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Blahr

Video Capture question

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Howdy,

In my experience there are two kinds of skydiving
video's.
Vids that you would show to a whuffo and vids that you
would be willing to have another skydiver look at. :-)

I bet you all know what I mean.

Anyway, I finally have some footage that I wouldnt mind
having other jumpers see.

My problem: Its on VHS.
In order to get it into a computer I suspect that I would need a video capture card.
I need recommendations on a good choice for the budget minded skydiver. Keep in mind that that as a skydiver, my expenses EXACTLY match my income B| (occasionally exceeding it)

I dont want to spend too much since it will directly cut into my jumping funds.

I want decent quality video. I'm not concerned with file sizes either or making something thats "downloadable"

Only factors to consider are price and video quality.

Thank ya!

PS. Something supported by Linux would be preferable but thats not a hard and fast requirement.

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I want decent quality video



Too bad you have it on VHS then. Nothing you take off VHS will look very good.

You should only need a TV card and some softwear to record from VHS. You're best off with one that uses S-video or video composite rather than just a coax cable as this will maximise what quality there is.

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You could always just have someone with a Sony PC series camcorder capture it to memory card. Then you've got digital vid from VHS which you can upload to your computer.

Other than that, ATI capture cards are pretty nice at decent prices.

Nick



My Karma ran over my Dogma!!!

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Might wanna look at the Dazzle devices. Never used one myself, but it's an external device that plugs in between the VCR and a USB port. Probably the easiest solution and pretty cheap too.

I've been doing it with my GeForce4 video card with TV-in. Quality tends to suck but it works.

Dave

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as the other guy said - get someone with a DV IN Sony PC camera to DV IN the footage onto a mini DV tape, then dump that into your comp. You will need some editing software (i use Final Cut Pro, which is Apple specific, but i hear Adobe Premiere is the PC equivalent and works ok) but bear in mind that you WILL have to be concerned about compression/file size. 4.5mins of captured footage = 1 gig. Nothing eats up hard drive space and resources on a system quicker than video. You will have to learn a lot of new stuff (i suggest searching and then posting into Photography and Video on here which is where i got a lot of help initially, but then going to more specific forums outside of the skydivers domain, where you will get more detailed info).

Think about how you would like to output your product. If its for a casual showing at the dz, do a basic edit in Premiere then get a friend to DV OUT the footage to his PC camera, and then make a copy on to a VHS casette or similar. You might like to look at burning DVD's off the comp (i won't get into that)

Don't be surprised if you end up getting more into it than you first thought. I have lost months of time researching, training, editing, practicing and rendering a project that is only 11 mins long. Its down from 350 megs to 200 now, but its still too big. Compression is whats really cooking my goose at the moment, but i guess the fun is in the challenge right?;)

"Skydiving is a door"
Happythoughts

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There are plenty of MUCH simpler video editing programs out there. I have used premier a little but unless I'm trying to do something fancy, I use simpler stuff now. For the very simple videos I've edited, the real advantage of premier has been being able to sync the video with a music track. But to just get some videos online, it won't take months of learning.

Dave

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But to just get some videos online, it won't take months of learning.

Dave



If you are familiar with computers(and have the right hardware), you can make your own video within minutes of installing a Video editing program. I use Vegas 4,0 + DVD and it is very intuitive.

Once you get the appropriate HW setup this will be a breeze.

If you want fancy it is going to take time.

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