Foo - Another Video Recording Question...

Hello all,

I just got a ATI TV Capture card (the pro internal PCI version) and it gives me many options to capture the video from my direct tv box. I want to record the lance chronicals and burn it to about 4 DVDs (about 11 hours with no commercials). It can capture just about any res up to dvd quality.

My question is... what quality and format should I capture the video for post processing? I currently capute everything MPEG2 720x480 but there must be a better option. I read the other thread on FOO and it leaves me with some questions.

Probably end up sending over to the mac to edit with either FCP/DVD studio or iMovie/iDVD or maybe a PC option.


Ideas? Sugestions?

BTW I have about 100 GB to record 12 hours.


Thanks as always.
Mandy

Hmmm, a 100gb drive will give you just enough to make 1 DVD at a time, about 2-3 hours worth. The general work-flow looks like this:

1. capture video in high-quality format. MPEG2's fine at 720x480, but you'll want 9-10mbps data-rate (audio should be uncompressed PCM format), total about 30-40gb/hour

2. edit video, Adobe Premiere's my favorite package due to flexibility and power. Plug-ins lets you add capabilities later. iMovie's easier to use and very user-friendly.

3. output final video-clips in MPEG2 with desired compression. About 4-5mbps yields good quality, good for about 3hrs/DVD. you can squeeze up to 5-6 hrs @ 2.5-3mbps, but the image gets a little soft. Although if the original source was a TV-broadcast, it won't be any better anyway. So you can squeeze 5-6 hours of NTSC-TV onto a DVD at the original quality.

4. author DVD, create menus, etc. I like the DVD-author package from the TMPGenc folks (http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en). This creates a DVD image file on the HD. You can preview the image to make sure works the way you want.

5. burn DVD image to DVD, Nero or EZ-CD works fine.


On the Mac, you can use iDVD and do all that within one package.

One hour of dv-avi takes up 12 gig on my hdd. Just for reference sake.

What can you use to capture in mpeg 2? I am confused. Can't you just capture it as whatever it is. IOW, if it is an avi file than you capture as avi. And then from there you can render to something else? Maybe the newer cards have this ability? My card is old and i don't think i can capture as mpeg 2.

EDIT> Yeah, i think that's the ticket. My software for my card just doesn't allow it. Others will.

I am curently capturing MPEG2 720 x 480, I added a 200 GB drive this morning and it will be almost filled by this evening at midnight!

I might have to demux the video right to edit it?

Once I get it in some normal format I should be able to edit it right?

One hour of dv-avi takes up 12 gig on my hdd. Just for reference sake.

What can you use to capture in mpeg 2? I am confused. Can't you just capture it as whatever it is. IOW, if it is an avi file than you capture as avi. And then from there you can render to something else? Maybe the newer cards have this ability? My card is old and i don't think i can capture as mpeg 2.

EDIT> Yeah, i think that's the ticket. My software for my card just doesn't allow it. Others will.The card typically captures just raw data frames, it's the software that uses a particular codec to encode to a file. Most capture software can use any codec you have installed in your system. WinVCR's a simple package, although I like VirtualDub better to do filtering and clean-up during the capture as well. MPEG2 requires a lot of CPU power and up until we had 1.5ghz CPUs, that had to be done with an MPEG2 hardware compression card.



I am curently capturing MPEG2 720 x 480, I added a 200 GB drive this morning and it will be almost filled by this evening at midnight!

I might have to demux the video right to edit it?

Once I get it in some normal format I should be able to edit it right?No need to demux video to edit, most packages can deal with that. AVI's more versatile a format for editing anyway as more video-editing packages support AVI. I usually use a DV codec in an AVI wrapper for capture and editing. MPEG2's a little more difficult to work with and is simpler to use only as the final rendered output.

Check out this site for step-by-step instructions: http://www.videohelp.com

Video just eats hard drive space like crazy.. I have a lot of video stored and have about 4TB of just raw video.. There are so many ways to take that video and edit and then rip to dvd format.. Once you are done, I would like a copy if possible??

If the video comes out anything decient I can send it (or hopefully see you on a ride and give you) a copy...

Mandy,

That would be great.. I have a pretty huge cycling video collection which I have converted to dvd, most of it 1980's to 1990's stuff.. Just let me know what you are interested in.. I only saw 1 episode of the lance chronicles and would definitely like to see the others..