AVI TOO BIG capturing Hi8 tapes using VLC, GNU/Linux and a USB stick...

[asbesto]

Hi there, I think I need some directions here.

I'm trying to "save" some of my Hi8 tapes before they crumble in pieces, so I have a Sony handycam with TBC, a LOGILINK usb capture stick (usb 2.0), cables, and my linux laptop (Thinkpad X220, quad core i5, 16GB ram, 128GB SSD disk but I can use an external USB drive etc.)

The USB capture device is fully recognized, I can set it up simply on VLC, and I can save the video etc in AVI format.

The only problem is that this video is WAY TOO BIG. I'm talking about 1 GB of AVI video for about 90 SECONDS!!!

I can't find a setting to tweak to set this capture just a little manageable.

The "Convert" option in saving (using MP4, H264, or Youtube HI RES etc.) just doesn't work because casually it give me drop errors (cpu istn't enough I suppose)

Any help is appreciated! thanks

Asbesto

[lollo]

VLC is probably capturing uncompressed. In any case it is not the right tool for analog capture. Also your capture card is not good quality. And while you are there, also working with Windows is preferable for the task.

[asbesto]

I don't use Windows since 1994, so that's simply impossible.

Quality seem very good to me: indeed it's identical to the source in terms of pixels (Hi8 isn't HD, just to say), do I need to capture at a higher resolution?

Any hint about how to tweak VLC?

[lollo]

I don't use Windows since 1994, so that's simply impossible.

OK

Quality seem very good to me: indeed it's identical to the source in terms of pixels (Hi8 isn't HD, just to say), do I need to capture at a higher resolution?

Analog SD should be captured 720x576 YUV 4:2:2 lossless interlaced

Any hint about how to tweak VLC?

No idea, sorry

[johns0]

Thread moved to the linux forum where you can get more help.

[october262]

Hi there, I think I need some directions here.

I'm trying to "save" some of my Hi8 tapes before they crumble in pieces, so I have a Sony handycam with TBC, a LOGILINK usb capture stick (usb 2.0), cables, and my linux laptop (Thinkpad X220, quad core i5, 16GB ram, 128GB SSD disk but I can use an external USB drive etc.)

The USB capture device is fully recognized, I can set it up simply on VLC, and I can save the video etc in AVI format.

The only problem is that this video is WAY TOO BIG. I'm talking about 1 GB of AVI video for about 90 SECONDS!!!

I can't find a setting to tweak to set this capture just a little manageable.

The "Convert" option in saving (using MP4, H264, or Youtube HI RES etc.) just doesn't work because casually it give me drop errors (cpu istn't enough I suppose)

Any help is appreciated! thanks

Asbesto

use this ffmpeg command > ffmpeg -i input. avi -vcodec libx264 -crf 24 output. avi
a 1GB video can be compressed to 200MB

[asbesto]

Yes I know how to compress the video, the problem is that I need a lot of disk space just to capture the video in raw (avi?) format, so I was wondering if there's any way to avoid this and save a "raw" format with less data

[october262]

Yes I know how to compress the video, the problem is that I need a lot of disk space just to capture the video in raw (avi?) format, so I was wondering if there's any way to avoid this and save a "raw" format with less data

in VLC open the media menu, choose "Convert/Save," add your video, click "Convert/Save," select a profile with a lower bitrate, and click "Start.”
try this and see if this will work.

[jagabo]

A proper 720x576 YUV 4:2:2 PAL capture should be 20.7 MB per second if uncompressed; about 1.2 GB per minute. Using a lossless compression codec while capturing can reduce that by a factor of 2 or 3. So your 1 GB file for 90 seconds is about what is expected.

[asbesto]

Wow!
So thank you all for every advice - I will try something asap

Seem that I need to stick with big files, and compress them later. Will try something with an external hard disk. Maybe the dropping frames are caused by a slow external HD / slow hard disk USB connection...

[Swedaniel]

Hi there, I think I need some directions here.

I'm trying to "save" some of my Hi8 tapes before they crumble in pieces, so I have a Sony handycam with TBC, a LOGILINK usb capture stick (usb 2.0), cables, and my linux laptop (Thinkpad X220, quad core i5, 16GB ram, 128GB SSD disk but I can use an external USB drive etc.)

The USB capture device is fully recognized, I can set it up simply on VLC, and I can save the video etc in AVI format.

The only problem is that this video is WAY TOO BIG. I'm talking about 1 GB of AVI video for about 90 SECONDS!!!

I can't find a setting to tweak to set this capture just a little manageable.

The "Convert" option in saving (using MP4, H264, or Youtube HI RES etc.) just doesn't work because casually it give me drop errors (cpu istn't enough I suppose)

Any help is appreciated! thanks

Asbesto

Hey, have concidered compressing the AVI video into for example Zip or Rar? Ive got an 160MB AVI Video that i compressed with WinRar, it is now 500KB.. The compression results can vary for various codecs since they can allready be compressed! If you want to use the video again later you can just extract it/de-compress it and the original file will come back as it was before processing! it will however allso come back with the same file size but once done with the video you can just delete it and extract it again when you need it! This will allow you to keep crazy high quality videos for storing without them taking up alot of space, ellse it can work allso to convert the video to an other format such as AVI/MP4 with DivX, XviD, H.264 and some other good ones, however they might not function aswell for the future to convert/edit and such things, its nice to keep the original file if it is some good format with real high quality, to then convert/edits with this video allowing for great results, then it allso help put this file into an zip or rar package to keep for the future without it taking up alot of storage!

Edit: As some programs allso if you put it into the edit software, sometimes they save things directly into the added video, if you keep the source video in an rar/zip package it help prevent such disasters! ellse basicly must copy the video and have 2 of the same video, this help against "overwriting" disasters from video converters allso.

There are several completly free to use programs to help create zip and rar packages! Theese type of program allso allow for adding passwords and encryption to protect the file which will do so it require an password to unpack it! allso, atleast from within WinRar it is possible to select Encrypt File names and such things! It might say WinRar is trial, the version im using keep working all the time! Ellse PeaZip is Free Open Source Software (FOSS) and can manage Rar, Zip and 7z and many more (WinRar can do this allso)! To boost the privacy when sharing the file make sure to set the software to use "Relative Paths" as it would otherwise possibly save the entire file location path in the rar package and expose your computer names etc when sharing it to other people!

[asbesto]

Thank you but, as I said, I don't use windows since 1994. I have ZIP / RAR / similar compressors in my GNU/Linux box but that's not the problem. The problem is that my hd will fill up WHILE i'm encoding.

I need more space, and/or I need to encode the video in MP4 / whatever that is on my SSD HD, not via an USB hard drive, because it's too slow. That's it... anyway thank you for your advices

[dannyboy48888]

Ffmpeg with -c:v libx264 qp 0 is lossless as well as -c:v ffv1 -level 3 file.mkv. Both will be lossless but still expect 200-600mbps for 1080p 60fps video. For 480i 50-200mbpss what your looking at

[asbesto]

I figured it out, the bottleneck was in the USB chain.

It appears that I can't acquire via USB and write on another USB device; everything is so slow.
So I freed about 30GB of space in my system disk (ssd), and I'm trans-encoding-capturing-whatevering via the USB video stick compressing the video in MP4 with X264 and Mp3 audio. Quality is more than good - resolution is better than the original so I'm ok with that. It's really fine

I'm at about 400MB for 20 minutes of video, and I'm quite happy