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You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Art & Graphic Design > Video recording to Powerbook then burn to DVD

Video recording to Powerbook then burn to DVD
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Sinemacula
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Aug 27, 2004, 03:56 AM
 
Until recently I've been videotaping sessions with clients using a VHS camcorder, and then giving the tapes to the clients when done. My camcorder just bit the dust, and I've decided it's time to "upgrade" my whole way of doing this. So, I want to record my sessions (which can be as long as 5hrs) directly to my hard drive, and then burn them to DVD(s) which I can then send to my clients later (I'm thinking the burning will take too long to do on the spot at the end of the session).

So, I'm looking for advice on the best way to do this.

Here's what I've discovered so far:

1. I can use Quicktime Broadcaster to record from either an iSight or a miniDV camera. Using the miniDV, I have to have it recording to tape also or else it shuts down after a few minutes. The best quality video is recorded with no compression, but that looks like it will take a lot of HD space for a 5hr session. Also, in my test, QT Broadcaster quit every once in a while saying the drive was full, when it still had plenty of room.

2. Vidi (a freeware video recorder for OS X) will record a DV stream directly to the hard drive. It does not recognize the iSight, but does work with the miniDV camera. There are no options for compression, and no controls for sound (e.g. mic gain, etc.). The DV stream will obviously take a lot of disk space.

3. BTVPro - I tried a few different compression codecs, but it didn't seem to make a difference in file size (i.e. didn't seem to do the compression - 30 seconds of recording was over 500MB for every codec I tried).

4. GCam - The picture quality doesn't seem to be as good as with QT Broadcaster, regardless of codec.

One other detail - I need to be able to type on my Powerbook at the same time as the video recording is going on.

What I'm wondering:
- if anyone has any other ideas I should try?
- would this work with a firewire HD to record to? (it would have to be between the camera and the Powerbook)
- any idea why QT Broadcaster thought the drive was full?

Thanks,
Scott
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz; 4GB RAM; 23" Cinema Display
iPhone
Mac OS X 10.5.4
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k_munic
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Aug 27, 2004, 06:18 AM
 
just to mention a few things:

1h of .dv stream quality means est. 12Gigabytes! - you must have a mighty powerbook ;-)

most edit prgs as iMovie, Final Cut (Express) recognize a camcorder as a camera for "live" taping�

some camcorders fall into standby to beware the heads inside of damaging the tape; trick is: don't put a tape inside (works in sonys)

picture quality of a iSight is "below" dv (not in technical terms, in esthetics) - so, has it to be dv?

you can use external digitizers as the formac studio (which is just dv) or some usb connected devices, which offer - limited by the bottleneck usb - just mpg1 quality.

some people recognize trouble (drop outs etc) with re-routing the fw - stream comes from camcorder, goes into the mac, is played back to hd.

producing a dvd means to computate the recordings into a muxxed mpeg2 stream - the bigger the machine the faster, a dual G5 is able to that in realtime - which is for 5h ... wait a minute.... ;-)

btw: you cannot compress 5h video onto 4,4,Gb DVD-R... wait a year for dual layer dvd-r (actual price in europe: 14� - each!)
     
Uncle Skeleton
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Aug 27, 2004, 11:10 AM
 
If you're going to be going to DVD without editing, you're going to get a big advantage out of something that encodes directly to MPEG-2 in hardware (it will take a lot less hard drive and processor resources from your pbook while recording and you won't have to reprocess after you capture). The only external device I know of that does this is the later EyeTV models. See if you can get them to read from your camera (they're designed for TV captures, so they might just have coax as input; I don't know, I've never seen one in real life). Trust me, this will be a huge advantage, especially once you stop experimenting and want it to just work each time.
     
Sinemacula  (op)
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Aug 27, 2004, 12:08 PM
 
Originally posted by k_munic:
just to mention a few things:

1h of .dv stream quality means est. 12Gigabytes! - you must have a mighty powerbook ;-)
Yeah, that's why I was thinking about the external FW drive! Imagine if I had several sessions while on the road... jeeze now that I think about it, I'd need a suitcase of FW drives, or tons of time to get them all onto DVDs between sessions!

some camcorders fall into standby to beware the heads inside of damaging the tape; trick is: don't put a tape inside (works in sonys)
Ah, thanks, I'll give that a try.

producing a dvd means to computate the recordings into a muxxed mpeg2 stream - the bigger the machine the faster, a dual G5 is able to that in realtime - which is for 5h ... wait a minute.... ;-)
Yikes!!! I hadn't even thought of that -- thanks for the reminder!

btw: you cannot compress 5h video onto 4,4,Gb DVD-R... wait a year for dual layer dvd-r (actual price in europe: 14� - each!)
I figured I'd split the sessions into 2 or 3 DVDs, depending on length.

Originally posted by Uncle Skeleton:
If you're going to be going to DVD without editing, you're going to get a big advantage out of something that encodes directly to MPEG-2 in hardware (it will take a lot less hard drive and processor resources from your pbook while recording and you won't have to reprocess after you capture). The only external device I know of that does this is the later EyeTV models. See if you can get them to read from your camera (they're designed for TV captures, so they might just have coax as input; I don't know, I've never seen one in real life). Trust me, this will be a huge advantage, especially once you stop experimenting and want it to just work each time.
I'll look into that, and the Formac, and any others I can find.

Thanks guys for the suggestions!!
MacBook Pro 2.4GHz; 4GB RAM; 23" Cinema Display
iPhone
Mac OS X 10.5.4
______________________________________
If you don't know where you want to go, any road will take you there.
     
   
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