Lacie Capty FastCoder FW MPEG1/2 Hardware Encoder

[pants]

http://www.pixela.co.jp/en/news/2003/030828.html

http://www.pixela.co.jp/products/mpeg/pix_dvmp_f1m/index.html

was at macworld today and saw this just as i was leaving by chance at the lacie booth. pick up there winter 2004 catalog and pg. 33

it looks like a tiny fw harddrive w/2 fw ports on it, powered by the ports.

it works with 9.2 and 10.2.6 and up. "supports any quicktime full quality dv compatible file from fcp, fce, imovie or premiere" encodes to mpeg1/2 in realtime. i wasn't able to get that indepth a look, but hopefully will go back later this week and test out some footage if they let me. it could do constant bitrate, not sure of all settings though, variable bit rate, where you could only choose your average, not sure of all the settings here either. could do program or elementary stream. right now only encodes from a file, a stand alone qt file. they said it wouldn't work for a fcp ref movie, which was disappointing. they did say if enough people requested it they would try to do something about it. they said they are working on having it encode while capturing from dv tape. so dv camera straight to mpeg. they said this would be either a firmware or software upgrade and didn't have a time frame yet. could also encode audio to mp2 or dolby digital or pcm.

cost $249 includes capty dvd authoring software, they said it's supposed to be out in feb.

i'm hoping to bring some footage in and run a few tests if they let me, and if i do this i'll report back when i do them.

if anyone else has info on this please post it. it looks promising, but haven't seen any real results yet.

[chikanakan]

I have the Japanese version from Pixela. It's faster and the quality is okay, but Capty DVD 2 (if they are shipping 2) isn't any better then Capty DVD 1.0 besides it supports AC-3 now. The software Faster Coder is pretty bad for it though and has some bugs.

I've read some Japanese articles about it and even though the encoding is faster, the overall time it took from start to finish of a DVD was faster in Toast 6 then using Capty and Fastcoder.

[pants]

i use dsp2 for authoring, so i'm mainly interested in finding more out about the encoder part. on the japanese model if you use VBR (variable bit rate) to encode can you set the average and a maximum? or just the average?

What do you like/not like about the encoding software? or what bugs have you encountered?

also have you by chance compared the encoded output to other encoders like bitvice or compressor?

just wondering.

thanks

[chikanakan]

I haven't compared it to Compressor and BitVice. I haven't had time lately. I'm not a big fan of Pixela software. It just not user friendly. I'll have to take a look at the Faster Coder software more, my friend is using it now and I haven't got to use it much. My guess it that BitVice and Compressor are better quality, and Compressors may even be faster. When I get some time I'll try to post more info.

I talked to LaCie again today, and it is shipping with Capty DVD 2. It also seems to be a version 1.1 of the Fast Coder software. My main problem with it was I couldn't bus the MPEG in Toast. It also had some install problems in Panther, but those seem to have been fixed.

[pants]

thanks for your info.

what are you capturing or editing in before you go to fastcoder to encode with? because i brought some footage i captured from fcp to the lacie booth at macworld today to run some tests and it didn't my footage, even though i captured it as dv and didn't change anything to it. so it converted my footage to the dv format it likes then converted to mpeg2. not a very good test. so was curious as to where your editing from and maybe what settings you use to export from your nle.

thanks

[chikanakan]

I was using DV captured in iMovie for testing out the the quality. I didn't do anything fancy, just straight DV to see how well it worked. Like I said, the Pixela software is pretty buggy. I know it did a couple of passes on the video and maybe it was converted it like you said. I'm going to try to get it back from my friend and do some more test, but I'm just to busy right now.

[pants]

cool, thanks for the info.

[Dunnyman]

One DayOne of macWorld I was at the lacie booth, played with the FastCoder, and it worked very well for me, the "real time" encoding isn't quite that fast, but it's pretty damn quick. It's a new product, so give it some time before anyone gives up on it, the price is very good,a nd including CaptyDVD with it is a great idea. I don't think it works quite as well with CONVERTED video, but straight DV worked extremely well, for getting your footage to MPEG2, it think it's a winner....just out of curiosity, what's the beef with CaptyDVD? I've played with it a bit on an older version and it seemed to work well, and handled far more than DVDSP could, as far as MPEG1, etc without the major headaches. Now if I could just BUY the damn thing without buying a whole new drive or the Fast Coder, I'd be a happy guy.

[schwinn]

Count me in as not understanding the knocking of Capty DVD. I was able to make DVD's quickly and great looking menues and buttons. I tested Capty, Toast 6,Sizzle and DVD Studio Pro 1.5 and 2.0.
Toast 6 way slow and on my machine limited to apox 90 min to a disk. Don't get me started on the lame no choice menues and buttons.
DVD Studio Pro 2 doesn't work with G3 CPU
DVD studio Pro 1.5 works with G3 CPU even though says requires G4. Gave up way too complex learning curve for my time frame
iDVD didn't work with my external Drive. It is also limited to 90min disks for your info. New version coming out will be 2 hour limited.
Sizzle looks good and easy to set up...crashes at some point every time. Even after reading every available post here on Sizzle and asking my own questions.

Capty DVD was the star in this group. Works great with my G3 550 cpu. Custom menue and buttons look good. I was able to put 6 - 50 min eps on a disk (only 2 eps using Toast 6) The whole thing including burning the disk was done in one evening. Learning curve was so short I was amazed. The 2 eps on Toast took longer and quality wasn't any better. It is the only real choice for my machine and has features and results that only DVD Studio Pro 2. could do better.

[jimlewis]

Anyone have more experience with Capty Fast Coder?? I bought the Japanese version last year and have not been able to get it to produce a complete MPEG segment. It always stops encoding after it has written 10-20 MB to disk. My input is QT movie exported from iMovie2. The part that it does is OK, but it wont go beyond encoding a few seconds. I tried different settings connecting FW differently etc. I downloaded the Fast Coder Software upgrade from Pixela so I think that the software is OK. It works OK when it "converts" a QT movie .mov to DV stream .dv before starting the MPEG encoding process. Then it stops encoding after the first few seconds. (I tried starting originally with a DV stream input to the Fast Coder but it didn't help) I'm beginning to wonder if the Fastcoder box itself is defective - almost seems like it is overheating or something. I think my system should be OK - Mac G4 400 MHz OS 9.1 (OS version that Pixela specifies) with Japanese Language Kit installed. I am able to run other native Japan applications specifically Capty DVD2 also from Pixela so presumably my system is OK. Anyone have any ideas how to get it to encode the whole movie? I'm ready to send it back!

[Frobozz]

Try turning on the "Play DV Video through to DV camera" checkbox in iMovie preferences. I think it is in the advanced preferences tab in iMovie 3. Then you should be able to simply press play in the iMovie Timeline to have the video export via Firewire. Also, you might ask Bob Hudson for advice on this - http://www.bobhudson.com

[jimlewis]

I'm using the methd Bob Hudson has on his web site (I emailed a question to him a couple of weeks ago).

You start from a QT movie file, drag it into the Fast Coder application and start encoding. The application converts the QT file to DV format first (unless it is already in that format). Then the external FW-connected box starts to encode and write the MPEG 2 file back to disk.

However, after about 10 seconds, the FW connection is interrupted. I know this is true because the "Access" light on the encoder goes off and no more data is written to disk. The software keeps going and reading the input DV file.

Processing both MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 files at different encoding rates gives the same result. The limit seems to be about 10 MB of MPEG output data. Sometimes 8, sometimes 12. This gives me only a few seconds of MPEG video out.

It seems like an intermittent FW problem. But what? I have plenty of power for the box, nothing else is connected to the computer FW port, and I can run external drives, burners, camcorders etc through my FW. The only other FW extensions in my System Folder on this partition are the APPLE OS Firewire Support and Firewire Enabler. (OS 9.1). So no Toast or i Tunes extension conflicts. The fact that it works for a short time would seem to rule out an extension conflict anyway.

The software is Japanese, but that shouldn't really have anything to do with it (or not?). Others on this forum have reported that the Japan-native app works on US Macs. It is very hard to use, however, as are the other Pixela products I am familiar with e.g., Capty DVD/CD2 and Image Mixer. (Note that LaCie is selling the exact same Fast Coder box now with English language software).

I would like to hear of anyone who has used this unit (either the Japanese or the English version ) and had to deal with similar issues! Thanks in advance for any help or comments.