Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with video and HD

RAID and backup system for Mac Pro?

shinynewnick — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:08:11 -0800

Best RAID / Backup system for HD video on a Mac Pro? I was in the process of building myself a nice little external RAID enclosure with four 1 TB drives, when I started digging into the articles and realizing that RAID isn't backup.

Now I have these 4 1 TB drives, a couple of 500 GB drives, 1 TB internal, and 640 GB system drive for my Mac Pro. So I'm looking for the best way to set up these drives in my workflow for producing HD video.

Here are my basic needs:

1. Reliable Daily backups - Daily backups of all my work. I'm still thinking of using the RAID esata box as a RAID1 setup, to prevent downtime if a drive goes down.

2. Long term backups - When a project is finished, moving the data off the working drive and onto two separate hard drives for storage. I'll buy additional 500 GB drives for this purpose as needed.

3. Speed isn't crucial, as I'm not working in uncompressed HD.

Time Machine seems to be a great built in system, and I'd like to take advantage of that. I'm also signing up for Carbonite for online backup of as much information as I can.

Any thoughts on the workflow and the best way to automate the system would be greatly appreciated.

Embeddable Video

nam3d — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:44:28 -0800

What video sharing website has the 'cleanest' looking embeddable video player which has less branding on it than say YouTube or Daily Motion? It would be a plus if it had a "HD" video option.

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)

Will it fit?

timeistight — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:29:06 -0800

Can I find a 37" 16:9 TV that will in a 36" wide cubbyhole? And even if I can find a 36" wide set, should I be leaving space at the sides for ventilation?

What's the best solution for streaming HD media from a PC?

YoungAmerican — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:08:27 -0800

What's the best solution for streaming HD media from a PC? I just got my first HDTV. For a couple years, I've been using an XBox Media Center with a wireless adapter to watch downloaded video from my WinXP PC in the other room. XBMC, however, lacks the power for HD video.

What's the best, reasonably priced solution in 2008?

I do have Netflix, and Netflix "Play Now" would be neat, but isn't a requisite. I play video games sometimes, and that would be nice, but again, not required. BluRay, same deal. What is important is that it work really well, not require a lot of hacking on my part, and that it play all the stuff I download -- DivX, Xvid, MPEG, etc. I am not opposed to something with an HD I can easily access over my network, but I don't want any sneakernet. I'd rather spend $150 than $300 or $400, but I'd consider the latter if it was something really kickass.

These questions have some sorta answers, but they're also a year old. What's the latest and greatest?

Which camcorders let you turn off all the clever stuff and access the raw video?

handee — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:30:24 -0800

I'm thinking of buying a camcorder. My requirements are slightly unusual: I would like one that does all the "bells and whistles" stuff (image stabilisation, auto light balance, H.264 compression etc). But I also want to be able to turn off all the clever stuff and access the "raw" video. Any recommendations? Hard disk/SD recording is a must, high definition would be good.

Give me my old Final Cut Express!

pzarquon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:13:23 -0800

How do I get Final Cut Express to export straightforward 1280x720 HD videos from my Sanyo Xacti HD700... like it used to? I have a Sanyo Xacti HD700. It gives me 1280x720 MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 files, which my Mac just loves. I used to be able to quickly edit the clips together in Final Cut Express, export using complementary QuickTime settings (specifically, those recommended by Vimeo for HD playback), and get beautiful MP4 files, relatively quickly.

Then, one day, a friend needed me to edit a quick video using a DV camcorder. It was confusing as heck getting the footage into FCE, and not particularly elegant getting it out. But, the project was done overnight, I washed my hands of it, and wanted to get back to making beautiful MP4 files again, relatively quickly.

Except I can't! Now, for one, encoding takes hours. Hours! My source videos and export videos are very similar, yet I sit and watch as the estimate for completion actually goes up for an hour before slowly coming back down.

And frankly, that would be fine, except now my exported videos are the wrong size. They include letterboxes, and the video itself is squished, stretched. So I wait four times as long for a ghastly video. The best I could do is use the Quicktime export settings to "crop off" the letterboxing, but there's still some black bars and it's just not the same.

Here's how my videos used to look. Here's how an exported video looks now. What happened? Out of the box, everything worked perfectly. Now, tainted with actual tape, Final Cut Express seems like it's running my videos through six extra wringers and giving me clips worse than I'd get just cut-and-paste editing the Xacti files in QuickTime Pro!

I Googled my brains out, and all I've learned is, if I had Final Cut Pro, "Project Settings" would have all the switches I need. Well, I don't have FCP, just FCE.

Somewhere, something was set that I want to unset. Can anyone help? Do I have to delete every trace of FCE and just reinstall?

Blu-Ray Menus - made simple[r]?

ostranenie — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:03:48 -0800

I want to develop BD-J / Xlet / GEM menus suitable for Blu-Ray disks but it's confusing... I want to develop Blu-Ray / BD-J / Xlet / GEM menus suitable for Blu-Ray disks but the Java API seems initially confusing, and not many websites agree on just how to implement a menu. Is there a GUI-based BD-J menu development tool I can buy for less than $5000 that will abstract away some of these woes?

This wikipedia article says there are Director-like packages that help author a menu, or even things that take in HTML and spit out GEM menus. But I haven't been able to find anything close to that - just Java APIs and classes and something called Xletview that will allow me to 'preview' a Blu-Ray menu. Am I really just not looking hard enough?

My computer sucks.

trinkatot — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:33:07 -0800

Just how beefy does my media center PC need to be?! I recently built a media center PC from some spare parts I had laying around... It's got an Athlon X2 3800+, 1GB of RAM, and a Western Digital 10,000 RPM SATA drive, and it's running Windows Vista Ultimate. I know that 1GB of RAM is kind of light these days, and that the AMD 3800+ is nothing compared to the new Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, but it's still a pretty passable rig. I figured it would be fine for its intended purposes.

Except, I have a bunch of high resolution (720p and 1080p) video files in MKV format and apparently this machine is not up to the task of playing these files... Playback usually starts off ok, but if there's any sort of action or "busy" scenes with lots of cuts, things start to stutter and stall and while audio usually continues unimpeded, video ends up cutting out for whole minutes at a time.

I've tried both VLC and Windows Media Player.

Apparently, my system is just not up to snuff, and I'm ok with that. But what kind of horsepower do I need under the hood to make sure this stuff will play? Let's set the bar high - like, 8GB 1080p MKV file high...

HD Camera that won't freeze?

trbrts — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:00:52 -0800

Can you help me find an HD video camera? I need an HD video camera for work. I work in the snow, so, it needs to be pretty rugged and not be shy with cold temperatures. I'd love to get away from tapes, but, I've heard that HD cameras don't play nice with freezing temperatures (but I've never actually seen this in print anywhere). I'm often out in the mountains before sun rise in below zero temps, so, I need a camera that can handle these conditions. It needs to be small enough to fit in my backpack with all the other equipment that is required for ski touring in the backcountry. I currently work on Windows XP, so it needs to play nice with that. I've been a still photographer for a long time, but, I really don't know anything about video and I'm trying to get up to speed with a good camera that I'm not going to destroy in one winter. Suggestions?

Also what are some good video forums/sites for N00bs?

Thanks in advance.

Cool project ideas for HD?

angry.polymath — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:28:23 -0800

Help me do something cool with a borrowed pro HD video camera. Many constraints, detailed inside. So, I've got about 36 hours with a borrowed HD camera (a stock JVC GY-HD110U, in case you're wondering), and I have *zero* ideas for any fun projects I can do with it.

Normally I have no shortage of ideas for stuff like this. The problem I have is that it has to be a solo project - all of my local friends have "day jobs" and families and kids and yada yada, and can't come out to "play movies" with me. And Mrs. Polymath is out of town for the rest of the week.

So all I have to work with is me, the camera, a tripod, my dog, and my cat. And whatever is in my house (two home offices, a rec room, the usual living/eating rooms, a bunch of Macs, etc). I'm trying to find a humorous premise for a 3-5 minute short that I can shoot by myself, without looking like a lonely loser.

Can anyone get my creativity gland secreting on this..? Many thanks.

Trouble with .TOD videos and JVC HD Video Camera

JohnGL — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:39:49 -0800

I have a JVC GZ-HD7 Everio HD Camera and I’m having some trouble using the video. I download the video from the camera and it looks great however to use it anywhere requires me to convert it. I’ve tried Camtasia, Sony Vegas 7, Quicktime Pro, several converters like Kingdia and Cucusoft. The end result is always a video that looks like it was shot with a $10 video camera. Is there someway to get the .TOD videos in a usable format that maintains its quality, so I can edit them and create final videos. A tool that would also allow me to letterbox or crop the 16:9 to 4:3. Thanks so much for your time. Have a great one.

Makeshift production monitor from a computer LCD?

UnnotciedTypo — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:12:52 -0800

Can I use my computer monitor as an HD production monitor? I'm putting together a camera package with a Sony PMW-EX1 camera and a 35mm lens adapter. My budget, however, cannot support a decent professional production monitor (yet). My interim solution (which will be used for focusing, not color/exposure evaluation) is to use my LCD computer monitor instead. Obviously not an ideal solution, but could this possibly work?

It's an older model with only VGA inputs, and I'm using a DVI-to-VGA adapter on it now, as I'm using a newer video card.
The camera (which has yet to arrive) has analog component outputs. The most detailed information I've found states the following:

The EX1 uses the same micro-D-shell connector used by most Sony HDV cameras for analog component outputs, and another micro connector carries stereo analog audio and composite video. Y/C is not provided.

The camera also has an HD-SDI output. My background is in film, so I don't have a good enough handle on video signals to figure this out. Can I convert an HD analog component signal to DVI somehow (which would then be adapted to VGA)? My fear is that this will take an expensive converter box that costs just as much as a real production monitor. Does anyone know if this is true?
Thanks so much, in advance.

Xbox 360 + Connect 360 (OS X) + 720p + 802.11n = jerky video?

bryanjbusch — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:26:43 -0800

Xbox 360 + Connect 360 (OS X) + 720p + 802.11n = jerky video? While recently streaming some 1280x720 video from the MacBook (10.5.2, RAM maxed out) through the AirPort 802.11n thing to the Xbox 360, which is connected via a physical ethernet cable, the show would periodically stop.

Then the audio would continue by itself, and then after a minute or so, the video would sort of "fast-forward" and catch up with the audio.

I wasn't running any other applications or downloading big files at the same time. Is this normal behavior, or should I be able to stream HD quality video with this sort of setup?

HD Camcorder importing problems on a Mac

burhan — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:36:59 -0800

I just bought a Canon HV-10 HD camcorder, but importing it into my new iMac is painfully slow. Is it the camcorder, or the computer, or iMovie? I've used my old Canon ZR-65 for years, and have been importing movies via firewire without problem. I just picked up a Canon HV-10 HD camcorder. When I import into iMovie, I notice that the import is not real time - that is, it begins importing at realtime speed, but within a minute is capturing at 1/8 speed. This continues on and on, until imovie crashes (about 30 min. into it).

I can relaunch iMovie, the movie is there, and there are some sections where thumbnails have not been generated.

I've tried reading up on this, but have not found anything solid other than "The HV-10 is a bad HD deck", and "I get broken timecodes with the HV-10".

Could it be iMovie 08? My iMac has 2GB or Ram, and is less than a year old, but could it be that?

When I go to "About this mac" and look at the firewire, it shows the camera connected at 100Mbs (on a 400Mbps port?) -> shouldn't it be showing 400? Canon has no support articles on this.

I have another week or so before I have to return the camera -> thoughts?

I need a new DVD player.

aladfar — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 10:50:25 -0800

Is there such a thing as a future-proof DVD player? My roommate just moved out and took his DVD player with him. So I need to visit the local big box electronics store to pick up a new one. I'd like something that's built to last, can upsample standard DVDs and that can handle one or both of the new HD formats. What should I purchase? This seems like a question that's already been asked a dozen times, but I'm not finding it on search. Still, I apologize if it's a repeat.

USB High Definiton Webcam: How to record?

bryanjbusch — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:00:34 -0800

How do I record high definition (HD) video at at least 24 fps using a webcam? I bought (and then returned) a QuickCam Fusion webcam, which was designed to enable video conferencing at up to 960x720.

It transmits over USB, and works well in iChat (Mac OS X), and with the included software I tested on a separate Windows computer. But iMovie doesn't recognize it, I suspect because it's not Firewire.

Recording through QuickTime resulted in a video playing at only 7.5 fps, and recording in iChat (using the 3rd party "ConferenceRecorder" app) gave me a resolution barely bigger than 640x480.

Recording in Windows also resulted in a video playing at about 7.5 fps.

Am I trying to cheat physics, here, or is there a way to record the video that plays live at 960x720 + 30fps?

Help me lust after new video cameras...

merocet — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:39:04 -0800

Help me lust after new video cameras. OK,my trusty Canon Mv850i just bit the dust and in September I start a Fine Art degree course in Film and Video. Put those two ideas together... So it's definitely time to get a new better camera (or at least work on ways of justifying the expense to my wife while lusting after technology). Up until a few months ago I was looking at upgrading to either a Canon GL2 or an XL1 but now there's this whole new HD business available in the prosumer type camera like the Canon XH-A1. So what are the Mefi recommendations over this? Is it better to try to justify the expense of an HD camera, or, to go for a price cut with the nice cameras I was looking at before but on the old resolution? Is there a better 3ccd camera out there that you can futz with the settings of like the GL2's/ XL1's of this world? Waddya say? To HD or not to HD? Thanks!

Lock, Stock...

popcassady — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:15:30 -0800

I'd like to sell some HD footage. Are there stock libraries that deal in video? I have little knowledge of stock libraries, let alone ones that deal in video.

I'd like to sell some HD footage (abstract stuff). What companies would buy my work? What companies should I avoid? ...are the best to deal with? Do such companies exist? How should I approach them? Who will give me the most money?

Help me hook up my basement

TuxHeDoh — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 11:16:19 -0800

I'm in the market for a low-end (under $2k) HD flat panel tv, I'm thinking plasma, but could be persuaded otherwise. DirecTV, MediaPC and I've got some questions though, I've got DirecTV, do I need a separate HD Receiver for DirecTV to work with the new tv? What is needed to hook up a pc to these tv's? Will I be able to record HD content and playback from a PC? Are there other reasons to hook up a pc to the tv? I've seen HDMI bandied around, but I'm not sure if that's what I need, do I need a special video card, or just one that does DVI? 1080i or 1080p? Does anyone have any good links to beginners setups/configs?

I've got some time and would like to make an educated decision.

Hack my DVR...Please!

nj_subgenius — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:50:35 -0800

Can I hack my Comcast DVR for more storage and connection to my network? I have 'The Wire' and 'Dexter', as well as 'The Daily Show' competing for ever-scarcer space on my Comcast DVR. The unit has a USB and RJ-45 port on it, which make me wonder whether I should just hook crap up to it and see what happens. Realizing that calling Comcast tech support is a dicey proposition (and having done a little homework on the internet), I ask you o great ones....Can I just slap more storage on my DVR by adding a USB disk, or somehow get at my stored programs on my wifi network and stick them on my hard drive (no speculation, thanks)?

What's the best hard drive type for HD video?

wubbie — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 23:48:28 -0800

What are the best hard drives these days to work with high-def video files? The last time I was remotely involved with digital video, you went SCSI or you went home. Standard def digital video files ate up enough capacity as it was, I can only imagine raw high def files needing an order of magnitude more.

I'm going to be purchasing a new Mac Pro and will be working with HD video. My current plan is to get a "stock" Apple drive installed for apps, etc., but then add a 2nd or 3rd drive for digital video files.

I've lost track of all the new acronyms and their seemingly endless varieties (ATA, IDE, SCSI, RAID, Enhanced-this, Ultra-that, etc.) What's the latest/best/fastest hard drive tech? A new flavor of SCSI? I'd like to mount the drive(s) internally if possible, but am not completely opposed to external enclosures if they're recommended for reasons other than portability (which I don't need.) Specific brand/model recommendations encouraged.

I understand that the best drives will have high marks in interface type, RPM (10,000+) and capacity.

This is a "prosumer" environment, budget is open, but not unlimited.

Network-accessible standalone video player?

neustile — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:27:46 -0800

Does this device exist: standalone video player with a builtin harddrive, component video outs, menu system & remote, ethernet/wifi. Does not rely on computer in the house. Can be turned off/made silent like a normal device when I'm not using it. But when it's on I can watch shows and movies I've transferred to it over the network without excessive hacks-- hopefully it can decode most common video formats and play in HD if necessary. Does not need video in--I don't want a recorder. Story is that I have a HD projector & a DVD player but no way to watch ripped DVDs or internet ephemera. We are a laptop-only household and I don't want a noisy computer sitting near my couch. Whatever I end up with has to be easy to use and stable.

Why can't I play HD video?

Orange Goblin — Wed, 10 May 2006 09:30:33 -0800

Why can't my fairly powerful system play HD video content? When ever I try, the audio works fine but the video stutters and lags behind. My system:

AMD 3000+ XP Processor
1GB RAM
GeForce 6600GT 128MB
Running at 1024x768
5.1 Sound

Now, it may not be the best machine in the world, but if I can play Half Life 2 at 1024x768 smoothly, surely I can watch a 720p video file? Microsoft seems to agree. Any suggestions?

HD video camera-buy now? Or buy a 3CCD camera?

geryon — Tue, 09 Aug 2005 12:02:16 -0800

HD camcorder- buy now? Or wait? Or buy nice 3CCD camera? Next year I will be directing two plays a week. I want to be able to record those shows for posterity and to be able to edit them into a fancy looking demo reel.

I'm trying to decide whether to buy a HD camera now or wait. Or should I just buy a nice 3CCD camera (I've got my eye on the Canon GL2) and not worry that my camera is behind the technology curve?

I'm looking for any recomendations for specific cameras or advice on buying these prosumer cameras. Or if you know a really good looking consumer camcorder, my grad school budget would thank you.

All I know that I need is a high resolution, easy to carry, well-built camera that has good sound and video. Is there anything else that I need to be looking for?

Also, I'm a Mac user, so no weird PC-only formats.