dv and hdd space

[Greg12]

i'm gettin a laptop soon with a firewire card.

it will have a 15-20 gig hdd.

how much can i capture before i must encode.

also should i buy the 3 foot cable and videowave software to capture.

r their freeware firewire capture progs.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Greg12 on 2001-10-08 17:19:18 ]</font>

[Tommy]

I don't think it really matters what size cable you get, I use a 6ft cable. If the laptop has a firewire card it should come with software to use that card. The software normally depends on what card you have. You do realize that the firewire card is used to transfer data between your computer and something else and does not really capture, the something else has to capture and convert.

As far as space is concerned, about 18 minutes of DV video equals 4gb of hard drive space.

[Greg12]

when configuring my inspiron laptop, i am presented with an option.

i have 200 us dollars i won to use for special upgrades.

i can add more ram, up the processor speed, increase hdd space or get a 3 foot firewire and videowave 3.

can i like do video capture with other codecs like mpeg.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Greg12 on 2001-10-10 16:47:13 ]</font>

[Tommy]

Videowave is that the program from MGI? If so they are already up to Videowave 5, and I believe Videowave 3 (perhaps also 4) can be had for a really good price. I picked up my firewire cable for $25.00 from a local store. There is no way that videowave 3 and a firewire cable would amount to any where near $200. Its hard to say what i would go with, without knowing what your getting. As a general rule I tend to go with processor speed, as i think it is the one best ways to increase video processing performance.

The firewire in your laptop or anytother computer is just a port to tranfer large amounts of data. By itself it does not capture or do anything but tranfer data from something to your computer. If you looking for something to connect to the firewire that will capture mpeg, best to do some shopping first and ask for recommendations from those who use them. if your looking to transfer dv to your comp you could try avi io to do so, it has a work around for the 4gb limit in fat 32 systems.