Re: ibook G3 USB video input?

R <> wrote:

> I want to transfer old video tapes to my ibook.Is there a good USB or
> firewire device that will capture it for me? I can't find anything at newegg
> or amazon.Anyone know of a good device that will do this?

The iBook G3's USB input isn't practical: it isn't fast enough for "real
time" video input, unless you severely limit the resolution or frame
rate. Most USB video capture devices expect a computer with USB 2.0
support, but the iBook G3 is only USB 1.1.

Firewire is substantially faster than USB 1.1, and easily fast enough
for digital video.

The easiest solution is a Firewire digital video camera which has analog
inputs and the ability to "play through" from an analog source to
Firewire (some of the cheaper ones are missing this feature). The iBook
G3 should be able to capture video in this manner, using iMovie.

There are some issues to watch out for:

The first problem is the speed and capabilities of the CPU. The G4 and
later CPUs have additional features which significantly improve the
speed of doing tasks like converting or processing video. On a G3
processor, you generally need special hardware assistance to do any kind
of "real time" video processing. One example of this is that a G4 is
able to decode and play a DVD in software, whereas a G3 can only do it
with a video card which has special support for DVD playback.

As a result of this, any video editing or processing tasks on an iBook
G3 will be incredibly slow compared to a Mac with a G4, G5 or Intel
processor. Some software in this realm simply won't run on a G3, because
it depends on the extra capabilities of the later processors.

A second problem may be the speed and capacity of the hard drive. Video
capture from a Firewire video camera generates a significant amount of
data, and you need to be able to write it to disk fast enough to keep up
with the incoming data. An hour of video will require something like 12
gigabytes of disk space just to store the video (at least double this if
you intend to do any editing). The hard drive needs to be able to keep
up with writing data at about 3.5 megabytes per second. An iBook G3's
internal hard drive might be too slow and too small.

You should be able to solve this with an external Firewire hard drive.
Any 7200 rpm 3.5" drive should be fast enough for video capture.

--
David Empson

In article <1i0dvog.18ly1ke44m2mwN%>,
(David Empson) wrote:

> R <> wrote:
>
> > I want to transfer old video tapes to my ibook.Is there a good USB or
> > firewire device that will capture it for me? I can't find anything at newegg
> > or amazon.Anyone know of a good device that will do this?
>
> The iBook G3's USB input isn't practical: it isn't fast enough for "real
> time" video input, unless you severely limit the resolution or frame
> rate. Most USB video capture devices expect a computer with USB 2.0
> support, but the iBook G3 is only USB 1.1.
>
> Firewire is substantially faster than USB 1.1, and easily fast enough
> for digital video.
>
> The easiest solution is a Firewire digital video camera which has analog
> inputs and the ability to "play through" from an analog source to
> Firewire (some of the cheaper ones are missing this feature). The iBook
> G3 should be able to capture video in this manner, using iMovie.
>
> There are some issues to watch out for:
>
> The first problem is the speed and capabilities of the CPU. The G4 and
> later CPUs have additional features which significantly improve the
> speed of doing tasks like converting or processing video. On a G3
> processor, you generally need special hardware assistance to do any kind
> of "real time" video processing. One example of this is that a G4 is
> able to decode and play a DVD in software, whereas a G3 can only do it
> with a video card which has special support for DVD playback.
>
> As a result of this, any video editing or processing tasks on an iBook
> G3 will be incredibly slow compared to a Mac with a G4, G5 or Intel
> processor. Some software in this realm simply won't run on a G3, because
> it depends on the extra capabilities of the later processors.
>
> A second problem may be the speed and capacity of the hard drive. Video
> capture from a Firewire video camera generates a significant amount of
> data, and you need to be able to write it to disk fast enough to keep up
> with the incoming data. An hour of video will require something like 12
> gigabytes of disk space just to store the video (at least double this if
> you intend to do any editing). The hard drive needs to be able to keep
> up with writing data at about 3.5 megabytes per second. An iBook G3's
> internal hard drive might be too slow and too small.
>
> You should be able to solve this with an external Firewire hard drive.
> Any 7200 rpm 3.5" drive should be fast enough for video capture.

Capture through an FW camera using iMovie should work well, we have done
so from tapes in the camera. The stock HD may be an issue but you can
replace it.

Interestingly enough, using iMovie I beg to differ with David: the speed
of a G4 is mostly just scaling up with clock speed. I.e. we compared a
Powerbook G4 at 1.5 GHz with a 700 MHz iBook, and the Powerbook was
about a factor 2 faster, despite Altivec instructions (which may not be
used by iMovie), when creating the final video file for burning (which
is where the time is spent). IIRC we had iMovie 5. This was with the
iBook's HD upgraded to an 80 GB, 5400 rpm Toshiba.

Mac Dude.