techonologicalistical tipz

[ozbash]

hey willow. when you capture your pics off a televised game, is it off your tv or video?
if its your tv, how do you do it?
your unparralelled knowledge would be appreciated........
p/s see you are 6th !!

 

[Willow]

Grasshopper, you seek knowledge? Techonologicalistical wizardry only comes with sacrifice... and money.

I use a video capture card which you have to buy and install into a free port inside your computer. You probably know that much already.
My vid capture card cost $250 about 4 years back so really anyone can do this.

I plug it into my VCR and play back the game later.
The VCRs have RCA outlets for sound and video. Your video capture card and sound card should also have RCA sockets. I just hook them up and use the software to spin the magic.
I can see and hear the game on my computer. Therefore, I can record sound files and/or capture still frames. It's pretty easy really.
I can also capture video footage but this is forbidden for the impatient and is an art which should only be practiced only by the enlightened ones.

I guess you could do the same off the TV but it how would you know when to hit the capture button? Too much guess work. VCR is the way to go.
Our VCR used to missing every weekend and I was getting the glare everytime I took it into computer room. I ended buying another VCR...but that's another story.
Do you have cable? I say this because the capture is only as good as the source. My pics improved a lot when I had a sharper signal.
Once captured, the pics have to be undergo the procedure known in the Willow academy as the 'three-Cs'
Cropped, Compressed and Converted (into jpg). You need an image program like Paint Shop Pro but there are loads of different programs. I use PSP because it's simple and it's free. If you can't get the free version let me I 'll send it to you.
One final hint...before we move onto the scolding pot... try to capture pics which have plenty of light... be it sun light or bright night lights. These pics always come out the best.
Let me know if there's any other questions. Always happy to answer.

 

[ozbash]

thankyou master.
we have the necessary goodies, capture card ,firewire etc etc.
what we were trying to do was plug our camera into the tv and record straight onto the camera.
we should do this via the vcr but sold it on fri. after reading the sony book we need a "s-video"cable.
we then download,capture and either print the vid on cd or store in hard drive.
you obviously transfer tv to p/c. is that right?

more goodies arriving tomorrow but i was just trying to record the warriors v dogs game.

 

[ozbash]

btw oh knowledgeble one. what format are dvd,s printed in? you the ordinary person with a cd writer create dvd?

 

[ozbash]

that should be "can the ordinary person"

 

[Willow]

As always, I'm seek to climb the mountain of enlightenment but DVDs are too fangle for me.
I understand that putting your footage onto CD or DVD is the way to go because it's better quality but be warned, the buffer memory demands are enormous. It can be very time consuming.
Actually, we were talking about this just today. My father bought a DVD /CD player/writer for his computer and I guees I'll know more as I look at it on the weekend visits.
I always go for the simple looking stuff but my father has turned this into a retirement pastime.
I thought I heard him whisper, 'One day all this will be yours, son.'
Anyway, I decided to go on one those learning curves after the footy season finished.
To answer your question, I do have a CD burner and no it won't play or copy DVD.

On the other thing, I've got a Sony Camera too and I plug in into the VCR or the TV via the RCA outlets and inlets.

IMO, you still need to get a VCR.... I think....

 

[ozbash]

thank you again master.
we just got a new p/c with a 30gb hard drive, my mrs made up a video cd for her bro and got 39 min of video on the cd,which took up 2/3 of the cd,s space.
running our p/c we usually have about 4gb tied up with all our crap,pics, music,browsers etc.
the 39 min vid took 9gb (uncompressed), so the hard drive should handle it.
its a beautiful ,crystal clear quality and even full screen it,s better than a tv picture.
we get a dvd and new vcr tomorrow.
i start the ozbash video and dvd creation co the next day.
i think its down to formatmyself.

i find it a very exciting method of recording and will be compiling a video "the adventures of ozbash" and will send it across the tassie for a sneak preview.
cheers.....

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Ozbash, DVD uses pretty much the same file formats as a lot of PC video (MPEG) so caputuring from DVD isn't a problem, as long as you have a DVD-Rom drive in your PC (about $300, replaces your CD-ROM and also reads CDs) and a lot of hard drive space. A DVD holds up to 6GB of data though, so you need a lot of HDD space, thats why your video CD could only hold 39min, as a CD-R only has 650MB of space. As you've noted uncompressed video is a HUGE space hog, my mate does professional editing and the new system he is putting together has 120GB of HDD space. As for writing DVDs, DVD writers (DVD-RAM) are expensive, rare, and the blanks are VERY expensive, so you're better off sticking to CD-R.
What you can do is to compress your video to MPEG-4 format, which allows you to fit around 90 minutes of near DVD quality video onto a CD-R. You'll need a program like FlaskMPEG to do this. The only drawback of MPEG4 is the massive amount of processing power required, it takes hours to render a 90min section (basically you have to start the render and let it run overnight) and you'll need at least a 600MHz PIII, Athlon or Duron CPU plus 128MB of RAM and a decent video card to ensure smooth playback.
An alternativre to a dedicated capture card is a video card that hasvideo in and out built onto it, these are available for around $500 for one based on a Geforce 2 MX chipset and mean you don't have to use an extra PCI slot, and are are worthwile investment if your video card could do with an upgrade as well. Capture quality is pretty good, although not quite up to professional standard.

 

[ozbash]

cheersspacemonkey.
that was very helpful
our computer is pretty much up to spec,and the other half no doubt will suss out the flaskmpeg thing.

 

[Willow]

No worries Tony,
Looks like you're away and racing...
Be sure to include me on your mailing list. )