min pc requirements for camcorder to dvd

What are the minimum cpu requirements for an xp system when you want to
download movies from a digital camera that uses hi8 tapes and you want it
converted to dvd format on the fly, i.e you don't have to download and then
convert from the avi format to dvd format, I hope it is clear what I am
asking. And it would be using a firewire port rather than usb.

 

Well for starters A analog vidieo capture card would be a starting
point. With mpg/mpg2 hardware encoding! now a Old Athlon 900MHz
processor clocked at 990MHz is fast enough with 7200rpm ATA100's drives
on a ATA33 bus to capture Raw AVI.

I have found everything I have captured needes editing any way. so
working from AVI to mpg/mpg2 so It does the edit colour and correction
at the time of re encoding, I Let the thing run over night and a big
80+GIG hard drive helps too.

Now for ramblings TMPGEnc runs much better in a wine envrroment under
Linux than in windows But Bugger If I can get the Video capture to go in
Linux (But I havent realy Tryed).
--
http://cooze.co.nz home of the RecyclerMan aka Robert Cooze

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/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / _-' / __/ / / / /_/ / / /| / _-'
___\ ____/ ____/ /___/ /____/ /_/ ___\ ____/ /_/ /_/ |_/ /___/

 

Get a good PCI dedicated card. Look at the Pinnacle 700 studio unit,
regarded as the market leader, for "serious home users". Not sure about
the USB one, I would have preferred firewire but they dont seem
available anymore. Lots of the LE, SE or lite editing software is pretty
crappy.

If you are looking for a new PC for this, I would suggest a Mac and
imovie, get a builtin superdrive (dvd burner) and you are away.

or for PC's.......I notice it says XP, guess that leaves me out....

|

While AMD chips are the best for general use, Intel chips seem to excel
in video and sound work. So if you want a new box and not a Mac,
carefully look at some reviews online looking for ones with Pinnacle or
similar software as part of the test routine, you will probably find the
Intel CPU is the best pick.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSi...l+Specifications/Technical+Specifications.htm

Minimum System Requirements

Windows XP SP1 or higher
Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon 1.4 GHz or higher (2.4 GHz or higher
recommended)
512MB RAM (1 GB recommended. 1 GB required for HD)
DirectX 9 or higher compatible graphics card with 32 MB (ATI Radeon or
NVIDIA GeForce 3 or higher with 128 MB recommended for SD. 128 MB
required for 720p HD. 256 MB required for 1080i HD)
DirectX 9 or higher compatible sound card (Creative Audigy or M-Audio
recommended)
1 GB of disk space to install software + 3 GB to install bonus content
1 USB 2.0 port
DVD-ROM drive
Optional:
CD-R(W) burner for creating Video CDs or Super Video CDs*
DVD-/+R(W) burner drive for creating DVDs*
Sound card with Surround Sound output required for preview of Surround
Sound mixes


Hardware Specifications

700-USB Inputs:
Composite video input (RCA connector) PAL, SECAM, NTSC
S-Video input (mini-DIN connector) PAL, SECAM, NTSC
Stereo audio input (2 x RCA connectors)
IEEE 1394 I/O connector (6-pin type)
700-USB Outputs:
Composite video output (RCA connector) PAL, NTSC
S-Video output (mini-DIN connector) PAL, NTSC
Stereo audio output (2 x RCA connectors)
IEEE 1394 I/O connector (6-pin type)
700-USB Analog Video Capture and Output:
Analog PAL & SECAM/NTSC input
DV (IEEE 1394) camcorder capture 25Mbit/s. Full camera control support
Compression: MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DV, MJPEG (User selectable. Available
real-time capture formats depend on CPU speed) 700-USB Video Playback
from Computer:
Analog PAL / NTSC output
DV (IEEE 1394) output to camcorder 25Mbit/s. Full camera/device control
support


Export Formats

Video CD (VCD) or Super Video CD (S-VCD)* with optional CD-R or CD-RW drive
DVD* with optional DVD-R(W) DVD-/+R(W) drive
DV, AVI, DivX **, RealVideo 8, Windows Media 9, MPEG-1, MPEG-2*,
MPEG-4** files
Dolby Digital Audio 2 channel* & 5.1 channel**


Import Formats

Video: DV, HDV*, AVI MPEG-1, MPEG-2*, DivX**, MPEG-4 (AVI)**, Windows
Media Format, Non-encrypted DVD Titles**
Audio: WAV, MP3
Graphic: BMP, JPG, PCT, TGA, TIF, WMF

 

hi8 is a digital format so no analog capture is necessary, sorry for your
unnecessary answer, I had not thought it necessary to further explain it any
further than I did.

 

The last reply was actually from graviton not upupup, sorry about any
confusion.

 

I don't think he would need an analogue capture video card if I
understand him correctly.
Just a firewire card, or built in, the codec is in the digital camera.
The downloaded files are already encoded as mpeg2.
So what is required is an editing application and a dvd authoring
application.

http://www.doom9.org/ has useful tutorials and guides

 

Thanks but normally the downloaded files are encoded in avi unless you have
a fast enough cpu for on the fly encoding and it is the cpu requirements for
this task that I need to know, i presume a large harddrive is not needed if
you encode on the fly and I presume you can still edit the dvd encoded
video.

 

Digital8 cameras use DV compression to encode their images onto tape, if
the files are transferred via firewire like miniDV, they are already
compressed.
..avi is a container format, an avi file may contain audiovisual data in
all sorts of compression formats.

Avid have a free entry level editor which may suit you
http://www.avid.com/freeDV/index.asp
with the system requirements
http://www.avid.com/freedv/sysRequire.asp

Here is a guide from the site mentioned previously that covers the
various steps from dv to dvd.

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/dv/guide.html

 

No, that is only the case with the new HD DV cams (which use MPEG2 to
fit HD content on the miniDV tapes). His video will almost certainly be
encoded as DV video with 48khz PCM audio when he captures them. This
format is usually stored in an avi file. To store it directly as mpeg2,
encoding on the fly is needed. This would require a powerful machine and
the right software, unless you have a hardware mpeg2 encoder. However
with a large harddrive this is not necessary, from memory DV is about
230mb per minute, so a 60minute tape would need less than 14gb.

Preferably one with a good MPEG2 encoder. I like Sony's Vegas, which
will capture the video etc for you, supports widescreen and works well
with Sony DVD Architect, which can encode MPEG2 and AC3 (without AC3
support your audio options are limited to PCM, which wastes space, or
MPEG audio, and I can't be sure of this but from memory some DVD players
don't like it.)

Definately, but they tend to be aimed towards those using free tools.
Good software should come with detailed manuals etc.

 

Thanks a lot David for clearing that up, you actually answered another
question that i had wondered about, I had suspected that the new dv cameras
stored video in mpeg2 format which to me means the older cameras have a
better quality of raw video data and therefore more flexibility etc... You
also anticipated my question on how much data per minute comes from a hi8
digital video camera.
My only other question at this time would be where I could find info on how
long different cpu's take to render video in an application like I intend to
use, this will help me gauge what cpu will be worth getting for me as it
sounds like i won't be getting a machine fast enough for on the fly
encoding, I am looking at upgrading my machine on a very tight budget or not
at all if the differences in video rendering times are not significant
enough.

 

I used to use my Celeron 1100, 512MB RAM with 60GB ATA100 HDD...never a lost
frame. That was using Premiere.

BB
NZ

 

Im Sorry I thought the Hi8 and 8mm were a analoge setup as in reality
the 8mm system seems to have gone away. Even if it is a digital system
what If the camcorder does not support the digital out?
--
http://cooze.co.nz home of the RecyclerMan aka Robert Cooze

/ __/ / / / / /__ / / ___/ / __/ / / / |/ / /__ /
/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / _-' / __/ / / / /_/ / / /| / _-'
___\ ____/ ____/ /___/ /____/ /_/ ___\ ____/ /_/ /_/ |_/ /___/

 

Yep.

 

Assuming that the Hi8 video is in digital, and assuming it can be
downloaded to the PC, is it not possible to transcode to MPEG2 (albeit
slowly) simply using the CPU?

Just curious.

 

From memory hi8 can be used for both analog or digital recording. All
digital camcorders would have digital out I presume.

 

Wow would not have thought that was anywhere near fast enough, as far as I
know my p3 550MHz would not be anywhere near fast enough, I would really
like to know though how long it takes to render with my cpu compared to a
bottom of the range new cpu.

 

Yes, but the problem is that the camera will only output the data at one
rate (the speed the tape plays), and if the PC can't keep up you will
have dropped frames.

 

Only if you're attempting to "capture" the video stream.

If it's already in digital format, and you can transfer it to the PC via
IEE1394/firewire, then why would you need to transcode it in realtime?

Unless you're saying that your PC would be too slow to keep up with what
is effectively a constant rate file transfer from the camcorder?

 

Data streams in at 216 MB / minute roughly. From experience, an Athlon
XP2600 system with 512 MB of RAM is nearly but not quite fast enough to
encode this to DVD in real time.

 

No, Hi8 is analog, but in a digital camcorder it will be converted to
digital at the firewire port.