DV Capture - How's YOUR quality? |
February, 01, 2003 10:42 AM |
cmills |
I'm having trouble getting the DV bits from my camera to a disk at full quality. How are you doing it? I'm having trouble with (a) dropping frames and (b) audio sync. OS: I have tried MacOS 9.1, Mac OS 9.2.x and Mac OS 10.2.x. MacOS9.x had extensions trimmed down, appletalk/tcp off, etc. (ConflictCatcher is wonderful.) SW: I have tried Final Cut Pro 1.5.x and Adobe Premiere 6.5 HW: I have tried on my PowerTower Pro Sonnet G4/800 and on a Tibook 667Mhz. I have tried a rather large number of combinations from above. I have tried Final Cut Pro 1.5 and Adobe Premiere 6.5. Premiere has done a little bit better. But both of them drifted more than 5 seconds on audio sync in less than 20 minutes. (full quality at 48Mhz aud) Apple FCP support was very nice but underwhelming -- mostly "gee, that's too bad. Don't capture large chunks of video". Of course, since the short chunks are even worse at dropping frames and I have THOUSANDS of clips, capturing and recapturing clips by hand is not only hard on me, but hard on the camera. My Usual Hardware (for which I did NOT seek Apple support): Sony TRV-900 camera. PowerTower Pro Sonnet G4/800Mhz, 1GB memory, Radeon 7000 video, OrangeMicro FW/USB card (second version with faster chipset), Nice fast internal IBM SCSI Disk (20GB) for capture (should be no problem there), separate (original) 2GB disk for system (also internal). A couple of other things in the machine (Asante FastEthernet Card, inactive ancient miroMotionDC30+ which was ok with my NewerTech G3/9.1 system but crashes with my recent Sonnet G4/9.2.2 oldworld upgrade) Supported Hardware (which did NOT work): TiBook 667Mhz, 1GB memory, original 30GB disk partitioned so that DV goes to its OWN partition. The TiBook doesn't see the Sony TRV-900 through a Firewire Hub nor when daisychained, I had to run off the same disk I was capturing to, which Apple assures me IS supported -- since that's the only config you can use. I also borrowed a third party Firewire PC card thinking I could use a second firewire bus -- but the TiBook refused to see the second bus. This bad experience does not confirm Apple's claim that the TiBook 667Mhz can be used as a field editing machine. |
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RE: DV Capture - How's YOUR quality? |
February, 04, 2003 12:24 PM |
earlyd416 |
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I've been doing some research on this very subject. First, here's a good site to start with for general info - vcdhelp.com (add the ususal prefix). Although the site is targeted mainly to Windows & Lunix PeeCee, there is a Mac forum. Read their beginners section articles. Second, most hardware & s/w suffer from the audio synch problem except the $1000 plus boards & s/w combo's. From what I've been able to understand, it's the conversion from the analog source to the digital that causes the synching problem, not the iMovie or iDVD s/w. Third, the only reasonably priced item that doesn't have the synch problem for videos >20 minutes is the Canopus AVDC-100, selling for a street price of $285. Check out their website. I'm finally goning to buy one of these units. All of the above is what I've learned from searching the 'net and going to the library and reading photo & audio/video magazines articles. Hope this helps. --Dwight |
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RE: DV Capture - How's YOUR quality? |
February, 03, 2003 1:13 PM |
marcush |
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I have excellent results capturing video on my Power Tower Pro. I see an occasional dropped frame but recapturing the clip(s)works every time. My configuration is similar to yours, with the exception that I don't have any internal SCSI devices anymore. I run the OS from an 80GB WD SE ATA/100 7200rpm drive and capture to a dedicated 120GB IBM 120GXP ATA/100 7200rpm drive. I'm running X 10.2.3 and I use iMovie 2.1.2 to batch capture clips and then edit the files using Final Cut Pro 3.0.4. My camera is a Cannon ZR20. My system specs: Power Tower Pro; Sonnet G4 800, 1GB RAM, Sonnet Tempo ATA/100, MacSense 10/100 ethernet, Ratoc Firewire/USB2.0 combo, and Radeon Mac Edition 32MB PCI in the bottom slot. There are two things that come to mind. Is the Tempo Trio in the top PCI slot? Placing it closer to the processor ensures that it gets maximum bandwidth on the PCI bus. If it is then the other thing that occurs to me is that since there are three high bandwidth interfaces on the same card then this might be the source of the dropped frame/audio sync problem. On the other hand, I have performance problems with iMovie 3, i.e., video frame skipping and audio dropouts, and generally sluggish performance. Final Cut Pro, however, has no problems. After searching around this morning on various Mac websites I am relieved to know that these problems are widespread across the entire lineup of current Macs. As for the TiBook having this trouble, I am surprised. I have not used one for this purpose personally but that is supposed to be a big selling point. |
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RE: DV Capture - How's YOUR quality? |
February, 01, 2003 5:58 PM |
spharrin |
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By the way, I have a Sonnet Tempo Trio and a Canon ZR40. Thanks, Steve |
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RE: DV Capture - How's YOUR quality? |
February, 01, 2003 5:52 PM |
spharrin |
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I have bad experiences with DV capture in OS X on my G4/800 upgraded 7500. I always get dropped frames and meant to ask the same question. Any suggestions from anyone? |
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