[MPlayer-users] mencoder video card recommendation

[Andrew J. Yeckel]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 07:00:42PM -0500, D Richard Felker III wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 11:20:08PM +0000, Martin Collins wrote:
> > On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 10:54:29 -0800
> > "Andrew J. Yeckel" <ay2b at queue.org> wrote:
> > 
> > > For an upcoming event, I will be provided with a video feed (either
> > > composite/RCA video or S-Video, I don't know which yet), and a mono
> > > audio feed.  I would like to record the event and be able to later
> > > go back and edit the video to create a DVD of highlights.
> > 
> > Folk on the mjpeg-tools list swear by the Canopus ADVC-100. That will
> > give you DV which is editable and takes 12GB an hour.

Thanks, I'm looking into that as a possibility.

> Well raw uncompressed capture is much better unless you have a slow
> cpu. If you want to encode to something of reasonable size in
> realtime, having DV to start with is a liability since you have to
> spend cpu time decoding too before you can encode it.

I do not need to encode in realtime, only save it in realtime for
editing and encoding later.  With so many formats available, which
one(s) is/are "raw uncompressed"?

> Also, NTSC DV is absolutely horrible unacceptable quality (4:1:1
> sampling). So do NOT use a DV-based capture card if you'll be
> capturing any NTSC content.

I am capturing NTSC.

<rant>
While many people share your sentiment, and I've seen it expressed many
times, I have not seen a good alternative.  By good alternative, I mean
something that is practical and usable.  I've seen many numbers thrown
around, which I don't fully comprehend.  I would like to consider myself
a videophile (I'm not really, but I can pretend), so I'd like to know
what the "best" solution is, even if I don't end up using it.  I'm
looking for an answer of the form "use X" not of the form "don't use Y". 
Over time on this list, I've seen lots of "Don't use NTSC/DV", but
nothing of the form "Use X instead".  My current alternative, which I
think you'll agree is inferior to the above mentioned DV capture card
option, is to record to VHS tape (in EP mode, so I can fit 6 or 8 hours
per tape), and then use some still to be determined method of digitizing
that.
</rant>

--AJ

-- 
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety
 deserve neither liberty nor safety."