Question for Computer Whizzes, Maybe TK Video Producers?

[Mimi]

I hope someone here can help me out with the answers I am seeking.

As some of you already know, Lazarus and I are going to be filming a series of amateur tickling videos in the very near future. To help us produce the best product possible, we are acquiring some new equipment...including some new video equipment, and a new computer for easier handling and storage of pictures and clips.

I am ordering the specs for my new computer, and I have selected a "eVGA - 64MB GeForce4 MX 440-8X AGP 8X TV NV86" video card for it (total computer jargon to me, but my friend who builds systems insists it's a good video card for the money). I want to be able to do video capture and streaming video on my new system. That is where my questions come in...

What software/hardware/special components will I need for my system to get still frame pictures off my TV/VCR? And what further software/hardware/components will I need for creating Mpegs or RM clips of the videos? Is the video card I am ordering adequate enough, or do I need a special video card in order to have these capabilities? I have heard mentions of Video Capture Cards before..is that what I need to look for?

Sorry if I sound like an idiot with these questions. I know enough about computers to get me by and run my own without problems, but web design and graphic design are my areas of speciality, and this is a whole new field for me. I want to make sure I get what I need the first time, without wasting time and money on the wrong components.

Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated!

Mimi 🙂

 

[BigJim]

I'm afraid I can't help Meems, but I am in the same boat as you. I want to make some amateur tickling material and want to use any advice generated here too.

For anyone who knows what we want to do, my new puter specs are...

CPU: AMD Athlon XP3200+
RAM: 1024 MB of PC-3200 400Mhtz RAM
Graphics Card: 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro
Sound Card: Audigy 2 Soundblaster
Display: 18" TFT
Speakers: 6.1
Optical Drives: Sony Multiburner and a seperate 54x24x52 CD-RW
Is that it? Can't remember.

Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated and I hope the Meemster doesn't mind me wigging in on her thread. I thought I'd host my stuff on MSN or Yahoo Groups, where clips and pics can be hosted for free. Set it up so the stuff can only be accessed by people invited to join and you have the idea. Also I'd like to make DVD's and CD-ROMs for use at BAST gatherings.

 

[Mimi]

Don't sweat it Jim. We both have the same type of question, so sharing a thread is all good with me. 😀

I spoke with a computer genius friend of mine, and he informed me that I could go with the video card I originally named, but that I would also need to purchase a seperate video capture card to go with it (starting at roughly $150 base line), since that video card does not have the specs I need for picture and video capture.

OR, I could bypass the original video card I had picked out, and instead go for an ATI ALL IN Wonder Radeon. That video card is an all in one that captures pictures, video, and has all sorts of other neat capabilities. The base line ATI ALL IN Wonders start at $167 at the website I am buying from, so going that route will save me about $33.

So my NEW question becomes, for those who can tell me, will this video card I have now selected be all that I need for picture and video capture? I'll list the model and it's specs here:

Card:

ATI ALL IN Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB DDR AGP

Specs:

Banding the digital mediums of Gaming, TV and Video together in one complete package,
THE BEAST ALL-IN-WONDER® RADEON™ 9000 PRO delivers a virtual world of multimedia
wonderment with features such as:TV-ON-DEMAND™, THRUVIEW™, VIDEOSOAP™, support for
DirectX® 9.0 and OpenGL!

Features:
Powered by the RADEON™ 9000 PRO GPU
Features up to 128MB of DDR memory to accelerate all popular 3D games
THEATER™ 200 provides exceptional video quality viewing during live TV and video input and capture
Unparalleled TV and DVD features: TV-ON-DEMAND™, Gemstar GUIDE Plus+™, mulTView™, VIDEOSOAP™, THRUVIEW™ and much more
Easily edit video into your own creations: Video CD and DVD Authoring
Stereo TV tuner with 125 channels
Intelligent Teletext on your PC
Zoom & pan - zoom in on the action on-screen and choose your own close-ups
Delivers immersive, realistic 32-bit color graphics without PC performance decline
Best-of-class* 3D Gaming Performance
Four parallel, highly optimized rendering pipelines deliver fastest gaming performance in its class
Advanced visual quality
SMARTSHADER™ technology supports DirectX® 8.1 and enables more complex and realistic lighting effects
SMOOTHVISION™ full-scene anti-aliasing technology delivers smoother-looking images
Progressive anisotropic filtering technology provides sharp and clear textures without sacrificing frame rates
Industry-leading video technology and software support
Features VIDEO IMMERSION™ II technology for unprecedented video quality
FULLSTREAM™, ATI s new video acceleration technology enhances the quality of video by removing blocky artifacts and delivering smoother-looking content at all resolutions
Supports dual display configurations with HYDRAVISION™ software


PLEASE tell me this will do the trick, because the next better model runs $315, and that is just a WEE bit out of my price range! LOL

Mimi 🙂

 

[asutickler]

Is the video card I am ordering adequate enough, or do I need a special video card in order to have these capabilities? I have heard mentions of Video Capture Cards before..is that what I need to look for?

In order to import video from a VCR, your computer needs a video capture card. This is often seperate from your regular video card, but certain video cards DO include the neseccary components for video capture. I don't think that eVGA card you mentioned has video capture capabilities. I looked up the specs on it and saw TV-out, but no TV-in.


Jim, if your video card contains the AIW (All-in-wonder) version of the Radeon 9800 Pro chipset, then you have video-in capability built in. I prefer Nvidia cards, myself, but even I've gotta admit that the AIW Radeon is kinda sex-ay.

http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/aiw9800pro/



I've never actually captured video from a non-digital source like a VCR, so I don't really feel qualified to give instructions. However, with a bit of Google-ing, I found a handy guide to video capture that includes links to some helpful (and free) software.

http://www.arstechnica.com/guide/audio-visual/videocapturing/vidcap-1.html


Good luck! 🙂

 

[asutickler]

Heh! Simultaneous posts. 😛


That All In Wonder Radeon 9000 Pro SHOULD do the trick for you, Mimi, but it would be wise to get a second opinion, just in case. (Sometimes it turns out that I don't know WTF I'm takling about. 😛 )

If you decide to get it, you can get it for $28 less here: http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/simprod.asp?pid=7844

If you're looking for more components, http://www.pricewatch.com is your comparison-shopping friend. 😉

 

[Mimi]

LOL!

I found the place I am purchasing my computer from off of www.pricewatch.com so I am familiar with them. 😀

The motherboard I am getting in my system already includes a video card built in, so if I can get that Ati All in Wonder 9000 from someplace else for a cheaper price, I can definitely go that route.

Thanks for snooping for me, Asu!

Mimi 🙂

 

[MrMacphisto]

ok... as far as chips go... Intel is the way to go... AMD used to be good, but Intel is better... get a 3GHz Pentium 4 processor if you can afford it...

Radeon is better for video cards... 128 MB 9800 Pro is probably all you'll need...

beef up the RAM (preferably DDR RAM) if you can afford it... 1 to 2 GBs (if the motherboard you get allows for 2 GB)

make sure you have at least a 533 MHz FSB (or 800 MHz if you can afford it)

you can get a nice 160 GB Hard Drive for relatively cheap these days at places like Best Buy, but I don't know if you'll need quite that much space... 80 GB might be all you need

if you're into high quality sound, you might want a Creative SB Audigy LS card and a set of 5 speakers and a subwoofer (Creative is good for those too)

avoid flat-panel monitors; they have low frame rates and cost way too much

 

[BigJim]

Re: Re: Question for Computer Whizzes, Maybe TK Video Producers?

Jim, if your video card contains the AIW (All-in-wonder) version of the Radeon 9800 Pro chipset, then you have video-in capability built in. I prefer Nvidia cards, myself, but even I've gotta admit that the AIW Radeon is kinda sex-ay.

Bugger, now we're getting technical. There's two versions of the 9800 Pro then? 😕 I know mine has Firewire capabilities and know that's a vague description of stuff needed to download footage directly from a video camera (I also have a video camera with that socket), but am a bit sketchy on the overall dynamics of it.

 

[BigJim]

ok... as far as chips go... Intel is the way to go... AMD used to be good, but Intel is better... get a 3GHz Pentium 4 processor if you can afford it...

Hmmm. I was going to get the 3.2 Pentium 4, but went for the AMD Athlon XP3200+ instead. It's clock speed is only 2.19 Ghtz, but it outperforms the 3.2 P4 in something like 8/10 exhaustive bench tests.

Radeon is better for video cards... 128 MB 9800 Pro is probably all you'll need...

Thank God for that, it's exactly what I have.

beef up the RAM (preferably DDR RAM) if you can afford it... 1 to 2 GBs (if the motherboard you get allows for 2 GB)

I have a GB of RAM. It's not only DDR, but it's the newer, faster DDR stuff. (400 Mhtz instead of 333, and PC-3200 instead of PC-2700.)

make sure you have at least a 533 MHz FSB (or 800 MHz if you can afford it)

I think mine is 800.

you can get a nice 160 GB Hard Drive for relatively cheap these days at places like Best Buy, but I don't know if you'll need quite that much space... 80 GB might be all you need

160 is the one that came with my puter. For some reason that I can't fathom out, the computer only recognises 128 GB of it. Any idea why this would be?

if you're into high quality sound, you might want a Creative SB Audigy LS card and a set of 5 speakers and a subwoofer (Creative is good for those too)

I've got the audigy 2 one with 6.1 That should do.

avoid flat-panel monitors; they have low frame rates and cost way too much

Bugger, my new system came with a flat panel TFT screen. It is 18 inches though, so it is quite Gucci.

 

[BigJim]

Just out if interest, does anyone have any new info on the latest 64-Bit CPU's that AMD have come out with? Someone told me it was like comparing a glass of water to a swimming pool, to compare them to a 32-Bit chip. Only prob I can see is, there are no motherboards that make buying a 64-Bit chip worthwhile, nor are there any decent pieces of 64-Bit software available to the home user.

 

[MrMacphisto]

BigJim...

AMDs "outperform" the tests you speak of, but take a look at who makes those tests. I looked into it recently and discovered that most of these tests are specifically designed to favor the AMD. I'm not enough of a computer nut to be able to explain it concisely, but look it up, you'll see what I mean...

If your computer only recognizes 128 of a 160 GB Hard Drive, one of two things might have happened. Either your drive has a ton of bad sectors or your backup partition is huge. Most partitions aren't that many gigs but who knows, maybe you've got some funky settings. Did you get everything preloaded or did you set it up yourself?

 

[BOFH666]

This may be a long one, apologies in advance.

The first thing you’ve got to decide is how you’re going to capture the video. The simplest option, especially if you’ve already got a video camera, is to record as normal, then pull the video from your VCR into the PC. The second way is to get a video camera that can plug into your PC directly and record straight to the hard disk. To give you an idea, I’ve got a little Fuji still camera that comes with a suitable driver to let it work as a video camera when hooked into a USB port. The results are, surprisingly, pretty good although it’s very dependent on the lighting in the room and there’s no audio option unless I record through a microphone connected to the soundcard. A proper digital video camera though will give much better results.

If you’re capturing off of VCR, then I think asutickler covered the bulk of it pretty nicely. Basically, if you’ve got a video in port somewhere on your PC you should be able to grab video from your VCR, provided of course you’ve got a suitable cable to go from one t’ other. One thing I would add is that, in the UK at least (I think they sell ‘em in America too) there’s a company called Hauppauge that sell add on cards designed to capture TV, video, radio etc. These work with your existing graphics cards and are pretty easy to use (or they were the last time I looked). The basic models start around £45 and go up into the hundred plus range for something that does the full TiVO functionality (which you won’t need to do video capture). Example link: http://web6.scan.co.uk/Products/Info.asp?WPID=1928 . Just make sure you get one that can capture video as the real bottom end ones are only TV tuners.

On to the software side and the good news is that, if you’ve got Windows XP, you’ve already got a halfway decent video capture package on your machine (or available for free from MS via windows update). It’s called Windows Movie Maker and should be in your Accessories folder. Now, granted, it’s not exactly professional quality and there’s a lot that’s missing, but I’ve seen far worse and it IS free after all 😉 The major problem with it is that it’ll only save in Windows Media Video format, so that might be a problem for all those running other operating systems but you can always change software later, after you’ve got a bit more experience and it’s not as if you’re throwing away an investment.

And so to the real hard question, PC hardware. If I wander off into techie talk, just yell and I’ll sort it out, okay?

Right, first up, you do not, repeat do NOT need the latest, fastest processor in your machine. Sure, it’s nice to have, but for what you guys want to do it’s overkill. Put it this way, it’s a trade off between your video clips taking a bit longer to create versus your bank balance. Right now, I’d suggest getting an Athlon 2500+. It’s not the fastest chip on the market but it’s fast enough and, better yet, it’s cheap, £60 as opposed to the £150 / £200 the top of the range Athlon / Intel will set you back. For a video capture machine you want lots of memory, if you can afford it go for 1 Gb, if not 512Mb really should be a minimum, and a big, quick hard disk, say something marked as 7,200rpm with 8Mb cache.

Graphics cards is a tough one, but if you can stretch to it Mimi I’d suggest either going for that Radeon you mentioned or better yet, for an extra $40, the 9600 all-in-wonder as that’s a much faster graphics card, more memory and is all-round better 😀. Should be listed on www.pricewatch.com, left and up one from the 9000 all in wonder. Jim – *grin* there’s actually 4 versions of the 9800, but in your case I suspect you’ve got the same one I have. Again, this comes back to what you’re using to take the video in the first place, but if you’re going to grab straight from the camera it should just be a case of plug camera into firewire. The PC will (hopefully) pick it up as another hard disk and you can just copy down what you need, or you may have to install the manufactures software and use that, depends on the camera.

Jim, mate, what on earth are you doing with your PC that you need that big a rig? That’s a monster and should be well up to practically anything you want to do with it. Might even run Doom 3 when it comes out, but don’t get your hopes up. As for the Athlon64, it’s a hell of a good processor and even when running in 32bit mode it whomps anything other than the uber-expensive stuff from Intel or AMD’s own FX chips. Still, with the rig you’ve got it’s not worth the upgrade right now. Wait at least a year if you can, as this is the year everything (case design, motherboard layout, expansion card connectors, processor sockets) changes and buying a top end system should really wait until the dust has settled. Oh and what make’s the TFT? A lot of the more modern one’s are actually bloody good, though not quite at a level to convince me to give up the 19 inch Iiyama CRT sitting on my desk 😉

I’ll cut this off there for fear of causing spontaneous comas, hope it’s been of some help and any more questions feel free to ask.

Steve.

 

[Mimi]

Thank you SO much Steve, for taking the time to answer the questions as thoroughly as you did.

I did not plan on purchasing a new system at this time, but my system is quickly going down the tubes (it's an old Gateway, 350 Pentium II, 10 gig hard drive, 64 mb ram, etc...real ancient...my brother was kind enough to give it to me after my ex took our brand new system with him when he moved out last year). Add to that the fact that Lazzy and I will be making this videos soon, and we're gonna want to be able to capture still pictures and 2-3 minute video clips off the tapes. So priorities got reshuffled, and we managed to squeak out around $500 to drop on a new system.

Here is the basic system I am ordering:

AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13 GHz 333 FSB)
Abit VA-10 VIA VT8378 Chipset AGP 8X DDR333
PC3200 DDR 400 512 MB ram
80 GB HD
Lite-On CDRW 52X32X52

Total cost: $374

I am ordering the Video card seperate from all star shop (thanks to ASU for finding me that link and finding the video card for $20 less for me). The ATi ALL IN Wonder 9000 Pro 64 MB sells for $149 there. So that would bring the total to $523. $23 more than I already had allotted to spend. Now, that same website DOES have the ATi ALL IN Wonder 9600 128mb for only $27 more, but it is not the pro version, and does not connect via coaxial cable (which is the way we are planning to connect the pc to the vcr). The ATi ALL IN Wonder 9600 Pro 128MB runs from $205-$229 ($205 for OEM, $229 for retail), and that DOES include the coaxial hookup that I am looking for, but then we're talking a total of $579-$604. Now, the extra $27 I 'might' be able to swing, but $55-$79 more is really REALLY stretching the money I can gathering for this, and I just don't think I can do it. That is why I was asking if the ATi ALL IN Wonder 9000 Pro 64MB would get the job done for me.

I don't know if any of that even made sense...lol. I hope so. It all comes down to, will the system I am purchasing, combined with the ati AIW 9000 Pro 64MB, be capable of grabbing some still frame pictures and a few 2-3 minute video clips from our VCR?

Thanks again for you help!

Mimi

 

[BOFH666]

*Grin* you'd never guess this is part of my day job would ya? Way I see it, if ten minutes of my time can sort out even one problem further down the line for someone, it's well worth it.

Let's have a look... ummm, yep, can't spot anything immediately horrifying with that spec. It's not going to be the fastest machine on the planet, but on t'other hand you don't need it to be. The only problem you may (repeat, may) have is the machine's got to be quick enough to capture the video in real time, as opposed to (for example) filming with a digital video camera and then transferring the image over USB or Firewire.

Actually, wait a sec, I'm being dense. It might be easier (not to mention cheaper) to see about renting a digital video camera for a day, least for the first tape. Just a thought.

Umm, where was I. Oh yeah, if the machine isn't quick enough (I think it should be, but not having done this myself it's hard to say for sure) you might find you drop a few frames from the digital version, though you can usually solve this by recording at a smaller video size. Bit of experimentation (no, I mean AFTER the video's been shot 😉 ) should let you find something that works. From what I remember (and again I haven't used one myself so this is word of mouth stuff) the reason all the Ati all-in-wonder cards are so darn expensive is they've got a fair chunk of processing power on board to help the system out.

The 9000 card should be fine for what you're doing, just so long as you're not planning on running the very latest games or anything. You could alwys try one of the Hauppauge add-on TV cards, it'd be cheaper if it worked as advertised, but I think I'd suggest paying the extra bucks and going the Ati route.

One other thought, it might be worth giving whoever you're buying the system off a call / e-mail, telling them what you want to do (ummm, you might want to leave out the exact details though) and seeing if they've got any suggestions. You never know, they might be able to get the same card for trade price.

Did I miss anything?

 

[Mimi]

Correction on my system specs. I upgraded the motherboard from the Abit VA-10 VIA VT8378 Chipset AGP 8X DDR333, to an Abit NF7 nForce2 Chipset 8X AGP DDR400. Otherwise it stands.

Nope, I think you covered it all, Steve. Thanks again for your wonderful assistance. I sincerely appreciate it!

Mimi 🙂

P.S. The other purchase we are making IS a digitial camcorder...one of the reasons I only have so much allotted for the PC. I assume, from your answers, that may provide a little bit better quality videos, or at least aid in the video capture process?

 

[BOFH666]

Ummm, okay, that may change things and maybe we can save you some cash in the process. May I ask if you've got a particular model of digital camcorder in mind?

Oh, and as for the assitance, don't worry about it, I look on this (and the next 239 good deads I do) as payback for the ever-so-generous Tzar himself doing this) 😀

 

[Mimi]

Very cool! Congrats on the story forum!

I have not made a definite decision on the camcorder yet, but I was looking at a JVC Digital Camcorder, model GR-D30US.

Mimi 🙂

 

[BOFH666]

*Rapid sounds of Googling*

Right, if I'm reading this right, that camera has a Firewire (or to give it it's proper name, IEEE 1394 or i.Link, catchy huh?) port built in. What that should mean is you can take whatever you want with the camera, then connect it to a PC with a suitable cable (umm, probably a 4 to 6 pin cable, usually called a DV cable) and download it straight to the PC, no muss no fuss. Only thing is you will need to get some video editing software, though try it with Windows Movie Maker first, you may be surprised.

I think what I'd suggest is this. Get the camera, get the PC you've talked about and don't buy anything else in terms of capture card or whatever (though have a word with the shop that's selling you the machine and get them to fit a firewire card, shouldn't run more than 20 bucks or so for them to do it). Have a play around, see what it can and can't do, then see what else (if anything) you need to get.

 

[Mimi]

Yes, from what I have read on the specs for the camera myself, it does have the IEEE 1394 port. AND it takes still pictures too. So the camcorder itself does do much the same job the video capture card would do, without the need for the card.

But we're still going to grab the video capture card anyway, because we have some old wrestling stuff, videos, and mainstream clips we'd like to capture into video clips on the computer.

Thanks again for ALL of your help. You've made these decisions a lot easier for me, and helped me become a lot better informed about what I need and what I can do. I can't thank you enough.

Mimi 🙂

 

[BOFH666]

's alright, just glad I could help out. Occasionaly, just occasionaly, the whole geek thing comes in useful 😉 If anything crops up that I can help on, just yell.

 

[P50]

This is your magazine: Video Maker

This is your website: http://www.VideoMaker.com


I <I>THINK </I> they'll send you a free issue (it probably won't be the current one) for a phone call; no promises.

They may send or sell you a buyer's guide.

Contact them and tell them what you're doing (well,,, they probably don't need <I>all</I> of the details, smirk) and ask for a few freebies.

I will never again purchase anything over $50 in the video market without spending at least 30 minutes with VideoMaker.

 

[BigJim]

as payback for the ever-so-generous Tzar himself doing this) 😀

Don't fancy posting them anywhere else as well, do you?

 

[BOFH666]

*Covertley hijacks thread*

Sure, only reason I haven't is I didn't think you'd want the site cluttered up with my old stuff. If you don't mind content being shared across both the TMF and the UKTF I'll try and get them up ASAP (which with the current workload will be about July 2005 )

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread already in progress.

*Unhijacks thread, leaves a general-purpose wish for Mimi as apology)

 

[BigJim]

and a big, quick hard disk, say something marked as 7,200rpm with 8Mb cache.

I think mine's a 9,600 rpm with 12Mb cache. Don't quote me on that though, as this is more technical than I usually ever get.

Jim – *grin* there’s actually 4 versions of the 9800, but in your case I suspect you’ve got the same one I have. Again, this comes back to what you’re using to take the video in the first place, but if you’re going to grab straight from the camera it should just be a case of plug camera into firewire. The PC will (hopefully) pick it up as another hard disk and you can just copy down what you need, or you may have to install the manufactures software and use that, depends on the camera.

My video camera is a Samsung. The various bits of writing on the side tell me ...

440x Digital Zoom, Mini-DV, Digital-Cam VP-D55 PAL. I'm assuming that's the make? It takes miniature tapes and has a two or three inch TFT screen, which can be used instead of the viewfinder.
(Screen is in colour, viewfinder B&W.)

Jim, mate, what on earth are you doing with your PC that you need that big a rig? That’s a monster and should be well up to practically anything you want to do with it. Might even run Doom 3 when it comes out, but don’t get your hopes up. As for the Athlon64, it’s a hell of a good processor and even when running in 32bit mode it whomps anything other than the uber-expensive stuff from Intel or AMD’s own FX chips. Still, with the rig you’ve got it’s not worth the upgrade right now. Wait at least a year if you can, as this is the year everything (case design, motherboard layout, expansion card connectors, processor sockets) changes and buying a top end system should really wait until the dust has settled. Oh and what make’s the TFT? A lot of the more modern one’s are actually bloody good, though not quite at a level to convince me to give up the 19 inch Iiyama CRT sitting on my desk 😉

I think the phrase is "more money than sense". Cost me about £1,800. (Wassat in USD? Just over three grand?) I knew I wanted a machine that could run any game on the market. I also knew I wanted to start making tickling videos for the UKTF's clips board. (And a few stills too probably.) I wanted a computer that could do anything I wanted for the next few years and be suitably upgradeable when the time came. I thought "Sod it, I'll buy the biggest type of each component." Of course I could've had nVidia's new 256MB video card and a 200GB HD, but that was overkill. I was just sick of my old XP1800+ not being able to cope with anything, what with it's crappy on-board graphics and sound. The 18" TFT was chucked in at cut price because of the CPU that was in her. (It's a NEC in answer to your earlier question.)

Any advice on the make of camera? It's a few years old, but I'm pretty sure it has Firewire.

 

[BigJim]

*Covertley hijacks thread*

Sure, only reason I haven't is I didn't think you'd want the site cluttered up with my old stuff. If you don't mind content being shared across both the TMF and the UKTF I'll try and get them up ASAP (which with the current workload will be about July 2005 )

Old stuff? It's better than a lot of stuff mate! Post away and be damned to the consequences. I might have to give you and Mil a Forum of your own.🙂