Re: Son Of Leonid Meteor Video Digitization

Thanks so much for the help; I really appreciate it. I failed to include two crucial facts in my previous explanations:

1. We don't need a lot of storage because we'll be working in small batches. We'd like to digitize about an hour at a time and then process and save onto (believe it or not) CDs. We decided on CDs because they have the lowest dollar cost per bit. It's our hope that, if we can present the bigwigs with functional hardware and tell them "All we need is a few thousand CDs", they'll spring for them out of loose money. Moreover, we want to save them, not as QuickTime files, but as individual png files. We believe that this will provide future researchers with the greatest flexibility in terms of analyzing the data. I will write the software that will split out the Quicktime files into individual frames (unless you know of something that already does that.)

2. While we're poor in money, we, like most other research groups, are rich in volunteer time. We have half a dozen guys who are happy to babysit the computer and grind out the CDs. The plan is that, once I get something working, I transfer it to the NASA SETI group in Mountain View, CA, and then the volunteers babysit the computer day in and day out for months getting all the data archived. I know it sounds absurd, but science progresses largely on the backs of graduate students and volunteers.