PC as a "DVcam" on Firewire connection to another

[bhwong]

Since firewire can be used as a network interface to link up to 63 PCs, shouldn't there be some sort of utilities that can turn 1 of the 2 firewire-linked PCs into a "DV camcorder"?

My intention is to be able to play a DV clip on one PC, stream it out from it's firewire port, and have another PC to capture this DV stream as if it is capturing this DV stream from a DV camcorder instead.

This will be a great time saving feature, especially when I need to convert DV into MPEG file in realtime! Or even a realtime recording from DV to DVD-R disc!

Because with such utilities, I can easily use Sonic MyDVD or any other plug-and-burn software such as Roxio DVD Builder to create DVD discs in realtime without hours of rendering.

Unless of course, realtime DV2MPEG encoder do exist...

Just another VCD to DVD hobbist.

[lgh529]

You could do this Vegas video external monitor preview with a little tweaking, but on second thought, it would be a lot of hassle.

[guns1inger]

Mainconcept does realtime DV to Mpeg2 capture, although it is single pass only.

It shouldn't be hard to test your theory. Connect two PC's, both with DVIO or WinDV. Set one to play the DV file back to the camera, the other set to record the stream.

The problem you are likely to have is that neither PC will recognise the other as a digital video device, so the software will probably fail to connect. You are unlikely to do any damage though, so you have nothing to lose.

[trevlac]

Unless of course, realtime DV2MPEG encoder do exist...

Any mpeg encoder is real time if you have enough horsepower and give it easy settings. Mainconcepts does 2x realtime on my faster machine, sometimes.

Seems to me you are going thru a lot of trouble to encode MPEG. DV2MPEG is no different than Anything2MPEG.

You do get high marks for creativity. I assume, you are trying to effectively use the software you have. This does make a lot of sense.

[bhwong]

Hi guns1inger, I have already tested that out. Althought not with DVIO or WinDV, but the editors/players I tried refuse to playback to the DV camera if the camera is not been detected. Also, the capturing software also insist on detecting the DV camera so that it will send a playback signal to the DV camera before capturing.

Hi trevlac, I don't have access to the Mainconcepts encoder, but those freeware encoders simply took far too many hours just to encode these DV clips. If Sonic and Roxio can encode DV to MPEG in realtime with just an average horsepower computer, I don't see the reason why others can't.

Or is there some special features with the firewire that enable realtime encoding on the DV stream, which is lacking from the same standard DV file on my harddisk???

I'm just trying to maximize my computer resources without having to spend too much money on additional software and hardware.

Just another VCD to DVD hobbist.

[trevlac]

bh

Got anything to work yet? I have come across some software that may be of interest. I have never used it, but I am interested in streaming DV around myself.

Here are some tools that will out a video stream to DV. I know you already have DV, but maybe there is a trick to looking like a cam.

http://icqphone.ru/video2tv/Video2DV.htm

Here is a realtime mpeg encoder (i believe).
http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/ffmpeg-doc.html#SEC1

You may want to poke around source forge or ask at the Doom9 DV board how to stream DV from 1 PC to another.

[bhwong]

Wow! These 2 links sure look super impressive to me! icqphone.ru site does have some really unique DV utilities not found anywhere else...

ffmpeg seems to be able to handle virtually any sound and video formats! Too bad there's no graphical interface for it. It's back to the DOS world... Anyway, I will give it a try! Hopefully it can handle .dv format.

Thanks trevlac!