Bypassing large initial file size?

[meelisk]

Is it possible to compress the video at the same time I am capturing it from my DV camcorder? I don't have enough free space to capture a 60min video when it eats up 250Mb/min. If someones knows how to do this in VirtualDub or any other program I would be very happy. Thank you!

[mats.hogberg]

I doubt it. Get a bigger HDD.

/Mats

[Tom Saurus]

meelisk: You could buy a capture card. I would suggest an ATI All In Wonder. If your video camera has S-Video Output and audio left and right stereo output, you could feed these into your capture card. The software that comes with your ATI All In Wonder Card, can record directly to Mpeg2. You can read more how to adjust the settings over at Lordsmurf's website, digitalfaq. He has alot of information there on how to tweak the settings in the MMC Software to get the most out of your capture card.

Depending on what sort of footage you are recording in, the file size could rage from a 1.5 Gb to 3Gb in total size. This way of doing things, may not be liked by some, but I have found recording directly to Mpeg2 suits my needs.

Ofcourse you could get a bigger hard drive, and it probably be wise to do so. But at the end of the exercise, that big file must be converted to Mpeg2 or something else, and that can take a significant amount of time. You should have atleast 3 hard drives on your computer. One for your Operating System, one great big one for capturing to, and another for you to send stuff to that you edit. Even when authorizing a DVD, it is good to send the file to another drive. It saves considerable time, and just seems to work out better. If you can get four hard drives installed, that would be even better. Even with Mpeg2 files, they can take up significant disk space, that is if you don't get to them right away to edit them and then authorize them to a DVD. Which is what I do, I have probably 300 Gb worth of Mpeg2 files, spread over three drives that I should offload onto DVD.

Once again, digitalfaq.com, is a value resource on the Internet. It is well worth visiting to see what you can learn there. Also the Videohelp.com website had lots of information, and kind people who take the time to attempt to help you with advice to questions.

[dadrab]

I believe if I were you, I'd look more at a Hauppauge card or one that does hardware encoding.
I notice that your system appears to have a few miles on it . Nothing wrong with that; one of my systems operates just fine and has some serious milage on it too.

My suggestion stems from the fact that a hardware-encoding card will not suck up system resources for encoding like a software encoding solution will.

The above solutions about additional hard drives are good as well, and I've seen it written here many times that one should capture to a completely empty and defragmented drive.

Spare HDD space will also give you some flexability you don't have right now - specifically, capping to higher bit rates to preserve quality. Even capping compressed will outgrow your available space if you set the quality levels high.

[redwudz]

You can convert directly to MPEG-2 with Mainconcept encoder. But if your computer specs are as listed, it's not fast enough for direct DVD MPEG-2 conversion. Even at twice that CPU speed, it may be marginal.

An external or internal hard drive would be the easiest. Normally, with DV, you will need space on your hard drive for at least twice the size of your DV file. With DV being about 13GB per hour, and already using most of your present HD for the OS, I would say a 80GB hard drive is about minimum.

You will also get much better quality by encoding instead of direct conversion. But it will take a while. I used to do all my encoding overnight.

[meelisk]

Thank's a 1000000. Seems like I will get an extra HDD.

[edDV]

Thank's a 1000000. Seems like I will get an extra HDD.

Larger HDD is the easy way.

Compression on the fly requires a very fa$t computer or a more expen$ive hardware encoder.

I think you will like DV better for editing. Get a big drive. They are cheap.

[guns1inger]

In your case you may have to go external via firewire or USB2. This is not a problem during encoding, but may cause issues when transferring footage.

[David K]

All the above suggestions are good, but one that has not been mention:
Encode your DV camcorder footage with a DVD Recorder which has a firewire connection for DV.
A good DVD recorder will give you excellent real time mpeg encoding.
(Check the DVD recorders section in forum here for specifics.)
You can use re-writeable discs and rip the content, and do simple editing with mpeg-VCR.
(For complex editing, it is best to capture and edit in DV.)
I've done it both ways, and for my simple home movies I now pretty much always use the DVD recorder.