Lots of Questions
George
I want to get a capture device for videos and stills and use my camcorder. I
really don't have a clue as to what to get. I've been researching now for
awhile, and still don't know what to get.
I've seen some bad things about the Iomega Buz. At first I thought that
might be the way to go, but now, I don't know.
Is there such a product out there that would do the job.
I want something that does stills, and will do videos, I don't want to spend
a ton of money, (like everyone else) but I do want some quality.
Can anyone give me their opinions on what they are using and point me in the
right direction?
thanks,
george
Don James
Unless you want capture video to only be displayed on a computer, you'll
want to something a little more solid than the $200 devices. Rainbow runner
at under $400 is decent for VHS quality. If you want S-VHS quality, Fast AV
Master is a great card at $800 with editing software.
--
Don James The Computer Room
Colorado's Desktop Video Specialists
2760 S. Havana St. Aurora, CO 80014
(303) 696-8973 http://www.ComputerRoom.com
d...@computerroom.com
_____________________________________
Harvey
I am happy with the Matrox Rainbow Runner (RR) and Mystique for amateur use,
and I encountered many surprises while I was learning.
First, plan to spend money on disk capacity. This is important. Using the
RR, 30 minutes of video (total for original capture plus saved edits plus
final version) will consume between 3.5 and 10 gigabytes of disk space,
depending on the compression ratio you select. With a few exceptions, the
lower the compression, the better the quality.
Second, plan to spend money on disk throughput. This involves the disks,
motherboard, and controller. I had to install dedicated matched video hard
drives on a EIDE/UDMA disk striping controller (Promise Fasttrak) to get
sufficient performance; otherwise, I dropped a lot of frames. I considered
SCSI Fast & Wide but it was out of my price range for the capacity I wanted.
Either way, I ended up spending more money than I intended.
Third, plan to spend money on CPU speed. The CPU speed doesn't affect
capturing and playback too much, but it definitely affects editing and
rendering. While editing, video clip cuts and pastes can take an
excruciating amount of time. With a slow CPU, rendering of special effects
and transitions can consume 3 to 7 minutes for every second of video! The
faster the CPU, the better the edit and rendering speed.
Fourth, plan to dedicate a lot of personal time to this endeavor. Editing a
video is time consuming. To do it right, I sometimes run through source tape
segments 3 times to get a feel for the best time to start and terminate
video capture. I might do this for 50 different clips across 4 source tapes.
Then I painstakingly look at each frame near the beginning and end of each
captured clip to trim them properly. Then I take care to edit out all
unnecessary and flawed material in each clip. I assemble the clips in the
most appropriate order, add titles, duplicate clip frames (for a freeze look
during transitions), add nice transitions such as 3-D gates, and render a
product. Then I review the product for audio problems; I edit audio for
clarity and adding custom music and voice-overs to cover up droll or quiet
material. Done with this much care, a 30 minute video takes me a month of
late nights and weekends. What's most interesting is that no one cares about
the final product except me, but that's OK because I derive a lot of pride
from the results.
George wrote in message <6gtmn7$d...@argentina.earthlink.net>...
Don Sterner
>Unless you want capture video to only be displayed on a computer, you'll
>want to something a little more solid than the $200 devices. Rainbow runner
>at under $400 is decent for VHS quality. If you want S-VHS quality, Fast AV
>Master is a great card at $800 with editing software.
Actually, the Matrox Rainbow Runner runs less than $200 for a
Mystique and $202.xx for the Millenium if ordered from NECX. The
price, of course, doesn't include the cost of the video card
itself. The software which comes with the Rainbow Runner is Ulead
Studio VE which shuld be adquate unless you need 3d titles or
painting special effects.
tcl...@datx.com
In article <6gtmn7$d...@argentina.earthlink.net>,
"George" <gdest...@email.msn.com> wrote:
>
> I want to get a capture device for videos and stills and use my camcorder. I
> really don't have a clue as to what to get. I've been researching now for
> awhile, and still don't know what to get.
> might be the way to go, but now, I don't know.
>
> Is there such a product out there that would do the job.
> I want something that does stills, and will do videos, I don't want to spend
> a ton of money, (like everyone else) but I do want some quality.
> Can anyone give me their opinions on what they are using and point me in the
> right direction?
>
> thanks,
> george
>
>
There are a lot of places on the net that can provide good infomation on a
cross-section of available products. One place that I think is pretty neat
is:
http://www5.zdnet.com/products/content/grids/videohardware.html
This site is a table of various video cards, and a half-dozen magazines that
may have reviewed them. Click on the Check mark or star for a given entry,
and you jump to that publication's review of that product. It's worth a look.
--Tom Clune, Data Translation, Inc.
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading