Recording the live feeds
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: All Things Technical for BB 2003 (computer stuff): Recording the live feeds

Xx2000xx

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 07:57 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I have StreamBox VCR setup and ready. Has anybody done this before in the past? And if so, I'm curious of the size of let's say a typical 30 min. recording? I'd imagine it will hit the HD pretty hard. I have a dvd burner here, i might have to start cleaning out ALOT of space.

Draheid

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 09:15 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Xx2000xx: There are a number of factors that will affect the final file size of your capture. The resolution you choose, the compression scheme, frame rate, audio encoding rate, etc. will all make a difference. I just captured a 60 second clip of video from my WinTV USB device and here are the statistics:
Resolution: 320 x 240
Duration: 0:01:00
Bit Rate: 1411kbps
Audio: 16 bit PCM
Video: 30 frames/second
Video Sample size: 12 bit
Video Compression: VCRCODEC
FIle Size: 203MB (213,749,248 bytes)

Based on these setting, a 30 minute program would require approximately 6GB of storage.

There are of course many different compression technologies available, as well as being able to set all the various encoding rates, resolution, etc so all of that should be considered.

When I encoded some home video from Digital8 into my computer, an approximately 45 minute digital video created a 9GB file. Using a better compression and lower quality, I can reduce that to 600MB file and burn it to a VCD for playback on my DVD Player & TV.

Hope this helps.

Therlin

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 09:17 am EditMoveDeleteIP
In my experience, real video files captured with Streambox are fairly small. You should be ok.

Ryn

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 09:43 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Just a heads up this might be moved to the tech help area.

I have never managed to get streambox to work with anything but pre-recorded stuff - and even that has been iffy of late.

I tried and could not get the CBS preview video to save. :(

Xx2000xx

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 09:55 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Nope, i'm not capping off of the tv, but rather the feeds. I'm familiar with capping off of the tv and you're way off. Use divx, xvid, huffy or tons of other codecs besides vcrcodec (which i take is the default codec from the program you have.)

Go here for info: http://www.dvdrhelp.com/capture and visit the forums too.

And for the real feeds, i can't change what they offer, i'm capping the direct feed that real gives us, with that being broadband feeds, i'd imagine it's going to be very large, and probably not do able. I'll post some more info tonight when i experiment with it.

I'll probably just end up capping if there is peanut butter going over body parts or secret codes going on :-) Then post to usenet, or ftp to other BB sites that want to host it.

Draheid

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 10:18 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Xx2000xx: You said I have StreamBox VCR setup and ready so I incorrectly presumed you were trying to record TV based on the term VCR. Apparently I should have paid more attention to the title of the thread. My apologies.

I said: Based on these setting, a 30 minute program would require approximately 6GB of storage.

There are of course many different compression technologies available, as well as being able to set all the various encoding rates, resolution, etc so all of that should be considered.


Yes, there are many different compression technologies available and most have their own unique advantages and disadvantages to them so choosing one would depend on your ultimate goal in capturing the video. Whether it is for widespread distribution or just for personal use, you would need to know the target 'audience' in order to decide what to use to make it suited for that 'audience'. Few end users have the different codecs installed to view video from the myriad of compression schemes currently available and might have difficulty viewing the encoded file on their computer. This should also be taken into consideration when deciding how to encode.

Ryn

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 10:21 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Xx - do you use URL snooper to get the url and then enter that into Streambox?

I am using Streambox VCR 1.0 beta 2 and Url Snooper 1.1 beta 1

Is there newer stuff out there??

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 09:25 am EditMoveDeleteIP
I'm using beta 3.1 - with an add-on that will allow you to capture java type hidden links. But it's telling me the rtsp command is unknown. I'll see if i can get help through usenet, if not, i doubt it will work.

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 09:41 am EditMoveDeleteIP
http://pub25.ezboard.com/fstreemeboxvcrfrm7.showMessage?topicID=4.topic

Looks like it may be possible, i'll start doing some research and play around a bit, i'll let u know as soon as i figure something out.

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 09:51 am EditMoveDeleteIP
!!!! It's about time i got it working

http://pub25.ezboard.com/fstreemeboxvcrfrm7.showMessage?topicID=44.topic

That program does the trick, i'm going to mess around with the codecs etc, so i get a good pic with decent size. I just did a 30 sec. cap uncompressed and it was 220 megs.

The program is easier than hell to work too.

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 10:33 am EditMoveDeleteIP
** Hardware decompressor found for I420 format
Video Size: 320, 240
** Current codecs parameters are invalid!! Please reselect them in Options!

Is it me, or can you guys only get the uncompressed working?

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 10:39 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Sorry for all the posts guys, got it working now. Beware, this program has a major bug. DO NOT go into options first, and play around with the settings. Just plug in the url, then save to wherever, then a screen will pop up and then choose your choice of codec.

I'm running divx 5.02 right now and it's looking awesome. Well the picture isn't, Jack is currently taking a shower :)

Xx2000xx

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 11:08 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Ok, looks like the best setting is this.

First go into options, just don't play around with the video codecs. Change the audio to mp3. Then type in the url + where u want to save. Then when the video codec screen pops up, go to divx 5.0.4 - then configure it for max bitrate. Then you should be good to go.

And yes, you can cap more than one feed at a time, i'm currently d/l all 4 streams right now. For size, it's about 10 megs for 2 min.

Ryn

Thursday, July 10, 2003 - 12:27 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Thanks for all the updates Xx - I haven't messed with it yet - but I am sure I will try it out soon :)

Xx2000xx

Friday, July 11, 2003 - 12:21 am EditMoveDeleteIP
Good as golden here, got literally gigs of movies, plus some nudes, if ppl want that :)

It's amanda, who i find very attractive, but it's a start.

Freydnot

Sunday, July 13, 2003 - 03:07 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
When I use mp3 encoded audio, it gets converted down to 22k. Does this happen to anyone else? I'd like to use mp3, but it garbles the audio pretty bad.

I've been using ADPCM (or whatever that is called) and that seems to work out okay. Better then strait PCM at least.

I am also using Xvid for video with the default 1pass quality settings. Works good (and its open source).

Naja

Wednesday, October 22, 2003 - 06:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
If any of you techie guys have tried using Windows Media Encoder 9 for the live feed video captures, let me know if it's possible to capture the sound, too. I can capture the video great, but no matter what I put the sound capture settings on, I can't seem to get the video with the sound. I think I could do it by choosing mic option and putting the mic near the speaker, but I actually would feel silly doing that..LOL