Ipod direct capture?

[Shane Miesse]

ok, i dont know if this has been mentioned here, but has anyone thought of modding an Ipod to capture video directly? they are small, compact, and now with the color video screens and menus they would be PERFECT, im sure someone could rig something up, personally i dont know enough programming to do something like that, but my sister and brother in law are both programmers, if someone pointed me in the right direction, gave me bits of code or something i may very well be able to get the ball rolling on this

[Andreas Winkler]

Hi Shane, which camera are you thinking to use with your iPod?

I own a Panasonic GS400, which supports DVout via USB2.0. There is a driver CD included for this purpose, but only for Windows and MacOS if I remember correctly.

In deed it would be really cool to capture DV directly to an iPod. I'm about to buy one soon. I think it's rather difficult or impossible to see the video stream on the iPod's screen, but anyway, capturing is what we need! I imagine just some kind of status information on the screen while capturing.

As far as I know there is a freely available iPod application development kit (SDK) on the net, but I have to check further.

[Ethan Cooper]

I've seen this question discussed before and if memory serves me, I belive the final verdict was that it would not be a good idea.
1. The iPod's drive is not very fast and supposedly would not be able to keep up
2. The iPod's drive has been known to burn out when subjected to prolonged periods of heavy use (mostly when people were using them as boot drives, thus subjecting them to much more high speed operation than when being used as a music device)
3. The iPod video that you're talking about is USB2 only. Apple has dropped firewire on the new models.

Sorry to be a party pooper.

[Andreas Winkler]

Hi Ethan,

to 1.: 3.6MB/s is not really fast and should be no problem even for these mini drives, but has to be tested when I own an iPod

to 2.: sounds dangerous... hmm, but a system boot up with thousands of small seeks and accesses is something completely different to a relatively constant streaming process of one file

to 3.: I'm aware of this. USB2.0 is what I was thinking of, because my cam has USB2.0 for DV output as well as FireWire

[Shane Miesse]

well the stuff in the ipod itself may be bad or not a good idea atleast but the idea remains, can i get a small harddrive, put some special programming on it, and then record on to it? a home-made direct to disk thing sort of? my sister and her husband are both programmers, i personally dont know anything about it, but if we got enough information together about what a harddrive or program would need to recognize a camera/etc and store footage onto it, i might be able to get some software written/put together, then anyone with a portable harddrive could record straight to disk, imagine strapping a 250gb externall harddrive to the back! thats a dang good bit of footage you could store! it would be great! im a tape hater ;)

[Andreas Winkler]

Shane, I fully agree with you - tape hater, too!
Not nessesarily an iPod, but any kind of "home-made mini computer thing" (smaller than a usual laptop) with harddrive and direct DV recording via FireWire (or USB2.0) would be a big runner for me!
On the software side it could be something like the small tool "DVIO". But how to get this in a small embedded system, without a full operating system like Windows or MacOS?

[Shane Miesse]

well, i seem to recall a guy on this forum somewhere that had created his own setup with a tablet PC or something of the sort, its possible i can get all his information and do some research and see what i can find out, anyone else have ideas too? i think this is a topic everyone needs to jump in on

[Ash Greyson]

Square peg... meet round hole... The iPod is and will remain a media player... the data storage part of it is a novelty, not a primary function. It will remain to be so. Ipods as storage are not reliable...have poor battery life and in general are too slow. I dont get it at all, is it just the novelty of it that is intriguing? Or is it just that people already have iPods and want to use them another way?




ash =o)

[Shane Miesse]

i got an idea, ive been doing some thinking, most of the direct to disk products have some sort of graphical interface so that you can see things like clip lengths, space left, etc., well, what if the ipod was used as that interface, BUT an external harddrive (other than the ipod) was used for the actual recording, for example, the ipod is connected to the harddrive via USB or Firewire, a program on the Ipod would monitor/control another program on the actual harddrive, and the harddrive would be connected to the camera. seems possible, but i dont know anything about ipod software or what would be needed on the harddrive, i wish there were some more computer savy folks lurking around

[David Suthers]

Originally Posted by Shane Miesse

well, i seem to recall a guy on this forum somewhere that had created his own setup with a tablet PC or something of the sort, its possible i can get all his information and do some research and see what i can find out, anyone else have ideas too? i think this is a topic everyone needs to jump in on

That would be me. Check this thread for more info:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=41177

I used a Fujitsu Stylistic 3400, which is approximately 8.5" x 11" x 1" but then to get the battery life I needed I had to add a large external battery (7" x 10" x 1"). The battery was way bigger than I really needed as I probably have 10+ hours of run time (ran for 3 hours and battery still at 75%).

Not exactly the size of an iPod but it does work well. :)

Fujitsu also makes a slightly smaller tablet that uses an 8.5" screen instead of the 10.5" in the 3400. This is either the LT C-500 or the LT P-600, depending the processor it comes with (Pentium 3 or Celeron). I chose the 3400 because it was cheaper.

[Phil Holder]

Hi Guys
I'm not 100% sure how these things operate or if anyone has looked at them in the past but there are MP4 USB2 DVD Multimedia Hard Drive Player/Recorders available from eBay for around $85. They need to have a 2.5" hard drive bought for them. I know that they record MP4 as they are but at that price someone could afford to play around with the codecs (or whatever) and attempt to convert it to the correct format. Also look at a company called "Travla", they sell Mini ITX PC's about 7"x7"x2" in size.
Phil

[Shane Miesse]

cool, its worth a looking into, ill see what i can find out