I'm switching from XP to OS X - what about my vid. captures?

[Lyris]

Hey everyone,

Help me out here? I'm getting ready to switch from my current 2.8ghz Pentium 4 with 1gb of RAM to an iMac G5 with 1.8ghz processor and also 1gb of RAM.

Right now, I use a PCI TV card to capture video from S-Video devices. I can usually capture video tapes without any dropped frames, unless they're really noisy. I capture them to lossless AVI files with the HuffYUV codec.

Now, I understand that I'll need a Firewire type device to acheive the same sort of thing on my new Mac? I have no experience at all with anything other than the "old style" TV cards. Is there anything I need to know? How much to pay? Product recommendations?

If I plug this thing in to my new Mac and load up Adobe Premiere, will I be able to capture directly into it using the tools it has built in? Will it still be lossless? What video codec does it use - I hear on the Mac there is a good lossless video codec - something like "Pixlet"? Or am I just imagining this?

Please point me in the right direction

Edit: one more thing. Is there a Mac equivalent to VirtualDub?

[tWoSour]

Hey everyone,

Help me out here? I'm getting ready to switch from my current 2.8ghz Pentium 4 with 1gb of RAM to an iMac G5 with 1.8ghz processor and also 1gb of RAM.

Right now, I use a PCI TV card to capture video from S-Video devices. I can usually capture video tapes without any dropped frames, unless they're really noisy. I capture them to lossless AVI files with the HuffYUV codec.

Now, I understand that I'll need a Firewire type device to acheive the same sort of thing on my new Mac? I have no experience at all with anything other than the "old style" TV cards. Is there anything I need to know? How much to pay? Product recommendations?

If I plug this thing in to my new Mac and load up Adobe Premiere, will I be able to capture directly into it using the tools it has built in? Will it still be lossless? What video codec does it use - I hear on the Mac there is a good lossless video codec - something like "Pixlet"? Or am I just imagining this?

Please point me in the right direction

Edit: one more thing. Is there a Mac equivalent to VirtualDub?

Dont use Premiere......iMovie comes standard, but you really should order Final Cut Pro or Final Cut Express

[WiseWeasel]

iMovie is more than adequate for digitizing content. Only get FCE or FCP if you want to do some serious editing and effects. As for the capture device to get, I've been extremely pleased with my Canopus ADVC100, which was $250 a few years ago, but should be significantly cheaper now. I think they also sell an ADVC50, which lacks a few features, but should still work very well for what you're doing. Note that most FireWire devices capture in DV format, which is compressed, but still excellent quality, and the nice thing is that the editing apps keep the DV workflow, so you don't lose any quality while editing, until you export to DVD format or something. For creating DVDs, iDVD works OK, but DVD Studio Pro would be a lot better, allowing you to encode at higher quality and squeeze more footage on a DVD-R disc (due to the better video encoder, and the fact that DVDSP can use AC3 audio, which is much, much more compressed than iDVD's PCM audio for the same quality. Oh, and a word of caution: stay far, far away from any Dazzle products, as they suck badly.

[rumplestiltskin]

Consider an inexpensive Canon DV Camcorder as it's about the same $$ as a "plain" analong media converter yet will provide much more functionality when you need it.

Also, if you're going to do a lot of "PVR" type stuff, go for the EyeTV and EyeHome from El Gato. For the Mac, there's nothing that comes close.

[Lyris]

Nice idea, I quite liked the idea of a cheap digital camcorder but didn't think I'd use it enough. Can you give me any model numbers for the cheapest camcorders I could use this for? Is it just anything with "DV Out" and the needed analog video inputs?

Edit: I capture in both NTSC and PAL. Would this make a camcorder a no-go? I think they can only handle one format?

[incredible]

The offer of MAC full Video size USB capturing boxes is very poor.
AFAIK only ElGato offers such compatible stuff, but its expensive.
In the PCI sector there are Miro/Pinnacle DC30 Cards for MAC (IMHO the best for MAC capturing and Overlay to TVout!) and also a pci device called Gravision PC Card, but as you got a MAC without PCI Slots, IMHO Elgato would be your choice, if anone else knows a "FULL" Video capturing USB device, let me know as Im thinking about getting a MacMini model. Haupauge only supports 1/2 PAL/NTSC Resolutions in their MAC-USB Boxes.

[Lyris]

Price isn't too big a deal - it's the quality that's my biggest consideration.

Right now I'm looking at the EyeTV Wonder USB 2.0. It says, "With its built-in 125-channel analog TV tuner, it makes full use of the USB 2.0 bus standard to transfer raw, uncompressed video directly to your Mac, delivering superior quality TV."

This means it won't go through any hardware MPEG encoder, right? I just want to be able to make lossless files and from there edit them in Adobe Premiere (or iMovie, or whatever) and make DVDs out of them.

[incredible]

If Quality ist your biggest consideration, then unkompressed Video via s-video Signal (maybe 4:2:2 YUY2) is the best you can deal with in case of captures. So any Hardwareencoder like mpeg2 will result in a ChromaFrequency loss and in a too big kompression incl. loss of quality.

[NightWing]

It does dump raw over the USB 2.0 but it feeds into software that compress it.

Have a friend that just got the PC variant of it and love it!

Weither you can save the raw out I dont know yet. Just found out from your post there is even a Mac version!

[Lyris]

So the compression is done by software, good. So that means that if the bundled software forces me to compress stuff into MPEG or whatever, I could download and use another one (are there any others?) and use that instead?

[NightWing]

Actualy look at the PC side of it for examples. Sounds like this company is buying, liceing or a division of ATI.

A friend is raving on what this little box can do! The only negative is quality of the MPEG4 compression.

Here is a link to a broshure in PDF that cover the "compressions". It can also export QT which will help for I think iDVD and iMove.

http://www.elgato.com/downloads/EyeTVwonder/DataSheet_wonder_E.pdf

[sjk]

It can also export QT which will help for I think iDVD and iMove.

... and other apps that don't handle EyeTV MPEG transport stream files. Depending on the target format/app(s), editing before exporting can be convenient or necessary.

[NightWing]

I hope by middle of next week to be testing video editing on a Mini!

Looks like the Mini is limited to Firewire capture or a good USB 2.0.

[sjk]

If it's reliable EyeTV Wonder seems a better value since its retail price ($149) is less than half of EyeTV 200's ($329).

[NightWing]

Problem with the EyeTV Wonder is that the slick state requires a dual G4. Kind of leaves the Mini out.

[Lyris]

I guess it requiring a Dual G4 will have no problem with my 1.8ghz G5?

[WiseWeasel]

According to the data sheet:
System Requirements:
• Macintosh computer with G4 processor with built-in USB 2.0 port for VCD, Macintosh computer with dual processor G4 or G5 with built-in USB 2.0 port for Standard quality (DVD 120 min), Macintosh computer with dual processor G5 for High quality (DVD 90 min)
• Mac OS X 10.3 or higher and 256MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
• Minimum 20MB free hard disk space
• Approximately 2GB of hard disk space per hour of recorded TV
• QuickTime 6.5
• An Internet connection is required to use optional Electronic Program Guide (EPG) from TitanTV
• A CD/DVD recorder and Toast 6 Titanium software (not included) are required to create DVDs, SVCDs or Video CDs (optional).

[NightWing]

I read those spects a few times. Either the USB port is slow on Mac's. Or the software is weak or not twick. I would asume the G4 to handle it.

Here are the spects for the PC verison of the software. Go figure. Would asume even a 1.6 AMD and Celeron could handle it. They list nothing for CPU speed!

-----------------------------
From ATI spect sheet....

Specifications

System Requirements

* Intel® Pentium® 4, Celeron®, AMD Athlon or compatible
* 128MB of system memory (256MB recommended)
* Available USB 2.0 port required
* Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
* Sound card and speakers
* Cable TV signal or amplified antenna
* Interactive Program Guide requires Internet connection

Operating Systems Support

* Windows® XP

Compatibility
TV WONDER™ USB 2.0 is compatible with graphics sub-systems supporting Microsoft DirectX overlay, including products from the following manufacturers:

* ATI
* S3
* Nvidia

----------------------------------

How good are the rippers on a Mac? Will find out shortly myself. But could using a DVR recorder as the capture device work? I know the bottom end units are weak in black levels but would it be usable?

Hum.... If Apple went to LSI could a modified single chip DVR chip be cooked up to add a built in capture encoder decoder to a Mac? Be intersting!

[rafaelp]

Nice idea, I quite liked the idea of a cheap digital camcorder but didn't think I'd use it enough. Can you give me any model numbers for the cheapest camcorders I could use this for? Is it just anything with "DV Out" and the needed analog video inputs?

Edit: I capture in both NTSC and PAL. Would this make a camcorder a no-go? I think they can only handle one format?

Using a video camera is the best way bar none. Make sure that the camera you purchase provides a digital conversion/pass-through. Most new cameras do but some don't. As long as you have a video camera with firewire and digital video pass-through, you are ready to go. With some cameras you have to go in the menu and specify you want pass-through.

Right now I'm planning to record the Superbowl connecting from my HDTV tuner by s-video to my camera and from my camera by firewire to my daughter's Powerbook. I've already tested the setup and it works great. By using the HDTV Tuner I get anamorphic (widescreen video) sent to iMovie. The trick here is to open iMovie first with nothing attached. Tell the program to create a new project and in the dialog box that appears there should be a small triangle and the words "video format" next to it. Select DV Widescreen and you are set to go.

I was getting 5 minutes of recording for every GB, therefore, I'll set aside 60 GB from my firewire drive for a total recording time of 300 minutes (5 hours). My daughter's PowerMac has 800Mb and 400Mb ports. I'll connect the camera to the 400Mb port and the drive to the 800Mb port to reduce any chance of saturating the firewire by having both devices on the 400Mb firewire segment. Borrow a camera from a friend and test.

I did have trouble at first with iMovie recognizing the camera in path-through mode but a restart solved the problem. BTW make sure not to have a tape in the camera.

By having a video camera, you'll be able to use it for iChat. Also, I just created a complete library of my 600 DVD's (i'm still working on the CD's) using a program called Delicious Library that converts my camera into a bar-reader. I scan the bar codes on the box, the program looks it up in Amazon, and it's in.

I don't know if any of the other solutions can be an iChat camera substitute since, I think, you have to use firewire (but I could be wrong).