My 2 cents on O2 video capture
Jorge G. Pascal
I recently got an O2 and I've been playing around with video capture. OK
on TV and on my DVDs but a lot of problems with my old VHSs. I found
here that the problem mostly is timing related and crappy VCRs. With no
budget for solutions presented ( high quality or professional grade
VCRs, etc ) I found that connecting my crappy VCR to my standard
composite TV video IN ( the yellow RCA input, just in case I'm confusing
something) and then the composite TV video Output to the O2 solves the
problem !!!!!!!!!!! seems the TV regenerate the sync signal or
something like that.
Clearly this is not as good as using a quality VCR with SVideo output
and TBC controls, but if you're short in budget .... it will work !!!
;-)
Jorge.
Khalid Schofield
do for O2 is to get a decent cpu. Going from an R10000 225Mhz cpu to an
R12000 400Mhz solved all my capture and playback problems. I'm now using
my O2 as my main system at home. I've got a Sync on Green to separate V
and H sync's convertor and so I use my 19" LCD monitor with my O2 as well
now :)
I've not had a single problem with video capture and editing since
upgrading.
I capture from DVD, Digital TV and VHS with no problems. Also capture from
my DV cam using the analogue jacks.
I output to my VCR after editing with no problems at all. I've captured a
file that is 38Gb's in total. Edited and printed to S-VHS with out any
problem.
I have a dedicated 160Gb disk that diskperf get's just under 40Mbytes/sec
rean and write rates too.
I have a raid on my octane that I get just over 74Mbytes/sec xfr rates to
and from but there's no point on O2. My O2 has just over 700Gb's of
hard disk storage and a CD-RW plus DLT4000 tape drive (that I use far far
more than the 16X cd writer lol).
*********************
Khalid Schofield
System Administrator / EM Technician
Dept. Of Materials
University Of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PH
Email: khalid.s...@materials.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 273785
Fax: 01865 283333
Web: http://www-em.materials.ox.ac.uk/people/schofield/index.html
Jorge G. Pascal
My friend, I'm afraid your pockets are way more deeper than mine !!!!
If you don't mind, I may ask you a few more questions, once I take some
more tries and get a clear idea of my situation. Right now I need more RAM
and a second disk, that's for sure.
BTW, I used to think R5000 was the best architecture for video :-(
Best regards,
Jorge.
;-)
Benjamin Gawert
> I've got a Sync on Green
> to separate V and H sync's convertor and so I use my 19" LCD monitor
> with my O2 as well now :)
What for do You have a Sync separator? All O2s I had worked perfectly with
several TFT displays out of the box as the O2 already provides separate
sync...
Benjamin
Khalid Schofield
My disk is only 7200rpm but it's using a 68pin scsi a-card ide-scsi frame
adapter. I get 40Mbytes/sec out of it sustained.
dmrecord seems to use about 5Mb of memory so my 1Gb isn't needed.
I spent $220 on my R12000 400Mhz cpu which with the exchange rate was
under £130 :) Quite cheap.
Basicaly my Octane compression board fried and I had no video editing
system. So I upgraded the O2 for less money (the Octane compression option
was £2600) which after doing some benchmarks on an R12000 400Mhz O2 cpu
led me to thing that the O2 was the way to go.
*********************
Khalid Schofield
System Administrator / EM Technician
Dept. Of Materials
University Of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PH
Email: khalid.s...@materials.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 273785
Fax: 01865 283333
Web: http://www-em.materials.ox.ac.uk/people/schofield/index.html
Khalid Schofield
green colour feed. Basicaly some LCD's don't like having a sync on green
signal. O2's provide V and H syncs as well as sync on green, you need to
filter this out on some LCD's to get it to deduce the right black levels
or everything looks green :(
*********************
Khalid Schofield
System Administrator / EM Technician
Dept. Of Materials
University Of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PH
Email: khalid.s...@materials.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 273785
Fax: 01865 283333
Web: http://www-em.materials.ox.ac.uk/people/schofield/index.html
Benjamin Gawert
> The sync separator is for filtering out the sync on green signal from
> the green colour feed. Basicaly some LCD's don't like having a sync
> on green signal. O2's provide V and H syncs as well as sync on green,
> you need to filter this out on some LCD's to get it to deduce the
> right black levels or everything looks green :(
I understand. I just thought sync converters are a quite expensive way for
doing this. Years ago I bought little BIAS filters that remove Sync BIAS
from all three RGB lines. Around 4EUR/unit or so...
Benjamin
Simon
> Khalid Schofield wrote:
>>My VCD has a time base corrector but to be honest the best thing you can
>>do for O2 is to get a decent cpu. Going from an R10000 225Mhz cpu to an
>>R12000 400Mhz solved all my capture and playback problems.
> BTW, I used to think R5000 was the best architecture for video :-(
It certainly used to be.
We used to capture/playback uncompressed serial digital video (via a
Miranda adapter) using just a 180MHz R5K, so it can definitely be done.
I guess when it comes to compression it's a different matter though.
What became of Zap!t after A|W dropped it?
Khalid Schofield
*********************
Khalid Schofield
System Administrator / EM Technician
Dept. Of Materials
University Of Oxford
Parks Road
Oxford
OX1 3PH
Email: khalid.s...@materials.ox.ac.uk
Tel: 01865 273785
Fax: 01865 283333
Web: http://www-em.materials.ox.ac.uk/people/schofield/index.html
On Tue, 26 Oct 2004, Benjamin Gawert wrote: