I would hook up the vcr/camcorder to the video card, and then it should either go to hard disk from there, or burn directly to the dvd, whatever I choose it to do...right? My other question is I don't want just the video recorded to dvd but the audio, i.e. my daughter laughing and talking, etc, to go with it. Is this possible? A while back just for fun I hooked the vcr to the vid card and recorded a few minutes onto my hard drive...it went ok, but it was only the video part, no audio went with it....Not sure if things have changed now and aud and vid go up together or how that works....
btw, the drive that is coming out first is the hewlett packard dvd100i, which is a +rw..but I am waiting for the philips version, as it will do double sided disks...but am trying to learn all i can now prior to it's release to make sure that what I think it is and will do is right, or I won't go that route...

The other reason for wanting to go to dvd is that I have about 60 cdr's full and need to consolidate...smiling...
thanks again for your response.....oh, in Tom's article I referred to in the first post...they were recommending scsi and RAID setups for drive speed...that was why I was asking about the drives...mine are the maxtors ide 7200rpms, and was wondering if that would be enough so as not to drop frames....thanks..t

 

[lakedude]

First let me say that I am far from being an expert on these matters so if anyone else has better information please join in.

Lets start with sound. I have an ATI-AIW Radeon and it has sound inputs directly to the video card as well as a jumper that goes to the sound card. The AIW can of course record sound with video but I'm not sure if your Asus can. I'm sure the new AIW8500 will be similar to my card and include sound. The Asus site sucks for information about the 8200 but I'm seeing that it comes with digital VCR software so I can only guess that sound is part of the deal with the 8200 deluxe as well. Under hardware specs no connection is listed for sound on either Asus card so maybe the sound card handles the sound and the software must be set up the go the the correct source to pick up sound. Hell I don't know! All I know for sure is that my card DOES do sound and so does the AIW8500.

You may be able to record directly to a DVD+rw but I wouldn't for a few reasons. The DVD+rw has a max speed of 2.4x where 1x is1353 KB/s doing the math we get about 3.2 MB/s. Your hard drives in a normal setup will run about 20.0 MB/s. About 6 times faster. The other reason is editing. You don't hafta edit but if you want people to stay awake you should at least chop out the bad footage. Editing is much faster on a hd.

If you are worried about hd speed you could buy an IDE raid controller as shown <A HREF="http/www4.tomshardware.com/storage/00q1/000329/index.html" target="_new">nyhere</A> or run a software raid from windows 2000 as shown <A HREF="http/www4.tomshardware.com/howto/01q3/010906/index.html" target="_new">yere</A>. For just plunking around your drives should be fine. As far as I know the video capture card is the bottle neck in the chain.

My system hits some stupid 4G limit after about 1.5 hours of recording and stops recording. This is a WinMe thing and does not happen with NT based systems. Doing some math once again I am comming up with about 1 MB/s that the capture card needs to throw down on the hd using MPEG2. MJPEG rates would be a lot higher.

If you are wanting to play your home videos in a standalone DVD then the DVD+rw looks like a good idea. I have no use for it because I do not have a standalone and the damn thing is expensive and because the media is expensive as well.

Remember that the capture card is the key. If you have garbage in, no fancy DVD recorder will make it any better. I'm not saying don't buy the DVD just don't skimp on the card or you will be sorry.


Remember if you ain't Muslim you ain't Shiite.

 

[lakedude]

I've been checking out the Pinnacle Systems DV500+ and it looks like it is more demanding on you I/O system. According to them "Technical Data Data Rate
Two streams of DV data (25 Mbits per second per stream) " is about 2 times 3MB/s which is faster then your DVD+rw will go. A SCSI or Raid might be a big help with this card. It all really depends on budget and expected quality. I hear this card is a mother to get installed and working. Still like to have one though.



Remember if you ain't Muslim you ain't Shiite.

 

[Guest]

Hey!
I have looking into doing this myself.. Yes DVD+rw is the way to go -- ONLY if you don't mind forking out the extra $$'s for the disks-- here in toronto canada we are looking at 15 dollars for a one sided disk and 45 for double sided
rewritable disk. I have not seen any pricing on the write once disks.
The Drives are cheap now - just the media is a concern. The new Mac systems have a DVD burner and they make it look really easy in the commercials -- they just don't tell you about the cost of the media.
I will probably go to DVD-RW in a year or so when the media is resonably priced at less then 5$ a double sided disk.
Right now I'm looking at doing my old Video8 tapes to VCD(most DVD standalones will play) or SVCD(some DVD standalones will play). some one just posted this site -- lots of good info -- Check it out:
http/www.vcdhelp.com/

Good luck
Patrick

Take Care.
What the heck was that all about!

 

[Guest]

Curently as far as I know there is NO way to burn video directly onto any DVR (R/RW or R+RW). You will have to capture to the HD, Probably convert into compatible Mpg2 IBP, Edit and Author before you can burn. Also for better resoults you will want to create a Image of the DVD befor burning so you are looking at > original files befor editing, probably 6 to 7Gig, DVD complient files, about 4.3G DVD folder 4.3g to 4.4G DVD Image, 4.3G to 4.3G.
I am cutting the process by capturing Exacly the video I need using a Frame Acurate machine control directly into Mpg2 IBP DVD complient and skipping the first stages. Still have to create the DVD folders and Image.

Pioneer and Philips are suppoded to have a Set-Top DVD's that have options to capture directly and Burn. This are not a computer connected but standard home apllience.