This is topic Burning DVD's in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-21-2001, 11:48 PM:
For those of you who use DVD-RAM or DVD+RW for digital video, what platform, software, etc. are you working with? Are you happy with what you are using?I'm going to be doing a lot of video stuff in the theater and I'm already tired of outsourced material not being done right.
I've successfully used iMovie on a PowerMac G4, but not iDVD or any other DV editing software for the Mac or PC.
Cost is a factor, as I will need to prove that we can make our money back by doing this stuff inhouse rather than outsourcing it and hoping for the best.
Personally, I'd rather do it on a Mac, but it looks like a PowerMac with a Superdrive will run me about $3500 plus a $300 DV bridge. I could probably pick up a PC with same for less.
Suggestions?
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-22-2001, 01:08 AM:
You can get a Mac with the Superdrive and a really fast processor (867Mhz G4) for about $2500 straight from Apple's website. You can even get them for that price at CompUSA. That includes a 60GB hard drive, 128megs o' RAM (you'll want more, but you can get a gigabyte of RAM for about 12 cents), GeForce 2 video card and even a 56k internal modem (wow!!!!) to go along with the also built-in gigabit ethernet. That's not bad at all. It comes with firewire, iMovie (yuck), and iDVD. Basically you can burn DVDs a plenty with that. What is this $300 DV bridge you speak of?
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-22-2001, 05:05 PM:
The DV bridge is a PCI or FireWire device to plug your VCR/Camcorder into to import/export analog video/audio signals. The one I used with iMovie was a Dazzle Hollywood DV bridge (or some similarly named item) through a FireWire port.Is there a bridge built into the newer G4's?
And does that $2500 G4 include the monitor? I was really tired when I looked it up on Apple's site, so I may have missed that info. The extra $1K in my price came from the 17" flat panel monitor and more RAM.
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 11-22-2001, 10:46 PM:
You'll still need the bridge for analog input/output on the G-4.
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-23-2001, 01:17 AM:
You can use firewire for analog in/out. If you have a firewire camcorder, then it is likely that it has analog passthrough (video and audio goes into the inputs of the camera and out the firewire to the computer). Only the earliest of early DV camcorders did not allow for analog input (like my XL1). Once the industry figured out that we weren't intersted in making perfect digital copies of everything that is copyrighted, they dropped the paranoia and allowed for the analog in function. Worst case scenario if it does not have passthrough... you record your program to the DV tape (because your camera WILL have analog inputs unless you have one of the early models) and then transfer it to the computer with firewire. You will lose no quality doing it that way. I've taken the same clip and bounced it back and forth from computer to tape to computer a dozen times and there is never any degredation. It's just like copying a file on your hard drive to a different drive. Same data, different place.So my answer is "NO" you will not need a separate analog in for your computer.
Also, that price did not include a monitor. But please realize that you don't need to buy a monitor and RAM from Apple... unless you don't like your money and want to give it all away for no reason. Good monitors can be had locally for $200 or less (17 inches). Macs use standard VGA connections so any modern monitor will work just fine without an adapter. The Mac also takes PC133 RAM in it's current models and you can get that locally for about $40 for a 256 meg stick AT THE MOST. You will likely find it even cheaper. Order the Mac with the least amount of main RAM as humanly possible.
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 11-23-2001, 07:26 PM:
Unfortunately, most of my stuff will not be coming from a DV camcorder.However, I did not know about the standard VGA and PC133 RAM. That's a great thing to know beforehand! Thanks, Joe! I've got a 19-inch monitor attached to a computer I hardly ever use. I could spend a small amount on a VGA switcher instead of $999 for the 17-inch Apple monitor. 