Software to live capture hdv on mac
by quimbey
on
Sep 29, 2007 at 9:46:48 pm
I want to be able to capture hdv to a usb hdd through a g4 mac mini I have laying around. I don't need any preview of what I'm capturing, and the hardware should handle the bandwidth just fine. My workflow is all on pc's, so I don't want to spend money on my glorified paperweight just to dump footage.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by zrb123 on Sep 30, 2007 at 12:31:44 am
[quimbey]"I want to be able to capture hdv to a usb hdd through a g4 mac mini I have laying around."
USB drives are no good for video. USB works by sending bursts of data, it cannot do a constant data stream. And because a video stream is contestant a USB device cannot handle everything that it is given. It will overload, and you will get dropped frames.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Sep 30, 2007 at 12:45:08 am
Not true. It's a popular misconception, but try it yourself. I don't get dropped frames ever. This is part of my standard workflow. You just have to make sure you use usb 2.0.
Anyway, I'm looking for software advice not hardware advice
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by DSE/Spot on Sep 30, 2007 at 1:57:08 am
USB drives themselves are just fine. Their dependency on the CPU is where the problem lies. We capture HDV live and from tape to USB drives on a regular basis, but the system is fairly tweaked.
Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST
Aerial Camera/Instructor
Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by zrb123 on Sep 30, 2007 at 2:56:52 am
[DSE/Spot]"USB drives themselves are just fine. Their dependency on the CPU is where the problem lies. "
Yes, but the original post was capturing through a computer.
[DSE/Spot]"We capture HDV live and from tape to USB drives on a regular basis, but the system is fairly tweaked."
How would you capture directly to a USB drive? The camera pout is firewire, how do you connect that to a USB device with out running it through a computer?
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Sep 30, 2007 at 3:28:10 am
Of course he uses a computer.
If you don't have working experience with it, than why not try it out.
The whole purpose of the thread is to inquire about capture software tools for a mac, not why firewire is the standard capture pipe and not USB. Your trashing any chance of me getting a real response to my question by constanly arguing about something that is totally of subject. Do I start picking apart why you chose zrb123 as a username? I mean if you chose 123 than you can't just pick some non-ordered letters. If you want to start with z than it would at least have to be zyx so that all the letters are in a sequential order like the numbers.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by zrb123 on Sep 30, 2007 at 4:12:56 am
DUDE CALM DOWN INSULTING PEOPLE WILL NOT HELP GET YOU ANY ANSWERS.
[quimbey]"Your trashing any chance of me getting a real response to my question by constanly arguing about something that is totally of subject."
It is not off subject at all, the hardware used is completely and totally relevant in making it work properly. Software is only ONE of the components in what you area wanting to do, the hard ware used is just as important. That is why I bring up the hard drive. I have seen MANY times here on the cow that people can not understand why they have performance issues, and it turns out they are using USB drives. Sure you may be having good luck with them, could your self one of the lucky few who do have luck with them and video.
Many people search read and search the forums for answers, therefor it is important to put all the facts about it on the table. If some one later was to be reading this thread and nothing was said about USB drives possibly causing problems, then the cow has not served him like it could have.
I do remember reading an article in the last issue of Event DV that talks about this entitles Macintosh Software Field Monitors. Now don't get all upset because you already said that you don't need a to preview, but many if not all of the software reviewed will record as well. And lets be honest sometime in the future you may actually want to have a bigger preview when recording.
And if you must know my user name zrb123 come from my initials, and the 123 came a long way back when signing up for a email account or some other online account and they would not accept only 3 characters long. I ended up keeping it because it is easy to use. And please come on some ones user name means nothing. You accomplish NOTHING by your attack on my user name other then making your self sound a bit immature.
I use this to capture HDV on a P III to usb drives and take the drives to my workstation.
It works great.
The secret is that I don't see any preview so it isn't so CPU intensive.
I was planning on making a small pc to do capturing in the field, but I figured I might give a go with what is on hand.
I can handle making a ~19 volt battery to run a mac mini on so it could just be put into a bag (vented of course)
If that didn't work, I go back to a mini pc, which would be running sata drives.
Anyway, things like a fire store is too much considering I can get a whole cuo 2 duo with a couple of gigs of ram for the same price.
The link posted seems to show an interesting program that might be nice to have in doing set shots, but I got all my money in pc world other than this little odd ball mac mini.
But google search after google search yield no simple dumb program that just gets the stream on a disk.
BTW can you post a link of someone actually having a problem streaming to a USB 2.0 drive via a computer.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by DSE/Spot on Sep 30, 2007 at 5:15:31 am
OK guys, chill out, please? Insults aren't productive.
Regardless of the fact that Firewire is generally best for external capture outside of SATA or other higher data rate system, USB2 is just fine for most systems as a capture tool. The data rate of 1080 HDV is 25Mbps, identical to DV. On both Mac and PC systems, people have been capturing to USB 2 externals for years. Mathematically, practically, and theoretically, it may not always work out, but it does work. For a lot of people. It may be less than optimal, but it *does work* for a lot of people, myself included. I'd guess we've got around 300 drives here, almost always in a USB enclosure, used for archiving, capture, transfer from our main system RAIDs. Or in my personal case, I travel a lot, so always have a MyBook attached. During competitive events, I might edit perhaps 30 video projects in HDV or XDCAM HD a day, all captured/transferred to, edited from, and archived on a USB external, usually either 300GB or 500GB.
On the PC side, I've *always* captured live via DV Rack and an external USB drive, and never have had a problem. It's also how Adobe recommends OnLocation be used, because the Firewire port cannot be shared between camera and HDD system.
Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST
Aerial Camera/Instructor
Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
I my self have even had issues with firewire drives, when attempting to lay off to tape because an old boss didn't think it could be a problem (don't get me started on that guy, he should not even be touching a soccer mom camera with a 10 foot pole). Yes this is forcing more through the stream then one video stream. And ever sense I will not use anything other then a internal SATA drive or a eSATA drive even for DV (after the 5th time trying to lay off a 30 min video I think anyone might agree, it is just not worth the headaches). I say invest a little more in better stuff and you save your self a lot of potential pain and suffering.
[quimbey]"The secret is that I don't see any preview so it isn't so CPU intensive. "
Yes it is not to CPU intensive, but the way the hardware of USB works remains exactly the same, and plays s BIG part. I just would not want to risk getting back to the studio only to find out that there was a dripped frame, its just not worth the risk to me.
Your set up seems quite odd to me, most people that want to record to disk on location ether use a DTE device like the firestore or use a laptop.
Have you looked into a CitiDISK HDV they start at under 900, which is much cheeper then any decent laptop for video out there (and yes you can get cheep laptops, but lets face it shy just by a cheep laptop to do this on, when 3 months later you will actually be wishing you could do something more with it)
And if you don't need one very often just simply rent one they are, last time I looked into renting one it was maybe 50 for a day.
I actually wanted to get a DTE drive myself, but after some figuring, I realized I don't need one all that often, infact it is rare that I would. So when I need one I just rent it.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Sep 30, 2007 at 6:56:25 am
(This is just talking PC now)
Look at it this way. I could have a direct to edit device for around $900 or get a whole computer with the same ability to record straight to a disk for the same money. (actually that's why I even asked the first question was because I wanted to turn my mac mini into a firestore kind of thing)
Also, people know what a laptop is and makes a good target for a thief, but a purpose built pc that has the mainboard in one place the battery in another and the hard disk in yet another section, makes for something obscure and therefore less of a target. If it was stolen, at least it would give them trouble trying to sell it.
Making my own battery packs to run the thing means I can make different packs for different situations. I also use NiMH batteries which get close enough to lithium ion but for way cheaper and faster charging.
If I broke a firestore, I'm just SOL, but I can fix a pc cheaper, since short of falling in an acid bath, some parts are sure to be recoverable. In a hard fall scenario I'd just be adding another hard disk. The OS would be on a CF card (they are way better and ripe for this purpose now (load/ware balancing and can be continuously writen to for about 30 years as a half life)(just want to bed that one down now))and could handle a hardy shock.
I also get as much hard drive space as I want and could even shoot from a spot for a year straight (not likely, but...) if I hooked everything up to ac and put enough drives in a raid.
When I'm not shooting I still have another computer around to help with rendering from 3d and effects programs.
And as fro a monitor I would be using a touch screen interface which means outside of using a lame on-screen keyboard to type filenames, I'd just need a stylus for most of the process.
Plus the whole setup would give me a great way to monitor a camera on a jib instead of using those tiny lame of camera monitors or getting pricier pro monitors. And since you posted that link before I can run scopes to check color before I start to shoot.
And sorry about before and all, just that I really honestly do use USB drives and to great effect without even a hint of a problem (I know others may have).
Anyway I got my reasons for my thinking.
I'm a hardware geek; so sue me.
I my self have even had issues with firewire drives, when attempting to lay off to tape because an old boss didn't think it could be a problem (don't get me started on that guy, he should not even be touching a soccer mom camera with a 10 foot pole). Yes this is forcing more through the stream then one video stream. And ever sense I will not use anything other then a internal SATA drive or a eSATA drive even for DV"
The search you've supplied is a little broad...I got sick of looking through results before I found one that was pertaining to capturing one stream of DV/HDV to a USB 2 disk...
The bottom line here is that USB 2 DOES have a much larger fluctuation between the maximum bitrate at burst (480 Mbits/s) and the overall sustained bitrate than FireWire A, which has a maximum bitrate of 400 Mbits/s, so i wouldn't typically use a USB for editing if I could help it, but one stream of 25 Mbits/s DV or HDV just isn't that big a deal to read/write. If a USB drive is at 25% of peak performance, it's still got 4X the bandwidth necessary to deal with one stream of these sorts of bitrates.
If you've had issues with getting one stream of DV (rendered clip, not mastering an edit project from the timeline to tape by playing back from USB 2 drive with edit assets on it), then I would check on how fragmented the drive was...
...or try it on a different computer system.
I have had gigs where we need to record days of material and I've captured FW from camera into Serious Magic HDV Rack (Now Adobe On Location), and written the file to external USB harddrive, and I've had two similarly configured laptops and the original laptop I was using was dropping frames, but then I pulled out my personal machine and it worked without a hiccup for the rest of the gig...so that isn't a USB 2 limitation, that's a system limitation of some kind.
Continually arguing with people who have done this numerous times seems pointless. If you've not had good luck with it, that's definitely useful information to share, but your experiences and gear aren't the same as mine, and mine are different from others...
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Sep 30, 2007 at 3:19:20 am
Yeah, I put a lot into my main workstation and never had a problem. Regardless of burst rates, having enough memory buffers the data just fine. My CPU is never pegged. It's just HDV, which is only using half of the firewires bandwidth.
I just wanted to know what software I could use is all. You know, for capturing HDV right to a disk on a mac system, that wouldn't cost anything.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by Blast1 on Sep 30, 2007 at 5:19:22 am
[quimbey]"I just wanted to know what software I could use is all. You know, for capturing HDV right to a disk on a mac system, that wouldn't cost anything."
The only HDV capture software I've run into outside normal Mac software(FCP, etc) is for capturing to various QT formats, I haven't really researched too much as I use PCs mostly these days, I use a old centrino laptop to capture hdv to usb to free up time on the main machines with no problems
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Sep 30, 2007 at 5:35:07 am
I really think I'm going to build a mini itx box for this job. Pc's just seem to be easier to deal with for me (in my own opinion (not looking for another fight))
Having an editing capable machine might not be a bad idea in the field anyway. Add a little touch screen goodness and I'll be set.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by Blast1 on Sep 30, 2007 at 7:43:28 pm
One thing you might want to look into is combination external drives, I've started to use external enclosures for SATA II drives that have both USB and eSATA II connections, with the price of 500gig drives dropping you can put together a TB of external drives for a little over $200, another couple of things I'm going to try is doing HDV capture over firewire using HDVsplit or BlackMagic's HD Mjpeg codec.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by quimbey on Oct 1, 2007 at 2:09:21 am
My file server has 4TB now for doing production work, but I hardly need that much in the field. I end up dumping sorce footage to smaller hard drives via usb for archiving (using SATA II in an external box these days) and just line item the cost to the client.
Personally, I get good enough results with chroma key and therefore everything else IMO using just HDV. So, I just use the HDVsplit. Over half my stuff ends up as web only, so everything looks great at the end of the day and has been easier, albeit a tad slower than DV to deal with.
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by Blast1 on Oct 1, 2007 at 9:37:06 am
[quimbey]"This is a link to a group of folks talking about BM's capture software and cards" Thanx for the link, The thread is interesting, I haven't been using the component capture, I picked up a HC7 to use as a deck for my FX1/Z1 using the HDMI for capture and the cards component for preview on external HD monitor
Re: Software to live capture hdv on mac by Tim Wilson on Oct 1, 2007 at 6:31:05 pm
If you're looking for Blackmagic Design, the Cow's your best resource. The Blackmagic Design Decklink forum is hosted by BMD founder Grant Petty, and 4 guys from the BMD support team. Have a question? There's nobody better on the planet to give you answers.
Oh yeah, and all those Cows actually using BMD products have a few things to add, too.
Ok, Ok, you all got carried away, its WAY EASIER by raukouy on Sep 30, 2007 at 4:31:03 pm
1- Connect the camera via FW to the Mac mini
2- Hook your USB drive to the Mac mini
3- Fire up iMovie and start a new project and save it to the USB drive
4- Capture.
Done, all your files will be there in the USB drive, inside your projects media folder. They will be standard QT DV stream files. Im pretty sure a PC will read them.
Re: Ok, Ok, you all got carried away, its WAY EASIER by Blast1 on Sep 30, 2007 at 7:22:58 pm
[raukouy]"They will be standard QT DV stream files" The discussion is about HDV files, as I've said in a previous post you can capture to QT in many flavors, but being about to use HD QT files can be problematic as various incarnations of QT for PC have been buggy, native HDV is easier to handle on a PC particularly if converting to a intermediate codec like cineform or Canopus HQ
Re: Ok, Ok, you all got carried away, its WAY EASIER - but requires more time later by zrb123 on Oct 1, 2007 at 12:56:19 am
[raukouy]"Done, all your files will be there in the USB drive, inside your projects media folder. They will be standard QT DV stream files. Im pretty sure a PC will read them. "
Not quire done. Movie imports clips as a dv stream. Not optimal for FCP as some rendering will be required. To be able to use those files in Final Cut Pro or any other pro editing application, you will ether have to render, or convert the files to more friendly ones.
Seems like it might work, but...uh...hmmm by quimbey on Oct 1, 2007 at 3:15:14 am
I dunno, seems more complicated than it should be.
No timecode or sound??? (at least that what ppl are saying) and then rendering to another file type???
Re: Seems like it might work, but...uh...hmmm by Zak Mussig on Oct 1, 2007 at 2:23:15 pm
Quimbey,
Do you just have a Mac mini sitting around? If not, I'm confused by your choice. It's a lot bigger than a firestore and needs to be powered.
Also, if you're going to edit on a PC, then why capture on a Mac? If you want to capture HDV on something with TC, audio and a really low price tag I would suggest mini DV tape.
Zrb isn't trying to be a jerk, he's just saying that there's a reason there's a firewire port on your camera and not USB. It's not like the tech industry is against USB... its freakin' everywhere.
Answers like that used to furstrate me too when I started hanging out int he FCP forum, but the COW folks feel responsible to give you a complete answer. If you ask which rope is best to hang yourself with, they aren't just going to tell you a brand. It takes getting used to, but it's gold.
Good luck with your HDV live capture setup. You're probably better off getting a commercial product than cobbling something together.
Re: HDV Capture Software by Brian McCartney on Oct 1, 2007 at 4:11:22 pm
I know the original poster was looking for some software to run on a MacMini to capture HDV. Although Capture Magic will do HDV direct to disc I think you need at least a G5 to make it work with HDV. At any rate you can have a look here. http://www.bigmugsoftware.com/capture/
I am going to try the demo out on my MacBook Pro.
good luck
btw- I manage production for an eLearning company that captures 100s of hours of content (DV25) weekly at conferences and technical training classes. We capture live to disc to USB2 drives (mostly the 2 disc RAID types). I wouldn't say we never drop frames but it is rare. Of course your mileage may vary...
Re: HDV Capture Software by quimbey on Oct 2, 2007 at 7:26:49 am
Yeah I looked into capture magic, but I don't need anything other than the direct to disk part. Technically speaking hdv uses the same bandwidth as DV, so I can only guess that the specs they put are for the viewing part. I'll check out the demo and see how it goes.
Re: Seems like it might work, but...uh...hmmm by zrb123 on Oct 2, 2007 at 5:54:35 am
[Zak Mussig]"but the COW folks feel responsible to give you a complete answer. If you ask which rope is best to hang yourself with, they aren't just going to tell you a brand. It takes getting used to, but it's gold. "
Exactly well let you know the best brand of rope, the length you will need (this is based on the circumference of your neck, where you will tying it to, etc), how to tie the knot, what is a good device to attach the other end to, what knot to use on the other end, how high your feet should be dangling from the floor. We can even help you write your note and tell you how to best pin it top your shirt.
Re: Seems like it might work, but...uh...hmmm by Blast1 on Oct 2, 2007 at 6:30:47 pm
[Zak Mussig]"Do you just have a Mac mini sitting around? If not, I'm confused by your choice." If you had read the first post closely you would have found out thats the case exactly
This whole thread started off with a simple question like " does anyone know of software that he could use to capture HDV to a external disk with his Mac laptop?"
[Zak Mussig]"Also, if you're going to edit on a PC, then why capture on a Mac?" Because he has it and that makes it free
[Zak Mussig]"Zrb isn't trying to be a jerk, he's just saying that there's a reason there's a firewire port on your camera and not USB." No comment to the first part, the reason there is a iLink on the cam and not a USB port is because there wasn't a USB port capable of the speed needed at the time DV was developed.
[Zak Mussig]"Answers like that used to furstrate me too when I started hanging out int he FCP forum, but the COW folks feel responsible to give you a complete answer." When is starts to border on religious fervor and obscures the orininal intent of the thread its time to drop it.
