Adding a usb 2.0 card to a G4 MDD dual 1.25 to capture HDV or 720

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Level 2

265 points

Adding a usb 2.0 card to a G4 MDD dual 1.25 to capture HDV or 720

Ok how is the speed on the pci bus for the usb 2.0 from sonnet to capture some HD content probably 720 if I have to drop it some... been editing SD for the last few years but I need to bump it up for some tv commercials. I have a dual 1.25 G4.

Thanks for any info if I should move up to a G5 or the usb will get me through for another 6 months for internet tv stuff.

Tony B0

G4 AGP power mac dual 1.25, Mac OS X (10.4.11), FCP 5.04 HD

Posted on Sep 27, 2010 7:17 PM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

250,619 points

Sep 27, 2010 7:41 PM in response to Beazley

Tony, my 2 cents until an expert get here! 😉

I think 1024*768 is about the best you could expect from USB on that setup. USB is mighty dependant on CPU power to get near it's advertised speeds, whereas Firewire doesn't require much from the CPU... anyway you can capture from Firewire? Even FW/400 will out do USB2 for most things.

I'm not really sure I'm remembering right, but using a USB2 eyeTV on a 2.4GHz Intel iMac I couldn't get full HD, on an eMac 1.42GHZ/USB2 I think 640 by 480 was tops.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

250,619 points

Sep 27, 2010 10:17 PM in response to Beazley

720P, (1,366x768, 768p, 720p 1,024x768), doesn't work on the eMac without skipping frames, EDTV seems the limit, (852x480), with few skipped frames, VGA, (640x480) is fine)... sorry, my faster iMac died & can't test.

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Answer 3

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Sep 28, 2010 6:05 AM in response to Beazley

Hi-

USB 2.0 via PCI will give you full USB 2.0 bandwidth without the interrupt that plagues the native bus.
HD capture with an external, USB 2.0 connected hardware encoder should work fine.

Editing and, especially, playing HD, are different issues.

BTW, what capture device are you using/planning to use?

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

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Sep 28, 2010 6:49 PM in response to japamac

Thanks for dropping in jmac! 🙂

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Answer 5

Beazley Author

Level 2

265 points

Sep 29, 2010 4:37 PM in response to japamac

Hey JMac,
Well I thought I would do it this way....would be to take the card from the camera and transfer the files to the hard drive then import into FPC or just playback through the camera via usb 2.0. That's all I know to do since these cameras don't have a firewire output. I've never recorded to a card before so I guess I'm ready to find out what happens. Always used tape in HD cameras.
Trying to hang with my G4 but if I have to upgrade to a G5 then thats what will happen.

Thanks BDAqua for the help too. Maybe I can cut this down to 720. Its for internet tv anyway.....maybe I can squeak by with that.

Thanks for helping out guys,
Tony B.

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Answer 6

Beazley Author

Level 2

265 points

Oct 1, 2010 1:22 PM in response to Beazley

I think maybe these lower cost HD cameras will convert it through the usb 2 ...if it can be done that way.

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Answer 7

Beazley Author

Level 2

265 points

Oct 7, 2010 1:01 PM in response to Beazley

Maybe I'll just stay with SD right now...geez this is too much stress for me to convert when the cash flow isn't there like it was 10 years ago....

Japamac tell me how your system is set up and how you edit HD with what you got.....I really would appreciate it. I've shot HD for ESPN and WGBH and other stations but never really had to edit any of it and it was all tape cameras like the canon and Jvc 110u..... no cards.
I think I will go ahead and get a usb2 card from Sonnet...$20 is a deal for me...at least I can hook up a new hard drive if need be.

Thanks!!!

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Answer 8

Beazley Author

Level 2

265 points

Oct 10, 2010 7:58 AM in response to japamac

Just found a good HD convertor software called clean wrap and it converts HD to mov files...works really well . I had a friend send me a file so I could convert it and try it , but yep the G4 bogs down really bad I heard about that Black Magic card but since I can't edit on my G 4 then I'll skip that also.

Clean Wrap will also convert HD to DV so I might go that route since this is internet tv right now. At least I can shoot with better cameras and get a cleaner video with those. Thanks JapaMac....glad you still like those G4's too...

what is your set up for capturing HD on your G4?

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Answer 9

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Oct 10, 2010 3:23 PM in response to Beazley

Hi-

Any HD that I mess with goes to my DP 1 GHz Quicksilver, which shares the same monitor as my 2 GHz QS via KVM.

After importing, typically via USB 2.0 PCI card, I setup whatever encoding task, and let it run.
Then, with a switch, I'm back to my 2 GHz machine while the other crunches away.

The DP machine does a much better job of encoding than the 2 GHz machine, and even a 2 hr movie rip will be encoded to an h264 AppleTV compatible file in an overnight session.
Smaller, iPod or iPhone files can be completed in as little as 6 hrs. (from a full length DVD rip)

By using 2 machines, I can "multitask" even while encoding takes place.

Editing home movies in iMovie '06 is also done on the DP machine.
Again, because rendering takes time and all of the machines resources, having two machines allows me to keep working while one is crunching data.

Call my setup a poor man's multi core work station......

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Answer 10

BDAqua

Level 10

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Oct 10, 2010 3:27 PM in response to japamac

Call my setup a poor man's multi core work station......

I call it a uGrid setup. 😉

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Answer 11

Beazley Author

Level 2

265 points

Nov 28, 2010 4:39 PM in response to Beazley

Hey that card works well but now my mac will not sleep when I have something plugged into the pci card. The screen will go black but the mac will not sleep and the screen will not come back on. I have to unplug all things from the card and put to sleep manually. Hey but at least I can download the big MTS files now...

Thanks guys!!

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