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Posted by Toby on 06/21/06 04:15
"Steve M" <nomail@for.me> wrote in message
news:AmRlg.920$222.826@fe10.lga...
> Next month I will be working in a booth on a convention floor. I will be
> in
> the position of having to receive bunches VHS tapes and DVDs from clients,
> and convert them to mpegs. I will play these mpegs in a playlist using
> media player, to a collection of monitors that plays throughout the day.
> I
> have a nice external Sony analog-to-DV box. My question is this - what is
> the best application for capturing DV video directly to mpeg? I am
> looking
> for a 4mbit mpeg or so as the final product, to split the difference
> between
> quality and filesize.
>
> The idea behind using media player is: Video runs fullscreen on monitors
> while PC stays showing a desktop. In this way the playlist can be added
> to
> or shuffled as needed while the videos play, providing a nonstop image to
> the booth.
>
> Thanks much,
> Steve
To get the VHSs onto the computer you'll need a capture card or an external
capture device. Lots of companies make them, and mostly they will capture
directly to mpeg1, 2 or 4. Some will capture directly to Divx as well. I
bought one from Leadtek for about $80 (external USB2) which works quite
well. There are many options for capturing with different codecs, bitrates,
etc.
DVDs are a bit different, since the VOB files can be copied directly onto
the computer. Of course you can go to analog--play through a player and
capture, but you can also use software, like Canopus Procoder, Tempgenc,
etc. to change your DVD files directly to mpeg. Basically I think you will
find that the software apps will give you somewhat better quality, but cards
and boxes with hardware conversion work much faster. My guess is that in
your situation you should look into a good capture device with hardware
encoder, which will allow you to convert either VHS or DVD (just plug the
correct machine in with standard RCA plugs, or you can even use a little AV
switcher) material to mpeg in real time.
If you need to edit what you capture, though, that is a different story
(such as trimming extraneous material off the top or tail). I believe that
there are a number of cheap apps that allow you to do this, some might even
be freeware. Hopefully someone else can fill you in on that.
Toby
Toby
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