Analog video capture on Beige G3

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I've recently come across a beige G3 500 with analog video and S-video input. I'd like to give it to my girlfriend to use with her VHS-C camera for editing. Does anyone know the best way to capture 29.97fps @ 720x480, if it's even possible? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by Guartho:

    <strong>I've recently come across a beige G3 500 with analog video and S-video input. I'd like to give it to my girlfriend to use with her VHS-C camera for editing. Does anyone know the best way to capture 29.97fps @ 720x480, if it's even possible? :confused: </strong><hr></blockquote>



    beige G3 500?! I thought 300 or 333 was as high as they went.



    Media 100. It's expensive. FCP could probbaly do it, and is less expensive. Premiere too. Check Apple Video Player, it should be included in OS8.1, which is what the beige G3s shipped with. I haven't used it in a VERY long time, so I'm not sure if it will fullfill your specifications, but it's cheap (free).



    [ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: Stroszek ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 16
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    it didn't start out at 500.. it's been upgraded. So premiere will do it? yay...
  • Reply 3 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by Guartho:

    <strong>it didn't start out at 500.. it's been upgraded. So premiere will do it? yay...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Oh. I don't know why I didn't figure that one out by myself. Little slow, I guess. Premiere should do it, I haven't used it in years either, and I never really used it very heavily, you might want to get some opinions from some premiere users before you spend money on it...
  • Reply 4 of 16
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Ahh, my area of expertise...



    The beige G3 card supports up to 640X480. But at that resolution, I got the full 29.97FPS on the screen, but only 18-24FPS recording to the drive. (Perfect for capturing still pictures) It may work with your processor upgrade. The most compatible thing is to buy a cheap firewire card.



    (Ha! Just try to tear this post apart Brad!) J/K



    [ 09-13-2002: Message edited by: Ebby ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 16
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    Actually, it has a firewire card in it, the main thing is that my girlfriend's camera and all the projects she wants to do are VHS-C, with only analog. If we can just capture full rez, full frame, we'll be happy campers... then we can output to mini-dv with my camcorder, or burn a DVD on my Quicksilver G4... (if it ever gets here!)



    Thanks all
  • Reply 6 of 16
    [quote]Originally posted by Ebby:

    <strong>Ahh, my area of expertise...



    The beige G3 card supports up to 640X480. But at that resolution, I got the full 29.97FPS on the screen, but only 18-24FPS recording to the drive. (Perfect for capturing still pictures) It may work with your processor upgrade. The most compatible thing is to buy a cheap firewire card.



    (Ha! Just try to tear this post apart Brad!) J/K



    [ 09-13-2002: Message edited by: Ebby ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Would upgrading to a new card solve that?
  • Reply 7 of 16
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    The beige G3's use 1 of 2 personality cards. One "standard" card and one DVD/Video card. They are special cards, not PCI capture cards. (However, PCI cards with S-Video/composit-in will work but are very expensive.) It may be best to buy a <a href="http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=926349"; target="_blank">Dazzle</a> thingy or something like it.



    :cool:



    [ 09-13-2002: Message edited by: Ebby ]</p>
  • Reply 8 of 16
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Video capture is very poor on the Beige G3.

    As far as I remember, Apple only lists 32x240@30FPS and not 640x480...Also if you capture with sound, picture and sound will fall apart in timing very quickly and you'll soon have the picture lag behind the sound for several seconds.



    Tell her to get a modern Mac and a DV cam.



    G-News
  • Reply 9 of 16
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    [quote]Originally posted by G-News:

    <strong>



    Tell her to get a modern Mac and a DV cam.



    G-News</strong><hr></blockquote>



    No, I want her to spend that money on me! lol... no, we're both college students so we pretty much gotta make do with what we've got.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    If you're using VHS, then you probably don't need full resolution capture. Reducing the size will make for a smoother capture without a drastic loss in quality (because VHS isn't high quality anyway, or I've just got rubbish tapes ).



    Anyone know how well a 6500 with a G3 upgrade could capture video? I'd be interested to know. How much of the capture slowness is Apple Video Player's fault?
  • Reply 11 of 16
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    dunno, I just know that on a Beige G3 AV with a G4 466 card in it, capturing with sound using Apple Video Player sucks, no matter at what resolution.

    It just sucks. Without sound, it's fine though.



    G-news
  • Reply 12 of 16
    bungebunge Posts: 7,329member
    If you're willing to buy some hardware, look for an Aurora Fuse. It is a dedicated video capture card and worked wonders on my friend's 9600.



    If you're commited to the built in capture card, then the only way to get 29.97 FPS @ 720 x 480 is to have a really fast harddrive (a RAID 0 configuration) and lots of RAM. It's most likely not possible with 1 drive, unless you max out the RAM and only make small captures.



    Just to be clear, even the FUSE required fast drives to do high quality captures. It just did really high quality at high framerates and resolution, considering the price.
  • Reply 13 of 16
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    I don't think the internal chip in teh Beige G3 even supports for resolutions past 640x480.



    G-News
  • Reply 14 of 16
    What about a cheap firewire card and Miglia's Directors Cut video transcoder? (www.miglia.com)Works fab for me!

    <a href="http://www.miglia.com"; target="_blank">Miglia's home page</a>
  • Reply 15 of 16
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    The Miglia boz is kewww... We use them here at school, except when we bought them they were still PowerR. A Director's cut box is definately on my list, but I'm gonna get a pioneer 104 SuperDrive first. Even that will have to wait a bit. Tomorrow I get my G4 867 that I spent all my money on. YAY!!!



    But she has a tub full of VHS-C cassettes from projects she's started, so we need an analog solution. On the upside, she's had them in that tub for quite a while, so a little while longer won't hurt.
  • Reply 16 of 16
    my biege (you will need a faster drive any modern 20G or better will bax the IDE on a beige 16.6M/per sec.)will do 30FPS 640x480 w/no sound you can add it later without sync problems. best solution would be a DV camera tha can record off analog inputs the export it via fire wire
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