Capturing video to a laptop

[dfisher052]

I've been asked to do a video, BUT they want me to capture the video direct to a laptop. I don't have a clue. The camcorder is a Sony Digital 8 with a firewire out. The laptop is not mine but they are willing to configure it to what ever is needed. I guess what I want to know is, first, can you stream direct to a computer & second, how.

[GMaq]

Hello,
The easiest route would be a firewire add on card to the laptop if it has an available cardbus or PCMCIA slot, The laptop will need to have a fairly current processor and a large Hard Drive because DV video is quite large. the next option is a USB-2 capture device like the Plextor M402U, or the WinTV USB device by Hauppage. I use the Plextor unit with my laptop all the time, it works very well.

[dfisher052]

Thanks for the reply. Now, my next questions is, is there anyway of capturing in mpeg2 so I don't have to convert from avi to mpeg2.

[GMaq]

Hi,
I'm no expert on firewire but the two USB devices capture directly to MPEG-2.

[gadgetguy]

Firewire capsfer will be DV as it comes into the computer. Some programs may be able to encode to mpeg2 on the fly, but be prepared to lose frames and quality. USB capture from the D8 cam is likely to be low resolution designed for webcast. Maybe if you can describe what the end results they're looking for is, we can offer better methods to accomplish it.

[thecoalman]

If the computer has a firewire port that's all you need to get it to the computer. It's practically plug and play. There's plenty of programs to use for transfer, that's all it is. You're copying what's on tape to your hardrive. WinDv is free ....

To get it to DVD disk you need a authoring/editing application. Ulead Movie Factory and Ulead Video Studio are two fairly cheap but decent pieces of software. Movie Factory has more authoring options, VS has more editing options. Both will go from cam to disc.

[SingSing]

A camcoder is portable.

Camcorder wired to laptop has many disadvantages. First, you should figured out why ?

Questions :

1. How long is the session ?

2. If the session break for 10 seconds to change tape, what is the issue ?

3. A tape is equivalent to 18GB of data. What is the size of the HD in the laptop ?

[dfisher052]

We can record on the Digital 8 tape (60 minutes) & dub to the computer in mpeg2. That's what we are doing now. The total productions are 2 hours. We edit with Womble's Mpeg Video Wizard to end up with a 1 hour production that we then burn to a DVD for on air playback. What we are trying to achieve is saving us the dubbing time from the cam to the computer. We thought if we could just record direct to a laptop, in mpeg2, configured for that purpose it would save us that time and effort. If we record in AVI then we will still have to convert & obviously will not really have gained anything.

[dfisher052]

Quick question for the coalman (or anyone else). I just read your article on capturing vhs or hi-8 & it brought up an idea that you mentioned. Is it possible to capture direct from a camcorder to a DVD recorder. That way we could just record right on to a dvd, pop it into the editing computer & transer it on to the hardrive in a matter of minutes.

[srenaud]

I capture direct to my laptop with WinDV from my Sony Digital 8 camera. I use a PCMCIA firewire card, and a USB hard drive for large captures.

The biggest benefit is not having to spend the hour + capturing to the hd.

[thecoalman]

Download either of the Ulead trials, they both allow for on-the-fly encoding. You'll need a decent CPU, approx 2.8 p4 or equivalent. I haven't used them for this but someone else had posted some screenshots in another thread and the they weren't bad at all.

Other than that a exteranl hardware encoder would work too. You have some pretty limited options with a laptop.

[dfisher052]

I Just tried Ulead Movie Factory & did a record direct to dvd. It worked but the quality wasn't the greatest. I think this is still a work in progress.
srenaud, you mentioned that you capture using Windv, but as far as i could tell it only captures in avi. I'm still looking for mpeg2 capture. With Movie Factory direct to dvd I can at least convert the vob's to mpeg with VOBTOMPEG pretty quickly to then edit with the Womble program.
My problem is time. In most cases what we record is in the morning for playback that night, which is why I am using programs that will let me do that the fastest. I don't have time for a lot of editing (and I don't need to) or long render times. If I did this would be a whole different ball game & this question wouldn't have even come up. With the Womble program, I can have a finished DVD in just about 3 hours, from start of editing to burned DVD.

[gadgetguy]

I think you will be better off connecting the Cam via Firewire to a DVR and then using the resulting DVDs as your source. The hardware encoder should give better results than any software "encode on the fly" solution. I'm not aware of a decent hardware mpeg2 encoder for a laptop, but if there is one it might be a good alternative.

[SingSing]

We can record on the Digital 8 tape (60 minutes) & dub to the computer in mpeg2. That's what we are doing now. The total productions are 2 hours. We edit with Womble's Mpeg Video Wizard to end up with a 1 hour production that we then burn to a DVD for on air playback. What we are trying to achieve is saving us the dubbing time from the cam to the computer. We thought if we could just record direct to a laptop, in mpeg2, configured for that purpose it would save us that time and effort. If we record in AVI then we will still have to convert & obviously will not really have gained anything.

If you firewires the camcorder into your laptop, then you get a DV file, which still need to re-encode to DVD mpeg2.

One way out is buy a mpeg2 capture device(USB or PCMCIA or Express card) and connect to your camcorder video and audio out.

The other way is plug your Camcorder into any DVD recorder with firewire input, and press record, and get your DVD after the playback. A $99 solution.

[thecoalman]

I'm not positive but the high quality preset on MF is probably 6000kbps. You can adjust it to whatever you want. you might want to try 8000. I don't think you are going to find anything better on the software side.

[dfisher052]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. You've given me some ideas to work with & I'm gonna try some of them. If & when I get this figured out I'll try and get back. Maybe what I find works for me just might work for someone else.

[LJB]

The ADS Tech DVD Xpress DX2 will capture MPEG-2.
This is a cheap solution.

http://www.adstech.com/products/USBAV-709-EF/intro/USBAV-709_intro.asp?pid=USBAV-709-EF

The MPEG-2 encoded video is so dvd compliant that NeroVision3 doesn't try re-encode it.

I use the output with Ulead DVDMF and Sony DVDA.

Best of luck.

[dfisher052]

Thanks for the tip.

[Jeremiah58]

Is it possible to capture direct from a camcorder to a DVD recorder. That way we could just record right on to a dvd, pop it into the editing computer & transer it on to the hardrive in a matter of minutes.

Yes.
Connect a camcorder to a DVD recorder via i-link (firewire).
Let a DVD recorder do a job to make mpeg2 out of your camcorder DV recordings.
Transfer a DVD to your editing computer and use Womble to edit mpeg2.
Couldn't be faster and more reliable.

[kaiswil2]

For out cituation for legal software that we use we actually need Mpeg1 320x240 and use whatever camera wtih firewire into either internal firewire or PCMIA card.

We caputure with Ulead VideoStudio 10 Plus.

It also give the options for DV / Mpeg2/4 WMV... almost any format that you would need to give to someone at the end of a shoot.

One hour will take about 600 mb +/- a few. Double with Mpeg2.

Between breaks all you have to do is click stop capture hit it again to start again quickly without having to setup the next video.

The only thing i don't like is I couldn't find a place to change the name of the caputred file. But it will save as UVS070428-001, -002 etc.

Then open your software to burn a data disc (after you rename if you need to) and hand them out.

You could even trim the openings and ends if you had to and export them back out. There is a option to fast render since you captured with UVS.

Hope this helps.

BTW when you capture and record on the camer and capture on the computer the render screen will be choppy but don't worry. It comes out fine. When you connect for just capture on the laptop there is no lag...must be a glitch or limitation on the camera.

Gene Miller
Midwest Litigation Services
St. Louis MO

[exenron]

The firewire connection from the camera is the way to go but I would at that if your laptop has USB 2.0 capability then it would be wise to have a fast external USB HDD to capture it to. Your laptop HDD may interfere with the capture otherwise. Always defrag and be certain to have plenty of space on the capture drive. Of you are going to edit this then capture to DV format.