[ale] [OT] Videotape Ripping and TBCs

[aaron]

On 2009, Nov, 11, , at 11:03 PM, Jeff Hubbs wrote:

> I have a Gentoo/Gnome desktop machine with a Hauppauge PVR-150 card in
> it and I'm set up to rip some videotapes.  I have a fairly recent
> consumer VCR that I'm using the composite and audio line outs to  
> connect
> to the PVR-150.  I actually got this to work.

In general, working with Video on Linux is not a
point and click process yet, so congrats!

> Given that the objective here is to rip the tapes and actually get rid
> of them, I'd like a *decent* rip job.  I plan to edit things in iMovie
> '09 and burn to DVD.

Check your formats on the capture.  I believe iMovie will only
deal with DV quality video, since that is kind of the bottom
line in editable formats; higher compression formats like MPeg2
and MP4 and H.264 and AVCHD don't have all the actual frames
any more; temporal resolution is severely compromised with all
the high compression formats; compressed HD looses all claim
to actually being HD.

DV (standard def) is 5 to 1 compression, frame constant (all
frames are actually there as complete individual frames), and
requires about 13 GIG of disk space per hour of video.

Also of note is that Apple severely broke the iMovie program
starting with iMovie 8.  They took away the timeline (making
the 2008 release a flashback to the 1992 Amiga Flyer interface),
and thoroughly crippled the usability to make it SEEM more
"user friendly" -- the worst Steve Jobs "User Handicapping"
decision since the one button mouse.  I recommend getting
a copy of iMovie 6 Universal Binary (officially labeled
iMovie HD since it can be used with Panasonic 720p DV).
There was such an uproar over iMovie 8 that Apple made iMovie
HD available for free download, so iMovie 6 may still be
available on their site as a free upgrade from iMovie 9.

If you want to stay in a Linux domain for the editing (and
the editing is thus appropriately basic), you might look at
KDEnlive.  It has been getting some attention in Linux Format
of late, including a tutorial in the current issue, and seems
to be a fairly stable and usable option. When I get a Linux
play PC with enough horsepower for video I intend to check
it out.

> How important is it that I get hold of a time base corrector before
> attempting this, and can a useful one really be had for tens of  
> dollars
> as opposed to hundreds or thousands?

I have about 5 TBC's around. To support the Amiga Toaster
Flyer market there were a number of manufacturers that made
low cost units, including a two companies that squeezed
complete TBC's onto Amiga Zorro III expansion slot cards
and one very high quality unit packaged on an AT card
(though it only used the AT bus for power and was controlled
via RS232 serial connections). "Low cost" for TBC's in those
days was $500 to $1000, BTW.

Time Base Correctors were critical in the analog video world
for stabilizing and synchronizing video signals so that they
could be mixed or layered with other sources -- they were a
way to line up all the invisible video sprocket holes and
frame edges.  Like the inputs to all analog video effects
switchers, the 4 inputs to the Amiga Toaster had to be fully
synchronized and stable.

Using a Time Base Corrector on your input to the PVR 150 will
probably not make a very noticeable difference in quality.
The only big advantage for a single source situation is that
TBC's can also provide real time video level and color
enhancement (-: plus strip off any analog based Destructive
Restriction Mechanisms :-).  If you are interested in trying
out a TBC on your setup,  I'd be happy to loan you one of my
DPS AT Card units, and I'll deliver it in an Amiga 2000 so
you have an AT Bus to power it, a RS232 serial port to control
it, and an Amiga OS to run the control software on (mine or
the manufacturers, your choice).

> Also:  by simply redirecting the device output, one can capture a  
> MPEG2
> stream directly to disk but it seems that iMovie can't do anything  
> with
> that.  What do people typically do format-wise to accomplish what I'm
> trying to do?

Covered in the notes above.  Only thing to add is that MPEG2
is the native DVD format, but Video DVD specifications require
that they be "packaged" on a DVD disk in VOB wrappers (with a
max of 1 Gig for the VOB file size).  High end DVD authoring
packages like (Apple) DVD Studio Pro will allow you to directly
author from pre-encoded MPEG2 files, so long as their bit rates,
audio format and audio multiplexing are compliant with Video DVD
specs. (Apple) iDVD requires it's source material to be DV format
in .MOV wrapper files and does the Mpeg / VOB encoding from those
(and, TMOMK, only those) sources.

TMI (in my brain, anyway).

peace
aaron