A while ago someone posted on this forum a MPEG video from an on board camera on an HO scale model railroad. I recently got a mini TV camera and want to videotape some running on my modules. How would I convert the video (I can copy it to a DVD) into an MPEG file so I can share it with others over the Internet?
I imagine it requires a special program to do the conversion, but I am not interested enough to have to buy such a program. A free one would suit my limited interests. I have Windows Movie Player 10 on my computer, plus Windows Movie Maker, but haven’t yet examined them to see if they can do this for me.
You will need what is called a “capture device” It will convert analog signals ie: your camcorder, vcr to a digital format that can be processed on your computer. The device ranges in price from $35 to well into the thousands! Your local computer shop should have one. In the meantime check out this link. Best of luck.
See if your computer has video inputs on the back. These are sometimes referred to as a “TV card.” A lot of these cards have both coax and video inputs, so you can use the computer as a TV (like for “college” computers,) but you can also take video off a camcorder.
Another option is one of those systems that lets you make DVD recordings of TV shows. If it’s got video input on the back, you might be able to use that.
Your local cable company may have a “local access” studio. These are often in the schools. I’m sure they would have the equipment there, and there is probably someone who would be happy to help you. (Yeah, it’s probably a 15-year-old kid, but I bet he’d think a train-cam video was pretty cool, particularly on your layout.)
As a last resort, our local video shop (not Blockbuster) has a video-to-disk transfer service. I suspect he sends it out, and the price is probably more than you’d want to pay for this kind of thing, but it is an option.
I put my video on You-Tube, http://www.youtube.com a few weeks back. It’s a free service (lots of ads.) One thing I found is that the file upload size is limited (by them) to 100 MB, which sounds like a lot, but for me it came out to about a minute and a half of video. That limit is for each file.
You will need a video input card unless your computer has it built in as mentioned above. There are many out there on the market. Most of them have both line inputs and an input for cable TV. Line inputs are the yellow/white/red RCA jacks. Yellow is video, white is left channel audio and red is right channel audio. The card will come with software that will let you record from cable TV, time-delay record TV, and capture video from the inputs. Just connect the like-coloured jacks on your camera to the jacks on the card and follow the directions in the software. Most likely it will save the recording in an MPEG file. If you have Windows XP, it has a video editing program in it that you can use. Have fun.
In addition to what has been already said, remember that digital video is very memory intensive. It will eat up hard drive space very quickly! The following is from the manual for Final Cut Express (which I use for DV along with imovie):
DV data transfer rates, 3.6 MB/sec DV-format video: 30sec = 108MB, 1 min = 216MB, 5min = 1.08GB, 10min = 2.16GB, 30min = 6.5GB, 60min = 13GB
A good rule of thumb to determine how much space you need is to multiply the amount of space needed for you captured movie by five.
For example, if you capture a tape that’s approximately 60 minutes long: 3.6 MB/sec video rate X 60 minutes = 12960 MB needed for project files. 12960MB x 5 = 64800 MB needed fro project, render, cahe, and other files. Round off 64800 to 65 GB to be on the safe side…
Make sure you have enough hard drive space and and a fast enough processor to be able to handle DV prior to going out and buying a video capture device. I can tell you that the low end capture devices do not always work well. (Don’t ask how I know.)
After rereading your post, Bob, If you can transfer the files to a DVD with equipment you already have, all you would need is a full (professional) version of Windows Media program or QuickTime (for what ever platform you use). You should be able to translate the video into either a Windows Media file or a QuickTime movie. You can then upload the file to a host site.
Since I am not that familiar with the Windows side of computing, I don’t know if the Windows Movie Creator you have will do the job for you. I very well may. Check it out. On the Mac side, imovie will do this and comes built in with the OS, so I think you probably can do the coversion with what you have.
I used to use a Video Capture Card (as people mentioned above) with my “old” computer. It had inputs for the Red, Yellow, and White connectors as mentioned above. So I’d plug my VCR into this card.
Now, my new computer (laptop) doesn’t have a video capture card. However, our new $350-ish digital video camera (bought for making videos of our new baby) came with a cable with the Red, Yellow, White connectors on one end, and a small connector on the other end that plugs into the camera.
Then the CAMERA itself has a selection for Analog to Digital Conversion. Then it outputs with a Firewire cable into the laptop.
As for software, I use a program that was free to me - it came on the computer - called WinDVD creator. I press “record” on it, then play on the VCR, and it records. I could edit clips, etc. very easily. I can save as just about any computer video file type.
Now, you mentioned that you have Windows Movie Maker. It’s essentially the same as the program I just mentioned, but of course, being a microsoft thing, it only wants to save as .wmv (microsoft’s video file type).
I like to save as MPEG2 file type, because this is what DVD players “understand”.
I know that wasn’t a direct answer to your question, but hopefully this information is helpful.
I myself use a Sony DVR 460 Camcorder and “Firewire” direct to the computer.
I run a RAID 0 set up on hard drives that is capable of capturing up to 12 hours worth of raw video.
Keep in mind I use Roxio 7 to edit the tape video to a windows media player file.
File sizes are extremely large in my case.
One hour of Digital 8 Tape works out to about 14 Gigabytes of Disk space.
One hour of edited video burned on to a CD as a .WMV is about 650 megabytes in best quality give or take 50 megabytes.
Im also equipped with a DVD burner but dont use it much yet. I expect to be using it as file sizes grow bigger than 700 Mb/Cd.
I usally delete the raw video from the RAID once I have a CD made. Then defrag the disks.
On my camcorder are inputs where I can capture VCR video using phono wires.
I have tried to find free programs that convert .wmv to .AVI for quick time to run on a MAC but they usually process one half of the video then stop. A popup asks if you would like to register and pay a cost to get the full version.
So far I have not found a satisfactory retail version that reliably burns from .wmv to .avi output. (Quicktime)
Bob it depends how new your computer is. My Panasonic digital camcorder connects through the USB port. If I’m not mistaken the latest version of WIndows media player will capture it and most newer computers come with some form of software to convert to either MPEG or AVI format. Pinnacle Studios makes a program that is about $28.00 if you need it.
Not really needed antway as the Mac can read the .wmv files by downloading the free Windows Media Player for Mac. What you do have to do is go into the CD burning software about 3 windows deep to find the carefully hidden box to check that will have the burner burn an ISO compliant CD that can be used on any platform not just the windows boxes.
I believe that if you can input it to a suitable port on the computer, and save it to a file in Windows Media Player, it will be converted to an MPEG. Even if you can’t, but save it as a file in “My Documents”, and then try to open it, your computer will prompt you to chose from a list of programs with which to open the file. You’d choose WMP, and that should work. From then on, your computer will use WMP preferentially.
I only breezed through the above posts, but you might want to look into the open source software on the web before spending any money. (I don’t know what kind of camera you have, but you may need a video capture card as mentioned above). You should do a Google for video conversion software before you spend any money on it.