[MacDV] Re: Hog Heaven: QuickTime Video through FireWire

[Mark M. Florida]

>> And no matter what your video
>> drops to the analog realm going from one DV device to another, resulting in
>> multiple A/D conversions:
>> 
>> Digital -> (D-A conversion) -> Analog -> (A-D conversion) -> Digital
> 
> You don't need to go to analog if you just pump out through
> the FireWire into another Mac...

Just some thoughts...

You would think that would work in theory, but there are two problems with
that method:

1.  I don't think Macs generally like being connected this way unless you
are using one in "Target Disk Mode" which kind of defeats the purpose.

2.  The whole point of the D -> A -> D workaround was specifically for MPEG
video, which doesn't send the audio through the DV stream with the video,
but rather through the Mac's speaker output.  Any other non-MPEG video will
send the audio through the DV stream via FireWire to the DV camera, so the
Digital -> Analog -> Digital workaround is not necessary in that case.

And one problem with the SimpleVideoOut software:

S-L-O-W playback...  Only 2-3 fps on a G4/500 anyway -- maybe it works fine
on a dual 1.42 GHz G4... Or maybe DV format clips play through fine, but any
other format (codec) clip stutters horribly with this software.  I've seen
other utilities that supposedly do the same thing...  Wonder if they work
any better?

> -- Erica
> p.s. Pity about the MPEG-1. I'm going to try it myself later...

Why has Apple crippled it so much?  Even after paying $20 for the MPEG-2
playback component, the audio is not extractable/convertable...  Dumb.

- Mark