Question about recording video tapes to IDVD?

I have a Mac OS X version 10.3.9. I’m pretty stupid so please be patient with me. I have some old VCR tapes with important family memories on them that I want to save digitally and than burn to DVD. Can I do this with my IDVD 5? I’d have to hook my VCR up to the Mac, right? But, obviously, the VCR, an old 4-Head JVC, doesn’t have a FireWire port only a RCA audio & video out. So is there a way to do this?? Thanks for any info.

You will need either a miniDV camera or an AV/DV converter box to connect your VCR to your Mac.
With a miniDV camera you could record your VHS tapes to miniDV tapes and then capture the miniDV tapes into iMovie; this also has the benefit of giving you a digital copy of your VHS movies on miniDV tape.
Second, most miniDV cameras are able to do what is called analog/digital passthrough which means you could connect your VCR to your miniDV camera AND connect your miniDV camera to your Mac at the same time and then just play your VCR tapes right into iMovie (you would still use iMovie's capture feature to do this). You might have to select/change some of the settings in your miniDV camera to turn on this feature, one of which is the audio setting which should be set to 16-bit audio.
Third alternative is to use an AV/DV converter box (the Canopus ADVC110 is very popular and great quality, runs about $250). Like the case above using a miniDV camera, you would connect your VCR to the converter box AND connect the converter box to your Mac via FW. You would play your VHS tape and use iMovie capture to get it into your Mac.

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No, you would need a program such as Snapz Pro.

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Air video will convert the video for streaming, this includes downscaling it, so it will stream smoothly over the bandwidth available on the network.
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Comprehensive overview/question about organizing videos and movies

I've made a few movies here and there in the original iMovie, have made a fair amount of home movies using FCE. I have 20 years worth of videos scattered around on HI-8 formatting and some videos I downloaded from a hand held digital cheapo-movie cam. I'm to the point of trying to figure out the big picture on importing, structuring, storing, and sharing these files between iMovie, FCEHD 3.5.1, mobileme, my iPhone, etc.
I'm now wanting to start uploading movies to gallery.me.com. I started doing some of this before I got cancer last year. I'm basically restarting this whole process now that I'm beyond the rigors of chemotherapy and I'm trying to make a systematic approach to managing video files and already made movies. I have a lot of questions and would appreciate any insight you can offer in this discussion forum or if you recommend I copy this over to another discussion forum. I'm not sure to even begin hot to explain all this, so be patient as I try to start this process.
#1 - I've tried using iMovie 8 in the past. I ended up, somehow, with clips here, there, and who knows where. The original iMovie seemed rather straight forward and seemed to work in conjunction with iPhoto rather seamlessly. As iMovie made that big change some time back, I quickly backed out of using that program to manage clips as I couldn't find where they were stored and more importantly, they seemed to start disappearing after time. Is iMove 08 a good resource to manage clips or is it a bit of a dead end for people who are using various programs such as FCE and so forth? Seems the transparency of how the newer iMovie manages files is a bit not-so-transparent to me anymore and I simply am not finding many of the files in iMovie 08 that I can easily spot in iPhoto. Not sure what has happened there, but I can find the files in iPhoto and browse them, but NOT in iMovie 08. Help?
#2 - the only real reason I'm asking about iMovie at all is that I want to start uploading files from HI-8 tapes into my computer rather quickly and make simple basically unedited videos of what is on the Hi-8 tapes, then perhaps transport onto mobileme and/or make some DVD's. I did a few of those somehow before the cancer/chemo deal, but can't really recall the exact steps I took. Rough bout with cancer last year and my brain is a bit fried to be honest, not to mention all of this is a big hard to grasp deal for a RN who isn't trained in video stuff at this point in his life. Besides, I ended up having to reinstall my entire OS - long story. Bottom line, the few movies I do have on mobileme are in .m4v format. Not a big deal when using my mac at home, but notice that it causes iTunes to load onto my pc's at work or when visiting friends. Slow, clunky, and not sure how it wound up in that format. I'm thinking I did that somehow through iMovie or Quicktime 7 Pro. Before I go that route again, I need to ask about #3.
#3 - I just exported my first high definition video from FCE. I did so because we got our first new TV in 22 years, nice HD flat screen. I'm wanting to start understanding options for exporting videos onto mobileme. I got Quicktime Pro 7 and used the H264 or some option like that (file>share). It was able to take 1.5 gig high def video I did over my cancer journey and put it seamlessly onto mobileme. But it is in the .m4v video option which seems to cause some people and computers problems because of the whole proprietary iTunes angle. Is there a way around this being forced to use iTunes and simply share to mobileme gallery using .mov? I tried the file>export option, seems to want to use movie folder and I'm guessing that is another iTunes deal.
#4 - as I load files into my computer from HI-8 format and the newer cheap little HD dual SD card camera I got, those seem to either want to go into iMovie's folders (which I mentioned my confusion about above) or I can manually put them into a file structure that I'm slowly learning to build using FCE. I don't mind the FCE option and it seems logical. I still run into the problem of how to share web based content of the videos. Using iDVD is rather straightforward, but I'm wanting to use some kind of web centric approach to sharing my videos on the output and have one big file structure for organizing my files/videos on the input.
I notice that iMovie has many exporting/sharing options in its menu. Are they really any different/better/worse than what I have with quicktime Pro 7? Should I even try to utilize iMovie at all or simply go with the capture option on FCE? I at least can find the files and organize them with FCE.
I'm not sure how to further word this at the moment as I'm trying to better understand all this as I'm moving forward.
Any suggestions you might have at this point would be most beneficial. I'm sure as I get further into this, I'll start clarifying my own questions and thoughts.
Any resources you can point me to for newer (but not totally new) to video structure input/exporting on the mac?
Thanks,
Robert

Robert,
A lot of questions, perhaps to much to go into detail but,
I can second the views of AppleMan
Since iMovie 08 I finally am able to organize and categorize my clips in an easy way. Just recently I made a DvD for one of my grandchildren containing a selection of events from over the last to years. Really a joy (not only the kid ). This would have been a much larger job without that.
When I like to do real "sophisticated" movie editing I use FCE and pick up the clips from the eventsfolder from iMovie.
Of course if you are happy with FCE for organizing (I found that a bit hard), you always can use the File->export-> quicktime movie feature and use Quicktime for uploading to mobileme or use the File->export->Quicktime conversion function.
Also within iMovie you can use the: share ->export with Quicktime, and use that to export your movie in the format you prefer.
HtH
Ben
Message was edited by: Ben Bloks

Question about recording from VCR to Qosmio

I want to record my old personal Videos from VCR tapes to DVD using my Qosmio F10. I plug the VCR analogue output via a coax cable into the Qosmio TV aerial input and set up the Qosmio to recognize the VCR input as just another TV channel. It records onto the hard drive using MCE but the quality is poor compared to the original video tape. The colors and sound are ok but the pictures are lacking in detail and clarity.
Is there a setting on the Qosmio that I can use to improve the quality or is it the type of input I am using. My old VCR only has a coax and scart output and I can't get the scart output to input to the Qosmio.
Any help would be appreciated

> Hi Les,
>
> I believe the poor image quality is due to the use
> use of a coax connection from your VCR to your
> notebook. I use the scart output on my VCR to connect
> to a data capture card (USB) on my SA30, but I
> believe your Qosmio already has Composite inputs
> available.
>
> I use a SCART to Composite adapter (available from
> rom most PC retailers or electrical shops) and find
> that this gives me excellent image and sound (albeit
> not at DVD levels of quality).
>
> I have never managed to get an S-Video connection
> ion from my VCR to my SA30 to work other than in
> Black & White.
>
> HTH
Hi Nicky,
Thanks for the response. By Composite do you mean RGB output from the VCR?
The Qosmio has 3 inputs:-
1. conventional TV coax
2. S Video
3. iLink - firewire
There is no straight RGB input tho'
Can I use the iLink with a scart output from a VCR? The iLink works fine with my Camcorder.
tia
Les

Planning for Macbook (pro?) Questions about recording audio + multitasking

Hi Everyone
I am seriously contemplating switching to a Mac book (Pro?) in the next few months, and I want to clarify issues about recording audio.
I record music and other stuff at our local church using a mixer and feed stereo straight into a pc which records using the excellent Adobe Audition (... well it works for me :-)
To start with I expect I'll be using GarageBand and later look at other solutions such as ProTools I used to use on the PC.
QUESTION
I would welcome experienced users to comment on how well GrageBand or similar can multi task while recording is taking place. In other words what can I do - Not do, while recording.
Be honest please.
I worry I might get an exagerated reply from an Apple evangelist and I'm not seeking perfection, just knowledge of practical experiences.
I'd like an idea of what limits present users have found running recording apps like Garageband or similar.
As an example : what experiences running large wordprocessing application or Internet (e.g. FTP or Safari) while recording?
Replies appreciated
Pete

If it's an important recording or a once-only opportunity to record something then I would seriously advise against multi-tasking on any computer, PC or Mac, whilst recording. Dedicate all processing power to capturing the recording, and if you want to browse the web/update your resumé whilst recording then use another computer!

QT pro question about direct video capture to mov file

I am thinking about buying QT pro because I would like to record video directly from my Sony mini DV camcorder to a QT file. Can you control the destination of the QT file being created to a second HD or flash drive? I don't want to capture video and fragment my macbook pros HD. Second can you control the size of video being captured? I don't need to have full screen video and would like to save HD space on my secondary drive.
Thanks for any help.

Can you control the destination of the QT file being created to a second HD or flash drive?Yes, see the "Preferences > Recording > Save Files to:" option.
I don't want to capture video and fragment my macbook pros HD. Second can you control the size of video being captured?Size is tied to the "Quality:" pop-up options. (Good -- 320 x 240 MPEG-4 video and AAC @ 128 Kbps, Better -- 320 x 240 H.264vide and AAC @ 128 Kbps, and Devie Native -- raw DV audio and video standard.)

Question about multiple video recording

right so im going to be starting a small studio with some other people recording bands, interviews, news reports for our website and set top box (most of the major stuff like premisis etc has been sorted)
we will probly have 3/4 cams recording both sd and hd so i was wondwering is there is any way of recording all of them onto one machine (mac pro 8 core etc) with say 3/4 aja, black magic internal cards would that work or would i have to get say 3/4 mac mini's with firewire aja/motu boxes and record using them
im trying to keep costs low but quality high and also less equipment means less to go wrong etc, i want to try and get away without tapes and keep it all digital
any advice or if i have missed anything feel free to ask
adam

Check out this software solution (BoinxTV) and see if it might work for you...
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/boinxtv.html
-Jeremy

One last question about capturing from tape

I have a box full of family VHS tapes that I will be capturing into the computer to digitally archive. However, I want to make sure I am doing it the best possible way. These are the two things most important to me:
1. Quality
2. Longevity
1. Quality
I have a VHS/MiniDV JVC SR-VS30 deck connected via firewire into my 2014 iMac. I know that firewire is typically the best option when capturing DV footage into the computer. However, is this still true for VHS and other forms of old tape. I can hook anything up to this deck via composite/s-video in and go out through the firewire connection. However, I wasn't sure if firewire was the best coming from a VHS tape. I also have an old video capture card that has a straight s-video/composite input. Which would be more native to the VHS/analog tapes as far as keeping original quality and the best possible image?
When I use the JVC deck, some programs will capture the vhs tapes and others won't because they won't recognize unless I'm using the DV side. For example, FCPX recognizes the deck, but when I go to import unless it's a dv, it will say "no tape" and I cannot capture anything. iMovie will capture files as .DV. Quicktime will also recognize the deck and capture files as apple prores MOV files. When I compare the QT and iMovie, the QT files look better in my opinion, though I don't know if they truly are. The iMovie dv files have jagged edges like tv lines or something during quick movement and like others say about firewire it looks a little "milky" (though I know this isn't necessarily a bad thing). The QT clips don't necessarily look sharper, but they don't have the hideous jagged edges.
So my question before I start this large project is:
Which capture methods above would you use, or what else would you recommend for best quality?
2. Longevity
Which file format would you recommend saving these files (or just keeping them as they are at capture) for long term storage? When I come back to these files in 10 years and need to convert them to something new, I want them to have the greatest chance of being compatible with whatever lies ahead. There are so many different file formats.
Many thanks for any help along this long process

I want to make sure I am doing it the best possible way.
I have done lots of that.
For maximum quality here is my procedure: ADVC300 > iMovie 06 > iDVD 09/11.
To get your VHS video into iMovie, use the Grassvalley ADVC300 . With the ADVC300 Audio and Video go in, FireWire comes out. It also comes with a nice Macintosh application that works flawlessly with iMovie 06 and iDVD 09/11 (I have used it a few times with iMovie 11).
The ADVC300 has been discontinued by the manufacturer. The included software (which is not really necessary but does enhance performance) is not compatible with OS 10.7 or newer. You can still find the ADVC300 for sale in a few outlets as well as eBay. It will sell between 50% and 100% ABOVE its retail price. Yes, it's that good.
If you can’t find the ADVC300, use the Grassvalley ADVC110.
I have a drawer full of analog-to-digital converters. After using the Grass Valley ADVC300 I find nothing else acceptable.
The program that comes with the ADVC300 has some nice filters that can improve video and audio of the source material. The ADVC300 will take Audio and Video from any source (VCR, Tivo, Satellite Receiver) and convert it to FireWire (iMovie will treat it like a camera).
I would use iMovie 06 with iDVD 09/11, why?
iMovie 09, 11, and 13 uses 'single field processing' meaning every other horizontal line of the video is thrown out, which reduces the sharpness of the footage. iMovie 06 uses ALL of the image to form the video. (Also the latest iMovie CANNOT set Chapeters !)
After lots of experimenting I get the best results using OS 10.6, iMovie 06, and iDVD 09/11. My movies look just like Hollywood!
My primary computer is a Mac Pro, so I just use one of the four hard drives and boot OS 10.6. You can also partition a single hard drive to achieve the same results.
This may seem like more trouble than you want to go through. However, I find the superior quality to be well worth it.

Good question about Exporting to tape

Somebody asked me this and I thought it was a good question. And I dont know the answer!
When a camera is connected to FCE, whatever plays on the timeline plays on the camera viewfinder, right? So instead of using PRINT TO VIDEO why wouldnt we just manually press record on the camera and just tape the movie straight off the timeline?
Is there some kind of quality loss if you do this?
Just seems to be a quicker and easier way to get the movie to tape.

While this works just fine, there are some issues. I.E., it is a lot easier to interrupt your recording when playing straight from the timeline (press the wrong key, have another app switch over, etc).
Print To Video (as far as I know) can only be interrupted with the ESC key.
Also, in Print to Video, FCP makes sure everything is rendered, and you can add color bars, slate, black, etc to the beginning if needed.

Basic question about Flash video. Please Help

Hello,
Sorry for the noob question but I'm struggling with the basic
understanding about the Flash video.
I just need to reduce a large video file to a small size with
a nice quality and the Flash Video Encoder does very god job with
that. But when I double click the compressed .flv file it opens as
a blank screen in the stand alone player without playing any video.
I can use Dreamweaver to produce a web page playing the file, but I
don't need this file for posting it on a web page, I just want the
file smaller and to simply play it on my computer or send it to
others.
What is the way to do this?
I appreciate your help.

It sounds like you're not having problems with the actual
compression of the videos, just the playback, correct? All you need
is a standalone player that plays FLVs. Like Quicktime Player plays
MOVs, and Windows Media Player plays WMVs, you need something to
play the FLV files. There are many free options available. On a
mac, I use something called, strangely enough, SWF & FLV
Player. You can find it here:
http://mac.eltima.com/freeflashplayer.html
Just do a search for FLV players and you should find
something appropriate. The only downside is you'll need to make
sure anyone you're distributing the videos to also has an FLV
player. If you're sending your files to just a few people, no big
deal. If this is for the public in general, you would want to embed
a Flash video player in an HTML page and send it like that.
Hope that helps.

Urgent question about resizing videos in Adobe Premiere

Hello, forgive me for asking such a noob question but i have a presentation due in about 10 hrs and Adobe Premiere is giving me some headaches with the video i'm trying to make!
I am trying to alter the dimensions of a movie in the 'monitor' window (the objective being to put 2 different movies side by side in the same timeline, but that's irrelevent). Screenshot is below
http://s5.largeimagehost.com/display...sXUF&skey=nv28
I've seen it being done before - their should be a border around the frame in the 'Sequence 01' tab that lets you resize it with your mouse. But It's not appearing for me... . is their some hot key or something..? It's probably something really obvious but i can't find it...

You will also find links to many free tutorials in the
Premiere Pro Wiki that will quickly
show you how things are done in PPro, including picture-in-picture effects.
Cheers
Eddie
Forum FAQ
Premiere Pro Wiki
- Over 250 frequently answered questions
- Over 100 free tutorials
- Maintained by editors like
you

Really quick question about recording.

My mate has just bought the same capture card as me, I use a new recording in Quicktime to grab footage on OSX. He want's to do the same but on Windows XP.
Will he be able to to record with Quicktime Pro - Windows version?
Cheers

Hi, I am the person this thread is about. I went onto Apple's website and this is what it says-
"*QuickTime 7 Pro for Windows*
Now, you can easily create movies for iPod, *capture movies in a single click*, share movies via email or .Mac, create stunning H.264 video and much more. Purchase now to receive your QuickTime 7 Pro registration code instantly via email."
Are you sure you can't capture video? If not, I hope Apple will give me a refund due to false advertising.

About recording video

Hi friends in our project we need to record a video from webcam .
I came to know about JMF .I configured it properly and wrote simple code to access to webcam following manual of JMF.I tried my best to modify that code to record a video and save it to file.But i could not.
I tried artical and codes of Mr. Gal Ratner from about.java.com
but it fails in detecting my webcam.
If any one has tried to work on such code please help me
I will be very thankful if anyone can give me code
you can mail me on [email protected]

This code works. You just have to press stop button to stop recording.
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.media.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
import javax.media.datasink.*;
import javax.media.protocol.*;
import javax.media.format.*;
import javax.media.control.*;
import javax.swing.*;
import javax.media.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.util.*;
class Abc implements ControllerListener, ActionListener
     DataSource ds;
     DataSink sink;
     Processor pr;
     MediaLocator mc;
     JFrame jframe=new JFrame();
     JButton jbutton=new JButton("Stop");
     JPanel jpanel=new JPanel();
     CaptureDeviceManager cdm=new CaptureDeviceManager();
     CaptureDeviceInfo cdi;
     MediaLocator cammc;
     public void capture() throws Exception
          jframe.setSize(300,300);
          jpanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(jpanel,BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
          jpanel.add(jbutton);
          jframe.add(jpanel);
          jbutton.addActionListener(this);
          mc=new MediaLocator("file:C:/Workspace/aaaaa.mpg");
          cdi= (CaptureDeviceInfo) cdm.getDeviceList(new VideoFormat(VideoFormat.RGB)).elementAt(0);
          MediaLocator cammc=cdi.getLocator();
          pr=Manager.createProcessor(cammc);
          pr.addControllerListener(this);
          pr.configure();
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
          try
               pr.stop();
               sink.stop();
               sink.close();
          catch(Exception ep)
     public void controllerUpdate(ControllerEvent e)
          if(e instanceof ConfigureCompleteEvent)
               System.out.println ("ConfigureCompleteEvent");
                         Processor p = (Processor)e.getSourceController();
               System.out.println ("ConfigureCompleteEvent");
                     processConfigured(p);
          if(e instanceof RealizeCompleteEvent)
               try
                    Processor p = (Processor)e.getSourceController();
                    System.out.println ("RealizeCompleteEvent");
                            MediaLocator dest = new MediaLocator("file:C:/Workspace/ring3.mpg");
                        sink = Manager.createDataSink(p.getDataOutput(), dest);
                              processRealized(p);
               catch(Exception ep)
          if(e instanceof ControllerClosedEvent)
                     System.out.println ("ControllerClosedEvent");
                 if(e instanceof EndOfMediaEvent)
                    System.out.println ("EndOfMediaEvent");
                    Processor p = (Processor)e.getSourceController();
                    p.stop();
             if(e instanceof StopEvent)
                     System.out.println ("StopEvent");
                     Processor p = (Processor)e.getSourceController();
                     p.close();
               try
                    sink.stop();
                    sink.close();
               catch(Exception ee)
     public void processConfigured(Processor p)
          System.out.println("Entered processConfigured");
          p.setContentDescriptor (new FileTypeDescriptor (FileTypeDescriptor.MSVIDEO ));
             p.realize();
     public void processRealized(Processor p)
          jframe.setVisible(true);
          pr=p;
          System.out.println("Entered processRealized");
          try
                  sink.addDataSinkListener(new DataSinkListener()
                            public void dataSinkUpdate(DataSinkEvent e)
                                 if(e instanceof EndOfStreamEvent)
                                            System.out.println ("EndOfStreamEvent");
                                      sink.close();
                   sink.open();
                   sink.start();
          catch(Exception eX)
          System.out.println("Just before start");
              p.start();
public class Camera2
     public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception
          Abc a=new Abc();
          a.capture();
}

Easy Question about resizing video

I searched 'Resizing Video' and there was too many unrelated results to a really simple question.
In my old program "Premiere', to resize and move a video around was very easy. You could adjust the scale and X-Y values numerically, or you could use a Free Transform like in Photoshop. Simply dragging bounding boxes for size and aspect and also dragging the clip to decide it's location.
The only way I know how to do this in FCP is I double click a clip in the sequence, it loads into the viewer, I go to the Motion Tab and then I can adjust the Scale, which is cool. But then I'm left with the Distort section to adjust position (and aspect if need be). In the Distort section there are 8 numeric fields of info to figure out and fill out just to get one clip in a different position correctly.
I'm thinking there must be another way to adjust the location (or aspect) of a video clip without spending a bit of time on exact coordinates, I want to eye-ball where I want the clip to go and simply move it there. Is the Distort feature the only way to do this? If not, which is the fastest way to move and change the dimension of a clip.
Thanks for reading, I hope there is another way, I'm not use to these calculations and they're slowing me down.
Monty

I searched 'Resizing Video' and there was too many unrelated results to a really simple question.
That's because it's not a simple question at all and yet every one of those threads was related to the OP's question. As you discovered, there are lots of ways to interpret "resize," during capture, editing, effects, output, viewing, encoding, printing. But the solution was even simpler than you thought. All you had to do was open the manual or the online help system. Start taking the manuals to the gym with you. FCP is not Premiere. You're going to hate FCP, you're going to love FCP but it will never behave like Premiere beyond the elements of the functional paradigm. Forget Premiere.
bogiesan

Question about recording video tapes to IDVD?

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