I realize this is way off topic but with the massive brain trust here I figured someone could help.
What is a good low-cost solution for converting AVI files to MPG? Also to dump video from a camcorder to the PC and then to MPG? Any suggestions?
Video to MPG
It's not that cheap, but a fantastic app for this (and excellent file size compression) is Sorrenson Squeeze. Get the best you can afford is always my policy - wh knows what extra tasks you may want to do in the future ?
http://www.sorenson.com/
http://www.sorenson.com/
Hmmm... for this part (and for mpg too) a good all-in-one solution is onic Foundry's Vegas. Another brilliant app - much better than Premiere IMHO and about alf the price. You can also get it bundled with their DVD burning app which might be handy. As for capture, just use a firewire card direct into vegas....On 2003-09-17 08:53, krizrox wrote:
Also to dump video from a camcorder to the PC and then to MPG? Any suggestions?
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/Products/sh ... sp?PID=808
An excellent app for audio music producton too !
the most simple way to transfer home video cassettes (as long as they are Sony 8mm) is to play them back via a Sony digital 8 camcorder connected to the PC by FireWire.
The the chip inside the camcorder does the encoding in hardware.
Most editing software can handle these video streams today.
Since this is often a one time job only, it might apply to lend a camcorder for that purpopse.
There are PCI interfaces with the same encoding chip onboard. It's a Sony patent anyway and as such not totally elcheapo, but different from MPEG afaik.
No experience with the Dazzle interface personally, but it's directed at home users and most certainly will have low image quality. High quality MPEG encoders are expensive due to required signal bandwidth - just like audio AD converters.
You might be able to pick up a high quality MPEG encoder on EBay, since those are outdated because of the above mentioned digital camcorders. $5000 interfaces show up for a few hundreds often with sophisticated software.
But generally the most simple way is to stick with the format of current camcorders.
cheers, Tom
The the chip inside the camcorder does the encoding in hardware.
Most editing software can handle these video streams today.
Since this is often a one time job only, it might apply to lend a camcorder for that purpopse.
There are PCI interfaces with the same encoding chip onboard. It's a Sony patent anyway and as such not totally elcheapo, but different from MPEG afaik.
No experience with the Dazzle interface personally, but it's directed at home users and most certainly will have low image quality. High quality MPEG encoders are expensive due to required signal bandwidth - just like audio AD converters.
You might be able to pick up a high quality MPEG encoder on EBay, since those are outdated because of the above mentioned digital camcorders. $5000 interfaces show up for a few hundreds often with sophisticated software.
But generally the most simple way is to stick with the format of current camcorders.
cheers, Tom