Analog 2 Digital Video Converter

[rombe3jr]

I've been using Ulead to edit video - its fabulous. Very easy to learn, so now editing home video is a sinch.

So the problem is I've been using a friend's Mini DV camera, but mine is an 8MM Samsung. Its a great camera, but its not digital, so I need a converter to put videos on my hard drive for editing in Ulead.

I've been looking at the Plextor PX-AV100U ... seems like the best value for the buck, and I have the right processor to handle it. I have a couple questions though - since this convertor comes with some editing software called DivX - which I already know I don't want to use, can I still capture video with it and edit in Ulead?

Also, what am I sacrificing here since the price is so much lower than other models? Picture quality? Transfer speed? Is another product worth paying the extra cash for? Thanks for your help! (much appreciated from a video editing novice)

Oh, one more question. The Plextor site says that this devise "automatically compresses into the MPEG-1 (Video CD) or MPEG-2 (DVD) format while it is being recorded to your PC, saving you lots of time and hard disk space." Well that's great, but I import AVI files to Ulead now, so is MPEG-2 going to work in Ulead?

 

[Strakian]

Hello!

Well, I for one am not terribly familiar with video editing nowadays, ,but I can answer a couple of the questions that you have asked. :giddy:

about the Plextor:

http://www.cluboc.net/reviews/multimedia/Plextor_ConvertX/
This is a quick overview/review of the product, ,and based on the description it looks like youo will be getting MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 regardless when you convert using this product.

As for Different products, I'm really not to sure. The general assumption is that you get what you pay for, but tis is not always true. Nowadays with technology so fast and rampant, good things do come at inexpensive prices if you can find them. Now for some questions...
Picture quality? Transfer speed?

We'll start with transfer speed. The brief review cites a USB 2.0 interface. While this is a pretty fast way to transfer files, it's really not optimal for large streams of data. I wuld suggest looking into a Firewire (IEEE 1394) capable version of this Plextor, or any brand for that matter Video Converter if your computer motherboard has the option. If your motherboard does not support Firewire, and you have an extra PCI slot, grab a ten dollar IEEE 1394 interface card and get rolling!
(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815124015)

As for picture quality, the initial conversion would be very high, ,since it would be DVD quality. The problem lies in converting to AVI so that you can edit it using Ulead. Basically the more times you convert something, ,the lower the quality goes... and you can only convert upwards in quality based on the highest quality capable in the current file. That statement i a little cryptic, so here's an example: I have a 362KBps bit rate MP3, but it takes up waaay to much space. I convert it down to a 128KBps and save me some crazy space. However, now that it's been nerfed to 128, the other data that was in the 362KBps file is now gone, and while I can technically convert back to 362 with my 128 file, the quality will not sound any better because it's missing data, and missing quality.

This example also answers your third question. You can convert so yo can use an AVI in your Ulead, but quality loss may become an issue. In addition, uuncompressing will take up a ton of harddrive space, so be sure to have a massive drive if you plan to do this. Most film editor people that I know won't stand for less than 200 GB nowadays, as real estate is precious when video editing.

Hope you found some of this useful! and good luck with your projects! :grinthumb

 

[rombe3jr]

Well, actually no...

Upon doing some further research myself, the device can convert to AVI.

Also, our IT guy said that USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire with the right processor speed, which we have.