Capture time

[galehickey]

I have a 3 hour tape that I want to capture. What size will this movie take up on my pc? Thanks.

[olyteddy]

It depends on the format you save it in. Search for 'bitrate calculator' and you'll find a tool that will help you figure it out.

[daamon]

Two questions:

1) What type of "tape" are you capturing from? VCR, Hi-8, Super-8, miniDV?
2) How are you capturing? Card (what type)? Analogue to digital converter (e.g. Canopus ADVC series of hardware).

This will greatly influence the format you end up using.

And, as olyteddy said, it depends what format you capture to - but, more specifically, once you've chosen a format it'll be the bitrate you use that will dictate the file size.

Filesize is a function only of time (3 hours) and bitrate (to be determined).

The VideoHelp Bitrate Calculator will give you the answer once you've got the numbers.

[jagabo]

Anywhere up to hundreds of gigabytes depending on how you capture. Some rough numbers for full D1 video:

uncompressed RGB: 340 GB
uncompressed YUY2: 225 GB
losslessly compressed YUY2: 50 to 100 GB
DV AVI: 40 GB
MPEG2: 6 to 12 GB
MPEG4 ASP: 3 to 6 GB
MPEG4 AVC: 2 to 4 GB.

[galehickey]

Captured from a VCR. Home video. Capture card is Sonic MyDVD. I have about 1 1/2 hours on a VHS. Safest way, I guess, is to write to an RW after authoring. Thanks.

[daamon]

I suppose an important third question to add to my earlier two is:

What do you intend to do with it once you've captured it?

Any editing (even if just cutting out bits) or straight to DVD for a more modern means of storage and playback etc.?

Sonic MyDVD isn't a capture card, it's a piece of software for compiling all the files that go to make a DVD into the DVD structure. This may just have been the software that came with your capture card.

[galehickey]

Backup. The capture card came with the Sonic program.

[jagabo]

It's hard to give you advice without knowing what type of capture card you have. There are three main families of capture devices: uncompressed YUV video, hardware DV compressors, and hardware MPEG2 compressors.

How much do you want to put on a DVD? You mention 3 hours in one post, 1.5 hours in another. One hour on a single layer DVD will get you the best results.

[galehickey]

I had a 3 hour VHS tape that would not go. 1 1/2 hour tape did. As far as the capture card goes when I bought the Sonic Program it came with it. Have no way of knowing the particulars.
I think your advice on the 1 hour limit is good. I imagine just because a tape is 1 1/2 hours does not mean the size is the same for another 1 1/2 hour tape. Wonder if a tape could be compressed to fit a DVD. Probably not. Thanks.

[jagabo]

You can put as much as much as you want on a DVD -- but quality goes down as running time goes up.

VHS is a noisy source. This makes it difficult for MPEG comrpessors (DVD uses MEPG 2 compression) to compress. You can put 1.5 hours on a DVD but it will be a little lower in quality than a 1 hour recording (assuming you use the whole DVD for each).

For 90 minutes or less you can use full D1 resolution (720x480 NTSC, 720x576 PAL). If you want more than that it's recommended you drop down to half D1 (352x480/576). VHS doesn't have a lot of resolution horizontally so you won't really be losing much.

[galehickey]

Thanks alot.

[jagabo]

I don't know anything about Sonic MyDVD but most DVD software will allow you to specify either how much time you want to put on the DVD or a bit rate.

Bitrate determines how big the file will be and therefor how much video will fit on a DVD. A high bitrate (8000+ kbps) will give you good quality but only about an hour on a DVD. A bitrate of 4000 kbps will get you about two hours but at a lower quality. You can use a bitrate calculator to determine what bitrate to use to get whatever length video onto a single DVD.

https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm