[MacDV] digi VHs

[Mark M. Florida]

Now it all makes sense...  ;-)

Sounds like you need to sell the 7500 and get a DV camcorder and/or DV
converter.  The results will be much better, and you can do it all on your
eMac and save A LOT of time.  And if you get a DV camcorder, you won't have
to worry about shooting more video on VHS and dealing with that in the
future...

What frame size are you able to capture with your 7500?  With a DV setup,
the resolution will be 720x480 (same as DVD), and the compression is all
done in the hardware -- so it's reliable, and the DV codec has proven itself
over the years.  With your current setup on your 7500, all of the
compression is done via software, so if your computer can keep up and
compress it reliably, then I guess that's good.

>From my past experiences working with my 7600 and 8500, I've only been able
to get 1/4 screen video to capture reliably -- 320x240, and it EATS up drive
space because to get a decent frame rate, you have to use a mild-compression
codec (like component video) since all of the compression is done in
software rather than hardware.

To respond to some of the questions below:

>> And if you're running an older system with the built-in AV digitizer,
> 
> the inputs, but they are just a conduit, no?

That's correct -- but they rely entirely on your CPU and software to do the
compression -- a DV converter does the compression in the box via hardware,
as does a DV/D8 camcorder, resulting in a more reliable setup.
 
>> you're
>> not going to get even close to VHS quality out of it.
> 
> Even w/ the 450 GS? I was curious about the built-in ports.
> Analog sound & S-video - is there any reason they should not be good?

If your frame size is less than 640x480, it's not going to look good.  DV is
720x480 resolution (with vertically rectangular pixels to "squeeze" it into
the same ratio as 640x480), so resolution is not an issue when going from
VHS-DV since VHS only has like 300 lines of horizontal resolution (or
something like that), where DV has 480.

> I use them as I dont have a way to get video into my eMac, heh. There is
> a Firewire card in the 7500 & I capture to an external FW drive

FireWire converter/camcorder + eMac = easiest/fastest/best quality solution

>> - DV camcorder or DV/FireWire bridge
> 
> so that is my question - will that somehow be an improvement over
> capturing using the 7500 sound & S-video ports? I use BTV for the capture
> & am using Motion j-peg compression - is there a better choice for the
> initial capture/ compression

DV = Better/easier/faster

>> This will give you the ability to transfer your VHS tapes in all their VHS
>> graininess
> 
> haha yeah, but when that is all you got & ya wanna save it, graininess is
> no crime...
> I then import into all the free tools I have for my emac

I hear ya -- I have shelves full of old footage on VHS that I need to
"rescue" before the tapes disintegrate... With graininess and all.  ;-)
 
>> Hope that all helps
> 
> yes indeed, thanks. But to clarify for me -  even someone importing
> direct from digicam or whatever will currently also have to face the 2
> gig Imovie limit if they use that tool? Must be the reason people buy a
> better tool I guess....

When importing into iMovie directly (via FireWire/DV), the only thing that
happens when a file gets to the 2 GB limit is iMovie *automatically* starts
a new clip, which will play seamlessly when put back together in the
timeline -- but this will only happen if you have one single shot that's
longer than 9 minutes -- iMovie automatically separates clips when it
detects a "break" in the footage (when you pause the camcorder when
shooting).  So really, it's not an issue when you do all of the work
directly in iMovie (importing, editing, exporting).

Hope that helps again.

- Mark