OT: Component SD converters / capture capabilities that would work with a laptop

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/8/2005, 8:53 PM
First of all, before everyone laughs after reading my subject, I have a decent laptop (but I don't know if they make anything that will work with it.

Inspiron 9100 - P4 3.2 Ghz HT Proc. 7200 RPM HD (assuming that I would have to get high speed external HD to capture).

Now, what I want to know is if I can get an SDI capture converter made for a pcmcia slot or something of the sort. Or if the only converter that I can get ahold of would be a the SD-Connect (or HD-Connect when one comes out) with a IEEE1394 for transport meduim?

If anyone knows I would appreciate any help you can offer.

Dave

Comments

farss wrote on 1/8/2005, 9:54 PM
There's a few SDI to 1394 converters, Miranda makes one. Except the 1394 feed is DV25, doubt that's what you're after. For around the same money I think you can get the SD-Connect box which gives you a LOT more bang.
You'll need a pretty beefy laptop though or else go to an external HDD box.
Bob.
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/8/2005, 11:08 PM
I'm actually using the SD Connect WITH a laptop, working fine. Sending DV via 1394, converting to SDI and vice versa.
http://www.dvformat.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=28640
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/8/2005, 11:10 PM
Well, a Dell Inspiron is fairly hefty, but I doubt that I will have enough HD space. (what do you mean by HDD?)

NE suggestions (ie specifics)?

Dave
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/8/2005, 11:28 PM
Spot, how portable is the SD connect?
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/9/2005, 6:55 AM
"Un-compressed video and audio requires approximately 30 Mbytes/sec disk I/O for each stream"

1) How many video streams can it handle (only one or one per connection style)?
2) When it's capturing Component signal is that considered one stream or is that considered 3 streams, one for Y,Cr,Cb ?

Thanks to anyone that can help me out on this. (BTW, what are the odds that you could capture 30MB/sec to an external for a good long sustained period of time?)

Dave
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/9/2005, 7:41 AM
It's a rack mount device, so it's not all that small. It's very lightweight. I carry a 3space rack that holds the SD Connect and an Echo Layla, and with that, I'm totally set.
Coursedesign wrote on 1/9/2005, 11:39 AM
Uncompressed 4:2:2 YUV needs 23-30 MBytes/sec per stream depending on the codec.

The component interface is just a way to split up the signal. Y,Cr,Cb is also referred to as YUV (there can be a very slight difference between these, but not in practice today). Together they make up one video stream.

An external 10K RPM SATA drive can do 30MB/sec from beginning to end.

My $150 WD Raptors do about 63MB/sec at the beginning of the drive, but you must use a 50% safety margin with SATA drives as they slow down towards the end. Lots of things that can get screwed up here, and if the drive isn't ready when asked, you don't get just a little dropout...

With SCSI drives you only need a 20% margin, but those drives are way more expensive.
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/9/2005, 12:03 PM
would this work with an F-Store type of drive?
What's the Through put of these types of drives?
FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/9/2005, 4:16 PM
bump
Coursedesign wrote on 1/9/2005, 6:01 PM
Pardon my ignorance, what's an F-store type of drive?

Firestore?
Coursedesign wrote on 1/9/2005, 6:15 PM
Let me add that for true uncompressed video, it's not enough to have fast drives. You could install 15,000rpm Fibrechannel drives or even 200GB RAM drives (they do exist for those few people who need them), and you still couldn't shuffle uncompressed video on your desktop PC, never mind your laptop.

Why?

The incoming video comes in one interface, is transferred across some very fast bus, then gets encoded by the CPU using whatever codec you specify, then the result needs to be written to disk.

No desktop PC i have ever seen can get the data from the CPU to the disk controller fast enough. The problem is with slow chipsets and internal bottlenecks. So called "workstations" cost more money than regular PCs, but they are much better at shuffling data. Even with the same CPU as the PC, the difference is great.

The following are the minimum specs for 10-bit standard definition uncompressed video with the Decklink card I use:

Processor
Intel Dual Xeon 2.8Ghz or higher for Intel 7505 chipset based systems
or
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or higher for Intel 875p with 800MHz FSB

Motherboard
Intel 7505/7525/875p chipsets. These include motherboards such as
Supermicro X5DAE, X5DA8, X6DA8-G2 and P4SCT+II

PCI slots
64 bit PCI 33/66 MHz or PCI-X slots 100/133MHz

Memory
2 GB ECC 2100 RAM or DDR 400/333/266 SDRAM for 875p chipsets

Graphics card
AGP x 8 Graphics card (not Matrox )

Disk Arrays
SCSI - Ultra 160 or Ultra 320 SCSI card (either PCI or onboard); with at least 2 x U160 or U320 SCSI disks, 10,000 rpm, software striped as RAID [0], OR

SATA - SATA RAID card (either PCI or onboard); with at least 2 x SATA disks, 10,000 rpm, software striped as RAID [0].

Now you know why it's so tempting to compress at least a little bit...



FrigidNDEditing wrote on 1/9/2005, 6:24 PM
So, what you're saying is that the "uncompressed" feed coming out of the SD-Connect via IEEE is somewhat compressed.

Can 4:2:2 be considered uncompressed? or is that where the fault lies?

(Edit - "Uncompressed 4:2:2 YUV needs 23-30 MBytes/sec per stream depending on the codec." that makes this statement confusing.