Capture DV with Real-Time compression

[Julian Alvarez]

Hi, I was wondering if i could capture DV to my PC and compress it at the same time. (Trough Firewire 1394)

My problem is that I've to capture about 15 hours of DV footage in 1 or 2 days, so i can't capture and then waste time compressing it (and i've only got 100GB of Hard Disk) .

So, is there any way to this? is it possible?? or

Can I capture DV in a smaller window (360 x 288 instead of 720 x 576).

What program / codecs do I need??

thanks in advance

*********************************
My PC Config is
ATI Radeon VE Video Card
Pinnacle Studio DV (for 1394 capture)
AMD Athlon 2.4Ghz
512 MB DDR Ram
160 GB Hard Disk (100GB Free)
ASUS A7v8XX Motherboard

[Rob Lohman]

First, DV is already compressed (5:1). I've not seen any product
that can re-compress the stream in realtime at this moment.

[John Britt]

Another question is: what do you want to compress it to? MPEG2 for DVD? WMA for the web?

What will you be doing with this video? You want to dump 15 hours of video to your computer... to what end? If you need to edit it, then you probably want to keep in it DV format.

Or are all 15 hours going straight to DVD? In that case, if this is an important project, you might want to consider investing in (or borrowing) a set-top DVD burner that you can plug your camera into and burn straight to DVD. You won't be able to do much else with the video, but if it's going straight to DVD, that's the quickest way.

To be honest, it sounds like you either need more disk space or more time...

[Ed Smith]

Julian,

I believe that Pinnacle studio can capture in at a lower resolution. I think they call it preview capture? You can change this setting normally in the capture window or settings. However why you would need to do this I don't know?

Your question does not make sense to me. What do you normally compress to at the end? What sort of compressing are you talking about?

Do you need to capture the whole 15hours? Could you not capture some bits and not others?

Hard disks are so cheap now a day, you may as well buy another one - 160GB,and with this and your other one you'll have plenty of space.

Cheers,

Ed

[Julian Alvarez]

i will explain why to compress
i need to edit a long film, since i dont have too much hard disk space, i understand i can do all the postproduction in low quality video ("offline") and when i've finished, automatically recapture ONLY the video footage i've used in the timeline (with the EDL or something, i don't know really how to do it)
I've just looked in the box of the Pinnacle Studio DV and it says that it can capture with compression (1 hour in 400MB). I've never used this software (always used Adobe Premiere Pro 7).

Will I be able to do the offline in Adobe Premiere if i use the "Smart Capture" function of Pinnacle Studio DV to capture 1 hour of DV in 400MB, and then automatically recapture the scenes i've used in the timeline, without loosing quality?

What about Avid XPress Pro 4.11?? Can I capture DV with compression (more than the original 5:1) to do the offline editing??
thanks

[Glenn Chan]

many NLEs offer batch capture, so you select the clips you want to capture and then the NLE will control your camera and automagically capture all those clips.

You can do an offline/online, but that might be more hassle than it's worth. You can wait out for hot deals on hard drives. Check the various hot deals sites around.

[John Britt]

I agree with Glenn. Save yourself a headache and just get another drive.

CompUSA apparently has a 120GB Western Digital USB 2.0 external harddrive for $99 (Go here and scroll down to "Real Deal #1")

(I have a Usb 2.0 external HDD and have used it for video editing just fine, by the way...)

Or, if you have the space inside your PC, install a second harddrive at an equally reasonable price.

If you're going to spend money, get an extra hard drive. It may cost a little more than the Pinnacle program, but an extra hard drive will serve you better in the long run than some program that you're simply buying as a workaround.

[Jeff Donald]

USB 2 has problems with digital video, especially in the very near future when the demands of HD will necessitate higher data rates. FireWire is the standard and you would be wise to stick with it for external drives.

Avid and FCP will allow you to capture at lower resolutions and save considerable space. I'm not sure about Vegas.

[Glenn Chan]

You could just get an internal drive. They're faster and less likely to give dropped frames, and are cheaper. Good deals on them come around pretty often.

[John Britt]

Jeff -- I put my parenthetical aside in that post for a reason -- I knew someone would try to call me on that! :)

All I can say is that I've used an Iomega 80GB USB2.0 external HDD for both capturing and editing video with no problems whatsoever. Based on my personal experience, I have no problem suggesting an external USB 2.0 drive for video editing.

By the time I decide to shoot and edit HD, I'm sure there'll be something even faster than Firewire 800 that I'll have as a peripheral interface...

[Jeff Donald]

Based on my experience (as a teacher working with hundreds of students a day) USB 2 is not reliable for even DV. USB 2 may be fine given very limited conditions (processor speed, cable length, HD cache, length of capture, etc.) but is overall unreliable. I probably have had a couple of dozen incidents involving USB 2 drives that students have tried to use for capture and editing. My advice is if you want trouble free capture and editing, over the widest possible parameters, use FireWire for external drives. If you are looking to do HD or HDV consider FireWire 800 drives.

[Rob Lohman]

15 hours is a lot of footage to edit. You might want to screen the
footage first and select bits you want to use in your edit. I doubt
you will end up with more then 5 hours in this case unless your
output format is longer than 1 or 2 hours.

If you really need to capture 15 GB it will take around 190 GB of
space, so you will need at least a 200 GB drive.

Trying to caputer at a lower resolution and then capture the parts
you need in high-res sounds good but I doubt it will work that
great in the realworld of *DV*. If you have a broken timecode
somewhere or you started recording at the beginning of the tape
without a 30 - 60 second blank spot you have already got a
problem with 1 tape!

I would review my footage and select takes (can be more than 1
per scene for example) I want to use. Write down the time code
sections and then batch capture that. Get a new harddisk (how
large depends on the final amount of footage you need to
capture). DV comes in at around 13 GB per HOUR.