--- You wrote: I'm not too concerned with video quality, just trying to copy over all my 8mm tapes to computer so i can get a newer DV camera. Can anyone make any suggestions on how to alleviate my video troubles? As I said, both ixTV and Apple's Video Card with play the video just fine but when it is recorded, that's when the stalls/choppiness occur. --- end of quote --- I'm not familiar with the video hardware you are using, either A/V inputs or the pci card. But if you are planning to get a DV camera anyway, why not wait until you have it to convert your 8mm tapes. You'll get much better quality and get files that iMovie can read. That is, any video files on the computer can be converted to DV format for iMovie, but you'll need Quicktime Pro ($30) ti do it and it takes time.
In fact, any video conversion is very time consumiing, so it pays to do it well the first time, especially if it takes less time to do it well. So, when you buy a DV camera, be sure to get one that can convert analog video to digital in real time. The Canon ZR cameras can do this and they are as cheap as any of the others, well under $500 for the bottom of the line. The conversion is excellent, by the way, as good as any stand-alone A/D, D/A converter. You plug your 8mm camera into the Canon, (or any other analog to digital converter) and the Canon into the firewire port of your computer. iMovie will happily import the video for you, ready for editing and output to whatever format you want...DVD, VCD, or even back out to your Camcorder and even through the camcorder's D/A converter to a VHS or other vcr. As a first step I suggest looking closely at the VCD format. You burn 74 minutes of compressed video onto a standard cd using an ordinary cd burner. You can have up to 99 tracks of video, acessible like an audio cd. Many current DVD players can play VCD on a standard TV. The video quality is surprisingly good, generally better than VHS video recorded at low speed, not quite as good as analog 8mm, but close. The audio is excellent. An advantage of outputting toa disk is that you never get dropped frames...everything stays in the computer. It is easy to make VCDs from iMovie using Toast Titanium. You will need a firewire pci card for your machine. You will also need more memory, Get a 256 meg strip and you'll be fine. You will probably need more disk space too as DV video files are large. I forget the ratio exactly, but I think a half hour of DV is about 3 gigabytes. Big drives are cheap these days, but you'll have to look into how you want to add one to your Beige. There are several options. Generally, the ide drive bus on the Beige is slow and can cause dropped frames in DV video, which may be the source of your current troubles. So a pci ATA board is a good idea. The you can add drives to your heart's content. I have 4 in my Beige MT. You can do fine video in OS 9 but some of the higer end programs require osX. I hope this helps. I was about where you are now two years ago, and my Beige DT with a 466 mhz G4 has become a very capable video studio. Good luck. Rich -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.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/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
