Suggestions on hardware and formats

chastan wrote on 10/29/2001, 4:38 PM
I already own Video Factory 1.0

Here is my project, a 5 minute video of which 3 minutes will be made up of short (10-20 sec) movie clips from DVD or VCR. Last 2 minutes will be of still photos and audio songs, taped interviews. Output will ultimatly be a video projector (10x10 screen) so resolution needs to be high. This will be via VCR tape or some computer format via CDR.

Here are my questions for you experts out there.
1. I need to purchase a capture device for the video. I am considering ATI All-In-Wonder 32MB graphics card/capture or is there a
2. What is the best formats to use and what output format will give me hightest quality? mpeg-2?, AVI?

Thank you in advance for your advise.

John
chastan@visitmadison.com

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 10/29/2001, 5:23 PM
Well, from my own personal experience with the ATI cards, i would
definately steer you away from them. I have never gotten a useful
capture from either the AllInWonder or the Rage Fury Pro. I get up to
60% dropped frames, the resulting file runs the wrong speed, and the
audio & video aren't anywhere close to being in sync. They're really just
a disaster for capturing.

The best choice we've seen reported in the forums so far is the Sony
DVMC-DA2 external converter box, which lets you connect an analog
video & audio signal to a firewire port on your computer and capture it
as if it was a DV signal. It's very clean and stable, and just plain works.
It is a little pricey though; most of us have been paying around $300
for it. You also need a firewire card and cable, which can add another
$75 or so. However, the results are more than worth it.

The other capture card i've used is the Hauppauge WinTV. It was only
$70 at OfficeMax, and i got very good captures from it. My only
problem was the lack of stability of the software. It seems like i had to
reinstall it often, and it would take many hours of tweaking to get it
running again. I think in the two years i've used it, i've spent twice as
much time futzing with it as i have actually capturing video.

The short videos that i've made for projection i've rendered as MPEG 2
at 9800Kbps video and 160Kbps audio. This combination allows you to
have almost 9 minutes on a CD, and is about the same quality as a
DVD. Most CD/DVD drives won't play a CD-R or CD-RW fast enough
though, so you'll have to copy the .mpg file to the projection computer's
hard drive first for smooth playback.

I usually use Windows MediaPlayer 7 to project the video. Keep in mind
though that MediaPlayer doesn't have an MPEG 2 codec. The computer
we use at the church for projection has VideoFactory installed, so at least
there MediaPlayer uses the Ligos MPEG 2 codec. (ps, you didn't hear it
from me, but you can install the Ligos codec on your projection computer
to add the MPEG codec to it. shhhhhh. I don't know if it violates the
license agreement or not, since it's only being used for playback ...) If
your computer has a DVD drive, then it probably has some sort of MPEG
playback software already installed. Most DVD drives come with a free
copy of CyberLink PowerDVD, and this can be used to play back media
files quite nicely.

I've seen SonicFoundry's techs recommend WindowsMedia format as
their primary choice. I've tried it, it's ok, especially if you want or need
much smaller files or longer playing times. But for best quality it just
can't beat MPEG 2 at 9800.

If you're going to be using a VCR instead of a computer to run the
projector, either of the ATI cards mentioned or the Sony converter box
will let you output your video to tape. One thing i've noticed about the
ATI's video out though, even tough it's a very clean and colorful signal,
the picture seems to be somewhat squashed vertically, so everyone
will look kinda short & fat. Once again the Sony DVMC-DA2 is a far
better choice, especially since it will also provide an S-Video signal.