>When in school, I had videos recorded of my lab classes. Of course >they were done in VHS format. There are about 4 tapes, but the >information is not organized. I would like to basically edit the >clips and then put them on a CD. I don't have a DVD recorder so that >option is out. What options do I have? What equipment / software do I >need? I have a Powerbook Lombard with a firewire card. A 20 GB >internal hard drive and a 20 GB expansion bay drive. Currently with >Mac OS 9.2.2. Any information would be greatly appreciated. I use an iRez Capsure PCMCIA card. These are no longer available new, but plenty are on eBay. New, you could use iRez's Critter USBAV. I prefer the Capsure PC card as it generally offers better throughput and performance to USB input.
Capsure is bundled with iRez ReelEyes (as are most iRez products) which does a decent capturing job at full frame rates. I get 16-bit color @ 720x576, or 24-bit at lower resolutions using MJPEG-B compression. The Lombard is fast enough to capture at 25fps PAL or 30fps NTSC. You need around 3.8GB for one hour of footage at this rate. You can use ReelEyes (quite a nice cut & paste editor) or QT Pro to edit footage into the order you want it (ReelEyes can even edit MPEG, which QT can't). Once captured, you can export the material to a Toast VideoCD a number of ways: with the Toast export in QT; with Cleaner ($$$, but highest quality; it's what I use); or any other QT-capable video app. ReelEyes can also export to Toast VCD. A tip a QT pro gave me was to make QT's player window as large as possible before exporting to VCD. VCD is MPEG-1 format, which is lossy, but adequate. It means you can fit a full 74 or 80 minutes' worth of material on a single CD. The long process is converting to VCD. An hour or so of footage will take 17 hours to encode on a 233MHz G3, and a 200MHz 604e is the minimum. A G4 will take about 10 hours, give or take, depending on speed. Of course, VHS is VHS, so don't expect DV quality. I get acceptable quality from VHS and Betamax footage though. I wrote a longer version of this tutorial here: <http://www.insanely-great.com/features/010503.html> Cheers, RD Remy Davison Contributing Editor/News Editor, Insanely-Great Mac <http://www.insanely-great.com> mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> RD's PowerBook page: <http://www.macpowerbook.com> -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> 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/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
