Quadra 660AV AV software?

[tattar8]

Hey,

What am I supposed to use to capture (or view) video on the Quadra? It's hard drive was wiped at least once before it made its way to me, and any AV software that was on it is no longer on it.

 

[beachycove]

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA29751?viewlocale=en_US

Other products such as Adobe Premiere can be used, but note that you are not going to be able to capture much in the way of video without an additional Nubus card made specifically for the AV machines, especially with a 660av. It will do sound much better.

A good source of info (if you can find it somewhere) is the old AV Macs FAQ by, as I recall, (James?) Wong. I recently saw it archived somewhere or other but do not care to look further at the moment. You Google, it will come.

 

[CelGen]

Other products such as Adobe Premiere can be used, but note that you are not going to be able to capture much in the way of video without an additional Nubus card made specifically for the AV machines, especially with a 660av. It will do sound much better.

The 660AV has integrated composite and S-video I/O. Why the hell would Premiere not support that?

Failing that though, Apple Video Player has primitive support for frame grabbing and uncompressed video capture to MOV files.

 

[beachycove]

I'll say it again, since you didn't bother to read what was said first time:

Even the 840av with twice the vram and at nearly double the speed of the 660av is very poor at capturing video, stock. There were, however, Nubus cards that did compression in conjunction with the DSP, and together this allowed 30fps capture in the 840av. Stock, you are limited essentially to badly stuttering video or, in effect, to capturing stills well. Performance in the 660av will be even worse, though it will do audio well.

Where did I say that Premiere can't use the hardware in the machine? I recommended it as an software solution to the OP. However, I also pointed out that the hardware in a 660av cannot effectively use Premiere (or any other video capture/ editing program) without help, so as not to get his hopes up.

The photo is offensive, by the way. Downs kids deserve better than that.

 

[TylerEss]

Strata VideoShop is a good choice. It was commercial software, released as freeware by the vendor. It has most of the editing capabilities of something like Premiere.

Supposedly FusionRecorder can capture better framerates than any other software on the AV Quadras by not using a QuickTime VDIG. I guess it talks to the hardware directly...? I always used VideoShop and got results as good as expected.

The comment about not capturing much video on a 660AV is about how the AV Macs lack hardware video compression. So, that means you have to capture at low frame sizes, low frame rates, or both, limited by how fast the CPU can compress video.

 

[Bunsen]

Nubus cards that did compression in conjunction with the DSP

Specifically, the Spigot Pro AV from Radius. Unfortunately, to use it in a 660AV you need the 660-specific Nubus adapter, which very hard to find and/or expensive when you do find it.

 

[Cory5412]

I'll mirror what beachycove has said in my own experiences with an 840av -- it never quite seemed like (stock, which mine was) it was going to be doing a lot of long-form capturing.

What would have been an interesting option to try with a computer-controllable deck is using Premiere 3.x to capture in segments, which it supported. Although what you would ultimately end up is the VHS/Hi8/Beta version of tape shoe shining. I don't even know how well Premiere did this, but it was referenced in the manual.

 

[Bunsen]

You talking about using Premiere to compose an edit list, then hardware-dubbing directly from one tape deck to the other under computer control? Yeah, Premiere supported that, with a plug-in and a serial cable. macmetex was selling the plugin on ebay a while back, and ISTR he had a couple of the cables too.

 

[CelGen]

I'll say it again, since you didn't bother to read what was said first time:
Even the 840av with twice the vram and at nearly double the speed of the 660av is very poor at capturing video, stock. There were, however, Nubus cards that did compression in conjunction with the DSP, and together this allowed 30fps capture in the 840av. Stock, you are limited essentially to badly stuttering video or, in effect, to capturing stills well. Performance in the 660av will be even worse, though it will do audio well.

He didn't say if he wanted full-frame capture. He just wanted to know how to view and record video. I'm quite aware that all the 68K and early PPC macs sucked at proper video capture.

Where did I say that Premiere can't use the hardware in the machine?

Other products such as Adobe Premiere can be used, but note that you are not going to be able to capture much in the way of video without an additional Nubus card made specifically for the AV machines, especially with a 660av.

Sounds to me like "it won't work unless you get a NuBus card first.", which if taken too seriously means locating two hard to find and very expensive parts.

What I'm trying to say is IT WILL WORK, I HAVE DONE IT, BUT DON'T EXPECT MIRACLES.

 

[beachycove]

On a lighter note, I think that VideoFusion QuickFlix was occasionally bundled with the 840av. That name came back to me today, and on a-googling, I found some details in here. Linger for a moment over the cover, even if 'tis not the season to be jolly, and then press on into this great little MUG publication, as QuickFlix is featured, pp. 7ff.

There are some more of these "Double-Clicks" archived on the MUG site in question if you dig around a bit.