Archiving NBA Games Digitally from DC to Cpu

[Nikos]

I like to record NBA games at SP quality using my passthrough of my Sony DCR-TRV320 from my TV. I was wondering how can I archive these on my computer without losing quality?

Say the games are two hours. 2 Hours of DV (uncompressed) video is how large in GB?

I really DO NOT WANT TO lose quality. So how can I do this considering uncompressed video/audio is SO LARGE?

Is it basically impossible to archive these kind of games other than my actual tapes?

What can I do? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

-Nikos

[BJ_M]

DV is always compressed ... 5:1 compression ... there is no such thing as uncompressed DV except when you are watching it

[Nikos]

Isn't there a format thats not uncompressed that can be used when transfering to cpu from my dc?

[BJ_M]

well sure, you can use uncompressed video , its ~26meg a sec data rate so be prepared for a lot of storage on a RAID system to capture it and also a Hardware system handle it .. a dps or videotoaster or targa system to capture uncompressed video in real time starts about $10,000 for the system .. go on up from there easy ..

Capture in DV is a lot cheaper to do and the quality is excellent.

[Nikos]

What is the amount of MB per second using DV compression? Is it ALMOST indistinguishable from the original?

[MpegEncoder]

~3.5 M bytes per second

Yes, the quality is excellent. You won't be able to tell it from uncompressed.

[Nikos]

Is AVI basically the same and MPEG2 in terms of ratio of compression?

Which goes on a DVD?

[BJ_M]

there are some 30 - 40 different types of AVI files .. of many different types of compression and quality ... AVI is just a wrapper

mpeg2 can be almost any compression to huge 4000 x 4000 files at 160meg/s data rates ...


what is on DVD is equal in quality to DV for the most part -- not exact as the source for dvd may have better color and such ...

but whatever you would be capturing off cable (even digital cable) is still a lossy compression .. you would lose something -- even because of the passthrough .. only a straight digital to digital transfer is lossless

these are generalities and there is always some exceptions ..

[Nikos]

So based on the fact I use digital camera passthrough off cable--whats the best way to archive my games? Is DV too GOOD a format to use considering the source of my recordings aren't DVD quality in the first place?

Should I just wait a few years till prices drop and DVD burning becomes a regular and easy and cheap thing?

[Nolonemo]

If I understand what you're saying, you need to do a two-step process. First, capture the broadcast either to miniDV tape and then transfer to computer, or straight to computer using analog pass-through on camera. Then encode the captured .avi to mpep-2 at the half D-1 standard (in NTSC that would be 356x480), you should be able to use a bit rate of around 3000 kbps. That should give you quality equal to the TV broadcast ar around 1.25 gigabytes per hour of video.

The key here is that since the TV broadcast is low resolution, using the full DV resolution does not add quality to the original.

[BJ_M]

If I understand what you're saying, you need to do a two-step process. First, capture the broadcast either to miniDV tape and then transfer to computer, or straight to computer using analog pass-through on camera. Then encode the captured .avi to mpep-2 at the half D-1 standard (in NTSC that would be 356x480), you should be able to use a bit rate of around 3000 kbps. That should give you quality equal to the TV broadcast ar around 1.25 gigabytes per hour of video.

The key here is that since the TV broadcast is low resolution, using the full DV resolution does not add quality to the original.

i agree 100% .. second method i would go for ..

[Nikos]

Well what I do is I use my Sony Camera (Digital8 tapes) and then through firewire put it into my CPU.

I am confused when you say this though.....

Then encode the captured .avi to mpep-2 at the half D-1 standard (in NTSC that would be 356x480), you should be able to use a bit rate of around 3000 kbps. That should give you quality equal to the TV broadcast ar around 1.25 gigabytes per hour of video.

The key here is that since the TV broadcast is low resolution, using the full DV resolution does not add quality to the original.

I have not done anything yet into my CPU, but I do know that DV is basically the same as the original (look wise) but it is so large (GB wise) it discourages me from even wanting to archive these games on my hard drive.

So how can I archive these without losing much quality (visually) so they are still better than if i recorded them on a VHS tape? The key is I want the best quality possible and I don't want it to deteriorate--but I want a reasonable size--is this possible?

If so how can I do it?

[Nikos]

Any ideas Nolenemo or BJM?

[BJ_M]

DV would be the way to go -- get a big hard drive ... or capture it at 1/2 D1 .. but if you want best quality for space -- DV ... (because you also want to convert it to DVD)

[Nikos]

DV would be the way to go -- get a big hard drive ... or capture it at 1/2 D1 .. but if you want best quality for space -- DV ... (because you also want to convert it to DVD)

1/2 D1?

Just wondering what that means and if there is a huge difference between that and DV considering my source is an NBA game on Cable using my DC camera?

So 2 hours is 12.5GB of DV quality on my computer with regular DV?

I have an 80GB hard drive...is that too small?

[MpegEncoder]

[quote="Nikos"]

Just wondering what that means and if there is a huge difference between that and DV considering my source is an NBA game on Cable using my DC camera?

So 2 hours is 12.5GB of DV quality on my computer with regular DV?

I have an 80GB hard drive...is that too small?

What's a "DC" camera?

If you are using a digital camcorder as your capture device (via firewire), you will be saving files in DV-AVI format. That is 720x480 29.997 frames per second @ 24 bit color. That's it.

It's about 13GB per hour.

Is 80GB enough? Depends on how much free space is on the drive.

[Nikos]

Sorry I just meant Digital Camera.

I use firewire and all that you just said.

The problem is I want to archive games--but I don't have a burner yet.

I guess since DV is best quality to archive with--I should probably wait till I get a DVD BURNER?

Until then just store my tapes away and wait till burner prices drop I guess.


But the question is will my Hi8 and 8mm tapes degrade fast? If they do I really want to archive them.

[MpegEncoder]

A hard drive is not a very good place to archive digital video (at least not DV-AVI). You really need to either convert to DVD or VCD or SVCD ......

[Nolonemo]

OK, you have an 80GB hard drive, lets say you're not a heavy gamer, so you have at least 60GB free for storage.

You capture via your camera, which gives you an .avi file at the rate of about 13 GB per hour. You encode that to half D-1 MPEG-2 (356x480) at 3000 kpbs which reduces the hour's worth of video to 1.25 GB or so (delete the .avi file).

That means you can store up to 48 hours of video on your HD. When you get a burner, you can burn the MPEGs onto DVDs. Your tapes should be good for at least 15 years, so I wouldn't sweat that part of it.

48 hours of basketball seems like a buttload to me, but then, I'm not a fan.

[Nikos]

You encode that to half D-1 MPEG-2 (356x480) at 3000 kpbs which reduces the hour's worth of video to 1.25 GB or so (delete the .avi file).

That means you can store up to 48 hours of video on your HD. When you get a burner, you can burn the MPEGs onto DVDs. Your tapes should be good for at least 15 years, so I wouldn't sweat that part of it.

So by doing this 356x480 won't that lose a lot of the original quality and defeat the purpose of archiving it this way?

Or will it be virtually as the same as the original would look considering the CABLE BROADCAST of games is not that high in quality?