Hello Jeff, >What I've got is a bunch of video tapes in the 3/4" (? or is that 1", the stuff from the 70's)<
Probably composite video. I doubt if digitizing uncompressed gives you any advantage over DV or M-JPEG here. If it is component video, then yes, uncompressed would be a little better. If the quality of the tapes is still OK they deserve MPEG2 compression (MPEG1 is about VHS quality). With QuickTime Player Pro and the MPEG2 export component (a separate purchase) you can archive as MPEG2 on CD-R or DVD-R. These files can be importedly directly by DVD authoring software if you decide to create DVD's from your footage in the future. A program like iDVD accepts any QuickTime format. The most convenient way to digitize is to use DV & Firewire (PCI card needed). If you want to use the Old World stuff then you will either need a M-JPEG card or else use the 8500 and my little app JES Movie RAID. Assuming you've got two UW SCSI disks already (or one 15000 rpm speed devil) then you don't need to spend a penny. JES Movie RAID is not disk RAID software. It just creates a movie file on each disk and writes frames to them in turn. Very fast! Forget about SoftRAID. A software RAID isn't fast enough for this particular purpose. I tried that venue. I don't know anything about the VVS. Does it output M-JPEG or uncompressed? If you digitize sound separately the trick is too digitize a quarter size video as well. Without it getting the audio and video in sync can be surprisingly hard. BTW, can you (or anyone else) explain what is the limiting factor in PCI bus speed? Formally the bus should be capable of 33MHz x 32 bit = 132 MB/sec but I haven't been able to push it further than 21 MB/sec. Jan. (Apologies for the poor formatting. I should ditch my CompuServe mail software but I really like it otherwise. I wish there was a mail box on a web site where I could enter my posts). -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
