Virtual VTR v. DC20

[Pietari Koskinen]

I am upgrading from PowerTower Pro w/466MHz G3 to a new G4 computer. I've been using MiroMotion DC20 many years for digital picture with very good results. With G4 I will not be able to use DC20 anymore (or neither any other video card, because my slots will be full with Mix Cubed and Atto). It looks that my only alternative would be buy Virtual VTR and use it in my current computer with DC20.

If there is somebody who is done a similar switch, I would like to hear your experiences. How responsive is Virtual VTR compared to using only DC20? I read the manual of Virtual VTR and got the feeling that it would not be as good: "video should lock up and play in sync in under a second". With DC20 in my current computer the video lock up is instantaneous.

Thanks.

[potatohead]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pietari Koskinen:
It looks that my only alternative would be buy Virtual VTR and use it in my current computer with DC20.

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Actually, you can also go the Firewire route. If you use the Echo Fire plug-in from Synthetic Aperature (http://www.synthetic-ap.com) plus a Firewire-to-video converter box (I've got a Sony DVMC-DA2 I purchased through www.tristatecamera.com for $289, but you should also check out http://www.synthetic-ap.com/tips/fir ewireconverters.html), you can get DV quality video with very little overhead to the CPU. There is a movie sync offset (like in older Miro cards), but once that is set, it's a beauty.

Expect disk usage of about 1GB per 5minutes of DV picture. So, if you go this route, you'll probably want an extra large internal ATA drive just for digital picture. (80GB ATA/100 for $195 is a good going price through www.pricewatch.com).

Picture quality is much much much better than a Miro or Fuse card, with the load on the G4 much better than the Fuse card. (the Fuse card seems to slow down a G4 much more than a Miro slowed down previous machines...)

Hope this helps.

[Pietari Koskinen]

Potatohead, thanks for the info. I read about the firewire route from the archives, and it really sounds promising. A few questions:

I guess that you still need some program to capture video. I have Premiere 4.2.1 LE but I'm not sure if it works with the new G4s. Could you use iMovie for capturing? Does iMovie have the conforming function?

Also, how smooth is scrubbing (of both audio and video simultaneously) using Echo Fire /converter box -combo? I use to scrub a lot and scrubbing works very well with my current system.

Thanks again.

[potatohead]

I wish I had some hands on experience, but I haven't yet. I'll try it out on a project over the next 2 weeks and I'll report back..

Sorry...

[tom_mac]

At the risk of sounding like a product rep ..
if you can get the boys in accounting to let loose a few grand ...the random access video decks (mpeg / harddisc) kick ass !
doremi makes a few. i use the v1m. theyre cheap with no front panel and they perform very well (30 frames of preroll) scrubb is very smooth and accurate.
of course you need a Digi usd but i love mine .

[houser]

Quick response,

We have some really good experiences with VVTR *IF* you use a G3 or better.
Very fast, very cool.
We use Aurora igniter cards though.

best
jtm

[Pietari Koskinen]

potatohead,

Any experiences yet how it works?

Thanks.

[Pietari Koskinen]

I tried Echo Fire demo today. I am using DV picture with Sony TVR30 camcorder. The downside compared to my previous system (Miro DC-20) is that the video latency varies depending on playback speed. I found that using movie sync offset of 24 quarter frames gives me good sync when in playback mode at normal speed. However, if I try to playback at half speed, some other movie sync offset is needed to achieve sync. Same goes to scrubbing. This was not the case with DC-20. Is this behavior price you have to pay if you go the DV route?

Actually, it may be that video latency is constant (in ms.). But that is not good. It should be constant in frames, at any speed.

[Hoepffner]

I personnaly use sync to video deck (DSR11 via rosendhal LIF and midi) because I found that through echo fire, aurora or DC30, there is too much work for CPU and disk to show the video. With this solution all is working perfectly with all the power to the sound (I use DP3 with digi001)