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Video Transfer/Editing
the_exile
Kupo!
in Zocalo v2.0
My town's cable commission recently acquired a rather large sum of money from our local cable service provider, with which we have been updating our 10-20 year old equipment, as well as adding some new stuff.
Anyways, my question concerns the process of transferring video recorded on VHS tapes to a computer (Apple G4) for editing. What hardware would be required for such a transfer?
Anyways, my question concerns the process of transferring video recorded on VHS tapes to a computer (Apple G4) for editing. What hardware would be required for such a transfer?
Comments
hmm..on a PC is would simply be a TV Tuner card, so you'd have to find a Apple version of that...
[B]an Apple?
hmm..on a PC is would simply be a TV Tuner card, so you'd have to find a Apple version of that... [/B][/QUOTE] That was what I was wondering... if it would be the same for a PC and a Mac. Maybe I'll find a Mac forum. :p
anyhoo, I think this should do the trick for ya:
[url]http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-116-619&depa=8[/url]
[B]the graphics industry does for some reason...Macs are horrible to work with though, especially for graphic arts...[/b][/quote]
I think most of the graphic design industry would disagree with you on that point, and I would trust the opinion of a large number of professionals over that of one person. :)
As for that Hauppage thing... isn't the capture res on that a little low?
I just checked ATI's site; unfortunately, it looks like they don't have Mac versions of their AIW hardware.
Shoot, My sister worked for more then one company that used Macs...slowly but surely, each one moved to PC. My sister wanted a Mac REALLY bad. HATED the PC.
Until she used WinXP and found that it wasn't Quark that crashed every five minutes, it was the Mac. :D
*Where is that video*
oh yea, I uploaded it...
[url]http://www.b5-blender.com/temp/mac-crashdifferent.wmv[/url]
My sister laughed sooooo hard at that video, said every word of it was true. :)
[B]Until she used WinXP and found that it wasn't Quark that crashed every five minutes, it was the Mac. :D [/B][/QUOTE]
Or, perhaps, the Macintosh implementation of Quark, which is the responsibility of the Quark developers, not Apple. And just because one application is unstable, that doesn't mean they all (or the entire OS) are *coughphotoshopcough*.
[B]Biggles: agreed
As for that Hauppage thing... isn't the capture res on that a little low?[/B][/QUOTE]
Not to mention that it uses USB, therefore its gonna skip frames like crazy. If you're going to use a dongle to capture video, use firewire instead.
I'd shoot for an internal PCI solution instead since they're more often the most reliable. I'd recommend the Leadtek TV2000XP, but I didn't see any OSX drivers last I checked. It runs fine in Mandrake 10 though. ;)
At any rate, this whole Mac vs. PC war is stupid. Both have their uses.
I'm not going to dignify his comments with any further discussion.
now....
Vidcapping isn't too hard, but yes you should look at something fast, either firewire or USB 2.0
If you want a sideways way to do it without expenditure and some borrowing of hardware...
Get yourself the best VHS player you can find and plug in a digital video camera (which has firewire), record the video you want to the camera from the VHS player. Then use your firewire connection to upload your video to almost any recent Mac... there you can use iMovie to play with the files to your hearts content...
no muss... no fuss :)
...but... remember video is about as resource intensive as it gets. Almost any machine will chug doing this sort of processing.
On the video eiting workstations (mostly G3's and G4's) I've used, the best quality input always came from *firewire controlled* sources. The two major devices I am familiar with are pretty easy to find by a variety of means and in a whole range of functionality and prices.
The first, and IMHO *best* solution is a VHS Deck with firewire outputs and controls, and detailed (and accurate) timecode notation (which for some reason, can vary quite a bit in some lower level decks). While I can't name any brands off-hand, a little bit of research should give you some good answers. Pric-ewise, these things can be quite expensive compared to their consumer siblings, but the benefits are astounding. As the A/D conversion is done completely within the device, the picture is top notch. There is no seperate conversion taking place, so colors remain sharp and vibrant, and the chances of ghosting or other interference is greatly reduced. The best part of using firewire-controlled decks, though, is the simple fact that you need not touch a single button on the unit. FInal Cut Pro lets you directly interface with it, and operate every major function within its interface. This is great, because captures and edits can be made, with the ability to automatically re-capture pieces if needed, without any user intervention. Just tell it the timecode ranges, and it will do what you need it to do, while you go off and get some food. :D.
The other variety is a firewire CODEC of some sort. Firewire Analog-to-Digital Converter (sometimes called Digital-to-Analog, or DAC CODEC) boxes are great to have around if you've got a whole bunch of sources, as you can simply get the more common professional capture/recording device for the models you have and tell final cut pro (or whatever other software you are using) to capture once you reach the proper timecode on the output device If it has RCA/S-Video, you can use it. Compared to a simple firewire controlled VHS deck, it is more tedious, but to what extent varies on the level of editing you'd be doing. The problems with these little buggers is often quality. More often than not, they produce less than spectacular images. There's a loss of color vibrance, some ghosting, fading and merging of fields, color blooms, etc. It's a good idea to read reviews of a particular device and make sure you fully understand its flaws before gettingi it. And of course, make sure very well insulated cable is used :D However...please note that I am a horrible nitpicker. I notice flaws that few others do, so consider that perhaps my views on image quality may not be representative of yours or others. Please check out the devices yourself and see what quality video they produce in an environment like the one you would be in.
For the record, I would *HIGHLY* suggest the Sony DVMC-DA2. This has to be my all-time favorite device for input. Holy cow, is it fantastic. And tiny, too! Perfect input video with high quality output to match. But it used to be pretty expensive. I believe the administrator of the workstation I was using paid some $800 for it. For that price, one could almost get a very good quality DV Cam and use it as a capture source, but the quality of the Sony codec is just...fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.
Now, I don't know if this is being considered, or perhaps even available already, but certainly consider some other form of output device. Whether it be a MiniDV Deck, or a DVD Burner, get some extra medium to keep around in case you need to make sample of the work done, or perhaps a backup. While most of my experience is with FCP 1.25 (or 1.2something, either way it may not be valid anymore), it always got picky when it came down to the source files. So back them up once you've got them, and keep things handy so that you don't have to be pained to re-capture some of that stuff if it breaks/get lost. Plus, if you ever wish to send a sample to someone who does not have a VHS deck, you just output in a standard which works :D
Hope this helps!
Edit: I should note that I'm also working under the assumption that you are using Final Cut Pro. If you are not...then I *HIGHLY* Suggest you use some of that money to buy a license. If you already have a copy, then upgrade the system memory and/or Hard Drive. If there's something final cut pro could do, it would be fill up hard drive space and gobble up RAM. a two hour WIP regarding the Pope visiting Cuba was just plain rediculously intensive on the system I was using a few years ago. It would keel over and die if I tried to modify small portions. RAM really helped out here. Doubling the onboard memory shortened times in a way I cannot remember well enough to describe ;)
Edit 2: Hopefully, you've realized that it's a really, really bad idea to use consumer TV Capture cards for something like this. If not, please do so now. Done? good. Go get a real input device ;-)
Edit 3: This is a thread that may be of interest to you:
[url]http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/90631[/url]
Edit 4: And another:
[url]http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/99871[/url]
Edit 5: Here we go! A product that you should investigate:
[url]http://www.dvnation.com/10k.html[/url]
Edit 6: [url]http://www.synthetic-ap.com/tips/firewireconverters.html[/url]
[B]Until she used WinXP and found that it wasn't Quark that crashed every five minutes, it was the Mac.[/B][/QUOTE]
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Thankee Sanfam! :D I think I've got all the information I'll need. We don't currently have Final Cut Pro, and I'm not sure if it'll fit into our budget, but I will most definetely bring it up.
photoshop, pagemaker, just about every program she used had issues.
Admittadly, they were not the newest macs. But still...
Macs are also not immune to Enduseritis. Even a Mac can have a clusterfrag, like corrupted or duplicated extensions, or other much simpler cases of PIBSAK and not function well because of it.
One classic piece of crap which used to kill every Mac I know of was a font utility. So no matter what app you opened the system died when it causes a massive conflict when it tried to open 3 copies of the one font, or 3 different fonts with the same number...
In short...
...be bloody careful to dot your i's and cross your t's when you decide to dump on anyone or anything.
Mac's still dominate the graphics industry for a reason, (even though they've lost some ground to good PC's, (even if that is a slight oxymoron), Mac's still provide that last little bit of polish. I sum up the whole deal with this, and it still very much holds true.
[I]It is 5 times as hard to get the last 5% of quality and polish to almost anything you do on a computer that requires visual results,if you do not use a Macintosh.[/I]
Ask anyone who truly knows anything about graphic design and digital arts, who had genuinely used both or many platforms and you will not get any arguement to the abovce statement.
[B]Or, perhaps, the Macintosh implementation of Quark, which is the responsibility of the Quark developers, not Apple. And just because one application is unstable, that doesn't mean they all (or the entire OS) are *coughphotoshopcough*. [/B][/QUOTE]
So Ive got this friend, hes an avid littl geek but hes also a musician. His band (40apiece) plays local clubs up in Wisconsin. Anyway, he was extreemly tired of paying someone everytime they wanted to make a CD so he went out and bought a brand new powerbook and protools software (protools being the music editing software of choice by the music industry). In all he spent a lot of money of high end mics for sound input and everything. They go to record their first CD and boom, the system crashes. Keep in mind this came pre-loaded with protools, he bought this as a music recording system.
Eventually he did get it work, and he can do it again. But it has problems. About a month later, protools finally came out for XP, he "borrowed" it from a friend who "aquired" it. It runs smoother on XP than it does on his powerbook. Needless to say, I helped him upgrade his computer, and the only time he uses the powerbook is when hes recording stuff live, and even then, it only works half the time.
Im not saying apples are shit. The apple itself was ok, its the program protools that caused it to be incredibly unstable. Yet its stable on a PC with WinXP.
the video was halarious by the way.
It doesn't matter what operating system, what manufacturer, if you buy a system preinstalled with the OS and Software, there is a 90% chance it will have problems. If you reformat it and install fresh, there is a 99% chance it will work.
It is called: Bloatware and Common Config for All Computers that is not Specific To Each Hardware Config.
I suspect Mac's have this problem too.
[B]I don't really have anything against Macs (like SB said, they're the industry standard), but Mac supporters can be REALLY FREAKING ANNOYING with all the [URL=http://lowendmac.com/archive/2k0530.html]bullshit[/URL] they talk about. [/B][/QUOTE]
But so can anti-mac people when they also spout crap. :) Same goes for anti-microsoft people, anti-linux people, etc.
[B]anti-Bush people [/B][/QUOTE]
anti-(anti-Bush) people
;)
Also, if this person was running the first release of OS X, all accounts should be dropped, too, as it wasn't exactly the most compatible of the bunch. Classic mode had issues with a number of memory intensive programs. I remember how attempting to reach the Help Section would cause Macromedia Director (pre-MX) to crash and take the whole carbon bit with it. that was resolved in 10.2.
Exile: You guys should *REALLY* Try to get a hold of Final Cut Pro. It's not too expensive, and the benefits of having a professional piece of software like that are astounding. Plus, I may have a book here I could send you, if I find it... ;)
And if that's too much, there's always Final Cut Express, but I know jacik shit about what makes it "express".
Ediit: Oh, also...
Quark sucks :D
Long Live InDesign!