Video Transfer rate (through network)?

[bowmah]

I was wondering if transfering miniDV via firewire (from notebook) to a PC through a LAN (100 mbps) or wireless LAN (11mbps) is advisable? Will both ways be fast enough? I know firewire can do 400 mbps but does anyone know the actual rate to make this work? I would love to transfer through wireless at 11mbps. Will upgrading my router to a G (54mbps) help?

[olyteddy]

I was wondering if transfering miniDV via firewire (from notebook) to a PC through a LAN (100 mbps) or wireless LAN (11mbps) is advisable? Will both ways be fast enough? I know firewire can do 400 mbps but does anyone know the actual rate to make this work? I would love to transfer through wireless at 11mbps. Will upgrading my router to a G (54mbps) help?

Do you know the bitrate of the DV stream? I know wireless typically yields about 1/2 its rated bandwidth.

[greymalkin]

lets clarify.

are you wanting to do the miniDV "capture" onto the laptop, then copy the file to your desktop? If that's the case then you don't necessarily have to have a certain speed...once the .avi is "captured" to the laptop you won't screw it up by transferring it over the lan (unless you've got some problems with your lan).

If you are talking about streaming it so you could watch it then consider the following:

DV-AVI is approx. 3.7 megabytes per second, or approx. 30 megabits per second. use a 100mb lan line as the wireless even @ 54mpbs isn't going to be reliable.

[bowmah]

ahhh, thanks for the DV-avi transfer rate. So a 100 mpbs should do the trick!

I have a note book with firewire, an external drive with firewire and a PIII on a Lan/wireless network. Just trying to think an easy way to do this. Maybe I will a cheapie firewire PCI card to insert into the PIII then I can transfer directly to the PC rather than have it go through the notebook or external?

I would like to transfer as MPG so a 60 miniDV will fit on a DVD. I geuss I can always post process after transfering as DV-AI but if I can do it via the transfer, it might save me some time.

Any other tips and thoughts?

[Richard_G]

Any other tips and thoughts?

Only one. DON'T encode on the fly. Transfer as DV avi and then encode with a decent encoder later.

[bowmah]

I hear ya. The notebook does not heat up as much when I transfer DV-AVI versus MPG. But, for at least one tape, the transfer crashes at exactly one point in the timeline if I use DV-AVI. The only way to bring it down was to use MPG transferring. Not sure why that is but good tip!

New question. I have been transferring MPG (before I purchased an external drive) as notebook laptops are slow and space is at a premium. Would editing BIG MPG files be "better" than editing BIGGER AVI files (as far as time wise). I know compressing MPG won't give as good a quality but DVD's created using this method have been acceptable thus far. Just wondering about the editing / rendering time factor.

[Cornucopia]

Would your notebook be running 98/SE/ME, or even NT/2k perhaps?

Was the crash occurring at ~9 1/2 min. in or ~18-19 min. in?

If either or both of these are true, there is a good possibility that you have a filesystem problem when the AVI gets to 2GB or 4GB (max filesize for AVI type, or max filesize for disc filesystem type, etc).
Quick workaround would be to capture in <2GB chunks. Better fixes are using OPENDML (AVI v2) filetypes on NTFS drives.

"Bigger" mpg files probably means higher bitrate, which should usually equate to better quality. But being mpg, they will likely be I-B-P framed GOPS. This is MUCH harder to edit than standard AVI's like DV. (Don't include DivX or Xvid types, they're MPEG4 w/same editing probs as MPEG2). Rendering would be easiest/shortest for DV-AVI, then longer for MPEG1, then MPEG2, then MPEG4, then h.264, assuming same rez and framerate and no compositing.

Scott

[edDV]

Unclear what problem you are trying to solve.

You can DV transfer your camcorder video to a file on a local drive. Once you have this DV-AVI file you can network copy it to another computer using any network technology without problem and then play or edit it locally.

If you want to realtime play the DV format file over the network as a stream you will have difficulty maintaining smooth playback because networks weren't designed for realtime. Networks work in bursts and pauses (packet data).

[kschang]

Aye. In fact, MusicMatch don't even recommend play AUDIO over a network, even wired. And in practice, they 're right.