Analog to digital conversion at DVinfo.net

Aaron Koolen · May 21st, 2002, 05:54 PM

Hi all,
a friend of mine has a whole series of videos that he wants to turn into digital so that he can edit them and write out DVD's and VCD's. His geforce2 card has analog input but when he captures he drops a hell of a lot of frames (From 10 to 50% depending on resolution). He has though about getting an analog to digital bridge so he can capture through standard firewire and then we thought that maybe getting an actual capture cards might be better cause he could then use it for editing, real time effects etc. He only has one IDE drive (No raid controller) and was told that the RT2500 would need to have a 3drive raid system setup before it could capture analog.

Can anyone provide us with some advice as to what would be the best path to take to get analog into a digital format......on the cheap. The bridge costs about NZ$1000 (~US$500) and I have heard of editing cards about the same price but just need a bit of help deciding which way to go. Especially if he will need to get a raid setup also.

Cheers
Aaron

Chris Hurd · May 21st, 2002, 06:04 PM

The Canopus ADVC-100 is a great analog/digital converter for about $250 US street price. Go to http://www.justedit.com/ppm_advc100.htm for more info.

Rob Lohman · May 22nd, 2002, 01:38 AM

I highly doubt you would need a RAID set, especially a 3 drives
set (suggestion raid 5, which would be off almost no speed
increase at all). Make sure your harddisk can at least sustain
10 mb/s and that it is defragmented. Preferably put video on
a different partition or seperate drive if possible (from your OS).

This is if you want to capture to either DV or MJPEG. If you want
to do uncompressed you need at least 40 - 50 mb/s, which would
require a striped IDE or SCSI raid set. Promise and adaptec
make some nice IDE raid cards for not too much money. But then
again you might also buy promise's normal IDE ATA 133 card
with a fast UDMA 4, 5 or 6 harddisk to get that speed easily.
(probably not 50 mb/s... I meant 10 - 30 mb /s)

It all depends on how fast your (current) harddisk is.

Shawn McBee · May 22nd, 2002, 02:23 AM

When I was waiting until I could afford an XL1, I was using a Sony Handicam to shoot short films on and I used the Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge to convert my footage to DV for editing. It worked out really well for me and was only about $250.oo USD.

BTW, if you get this, it's still a really good I dea to take the advice Rob left above.

-Shawn

Hollywood DV-Bridge info:
http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html

May 21st, 2002, 05:54 PM	#1
Aaron Koolen Trustee Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 1,727	Analog to digital conversion Hi all, a friend of mine has a whole series of videos that he wants to turn into digital so that he can edit them and write out DVD's and VCD's. His geforce2 card has analog input but when he captures he drops a hell of a lot of frames (From 10 to 50% depending on resolution). He has though about getting an analog to digital bridge so he can capture through standard firewire and then we thought that maybe getting an actual capture cards might be better cause he could then use it for editing, real time effects etc. He only has one IDE drive (No raid controller) and was told that the RT2500 would need to have a 3drive raid system setup before it could capture analog. Can anyone provide us with some advice as to what would be the best path to take to get analog into a digital format......on the cheap. The bridge costs about NZ$1000 (~US$500) and I have heard of editing cards about the same price but just need a bit of help deciding which way to go. Especially if he will need to get a raid setup also. Cheers Aaron

May 21st, 2002, 06:04 PM	#2
Chris Hurd Obstreperous Rex Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: San Marcos, TX Posts: 27,368 Images: 513	The Canopus ADVC-100 is a great analog/digital converter for about $250 US street price. Go to http://www.justedit.com/ppm_advc100.htm for more info. __________________ CH Search DV Info Net \| 20 years of DVi \| ...Tuesday is Soylent Green Day!

May 22nd, 2002, 01:38 AM	#3
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	I highly doubt you would need a RAID set, especially a 3 drives set (suggestion raid 5, which would be off almost no speed increase at all). Make sure your harddisk can at least sustain 10 mb/s and that it is defragmented. Preferably put video on a different partition or seperate drive if possible (from your OS). This is if you want to capture to either DV or MJPEG. If you want to do uncompressed you need at least 40 - 50 mb/s, which would require a striped IDE or SCSI raid set. Promise and adaptec make some nice IDE raid cards for not too much money. But then again you might also buy promise's normal IDE ATA 133 card with a fast UDMA 4, 5 or 6 harddisk to get that speed easily. (probably not 50 mb/s... I meant 10 - 30 mb /s) It all depends on how fast your (current) harddisk is. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors Last edited by Rob Lohman; May 22nd, 2002 at 06:47 AM.

May 22nd, 2002, 02:23 AM	#4
Shawn McBee Regular Crew Join Date: May 2002 Location: Sarasota, FL Posts: 69	When I was waiting until I could afford an XL1, I was using a Sony Handicam to shoot short films on and I used the Dazzle Hollywood DV-Bridge to convert my footage to DV for editing. It worked out really well for me and was only about $250.oo USD. BTW, if you get this, it's still a really good I dea to take the advice Rob left above. -Shawn Hollywood DV-Bridge info: http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html __________________ "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great." -Mark Twain