[MacDV] Re: video for lounge--MacDV Digest, Vol 11, Issue 10

[Ted Langdell]

Ted Langdell
Ted Langdell Creative Broadcast Services
Marysville, CA
Main:  	(530) 741-1212

Hi, Brad,

You don't say what "ambient" video means in this situation... but there 
are some better mousetraps to do what you want.

Do a google search for video DJ software.  That's a better way to let 
you program things without having to do as much work as you would to 
bring things into FCP.

Like audio DJ or radio automation software, this kind of software t 
will let you create playlists (as you indicated you want to do) from 
the files you store on your Mac, and then will control playback to your 
output device.

A playlist based setup will let you change what plays a lot more easily 
than dragging things into an FCP timeline and then "locking in" the 
content in that timeline.

Since you can't directly edit from your DVD collection, you need to 
either:

Convert the files by software means to something you can either play 
via the VJ software, and hope you don't lose quality on the trip... or

Play the DVD's into, say, an Analog to Firewire converter or camcorder 
that'll let you do that, and then save the files to hard disk as DV 
files. Play those through the VJ software if it'll let you play through 
the same FW to Analog converter or camcorder... or

or convert to a file format requiring less hard drive space and again, 
hope you don't lose quality on playout.

If your Mac's video card has an S-Video out, you might be able to play 
out of that and into a modulator to feed the television sets around 
your lounge.

Your VJ software will probably dictate what video cards will work (or 
your card will dictate what VJ software you can use.)

Do some investigation and you'll probably find out what will work best 
in your situation.

Hope this helps,

Ted.


On Jun 27, 2005, at 5:03 PM, 
macdv-request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:08:07 -0400
> From: Brad Lamm <bradlamm at gmail.com>
> Subject: [MacDV] newbie question
> To: macdv at listserver.themacintoshguy.com
> Message-ID: <0c758c38bac56223d20e98b9a8f9ff5c at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
>
> I've been on doing digital video for years on my mac - though only now
> delving in to digivid due to improvements in compression really as it
> applies to my needed application.
>
> I'm working on a project by which I program a audio/video block for my
> lounge in South Beach. My goal is to:
>
> 1) build playlist in FCP (or other, better program?), then export to a
> good-viewable format on 36" TVs to play from a DVR.
>
> 2) playlist is made of audio mp3 on audio track w/ ambient video on vid
> track for say ten minutes, then put in two music videos (audio&video
> tracks), followed by mp3 on audio track w/ ambient video on vid track,
> and so on.
>
> The TVs the DVR will broadcast on are 36" non-HDTV. I need to import my
> DVD collection of 1000 music videos to hard disk, but am unsure what
> format which will still be good visually. MPEG-2? MPEG-4? Then what
> format should I export my playlist to? Export to Quick Time Pro?
>
> I'm working on a G5, dual 2.3 w/ 8 gb RAM, and lots of hard disk space.
>
> I have most of the editing programs available.
>
> I got the equiptment to edit a video of my grandma's funeral - when
> this idea came to me. I've been workign digital video for years on my
> macs, but this jump to video is relatively new.
>
> Any help will be appreciated!
>
>
>
> Brad Lamm
> bradlamm at gmail.com
>