Good 4:4:4 Video Capture Device?
 

Does anyone know of a good video capture device that will capture 4:4:4 uncompressed, or near-lossless compression? I'm not talking DV. I want to get a real high quality capture from laserdisks. I can use my camera ADC to DV, but I don't think that will result in the highest quality image I can get. Also will it break my budget?

Thanks,

Peter

i don't think laser disc are 4:4:4 ... has to be some compression in there ... you might think more along 4:2:2 ...

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/index.htm

Black Magic Designs only do 4:2:2 hardware with the DeckLink cards. For 4:4:4 this is the cheapest I can think of:

http://www4.discreet.com/lustre/

Interesting about LDs being only 4:2:2. I need to double check that but if that's true, then there you go.

What's DV?

Thanks a lot for the suggestions!

laserdiscs are analog,

Peter,

DV NTSC is 4:1:1. DV PAL is 4:2:0

That doesn't mean the chroma is sampled at the same rate as the luma. Analog does not equal 4:4:4.

Does the Pinnacle Targa3000 capture 4:4:4? The product material goes on at some length about its 4:4:4:4 realtime capabilities...

Julian

Wow, these things really are going to break my budget! I guess I'm not going to get anything better than my GL2's ADC to DV.

No the Targa is 4:2:2 hardware. The codec and software handling is 4:4:4. Targa and CineWave are the same thing. CineWave uses a 16-bit 4:4:4:4 codec if you want it to. That does not mean it captures 4:4:4 and outputs 4:4:4. And when it comes to digital video formats there are really only two devices that deliver 4:4:4 and that's HDCAM SR and D5.

If you're digitising from Laserdisc, I'd just dub to DV - it's not going to lower the quality for you because Laserdisc is not as good picture quality as DV.

Graeme

I highly doubt your GL2 analog output to a 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 board
will increase your quality in any way.

No it won't and laserdisc does't warrant 4:4:4 (or even 4:2:2) because it doesn't have that level of colour bandwidth to start with!

Graeme

Yeah the question is whether laserdisc output warrants 4:4:4 and it sounds like the answer is unanimously no. Thanks all for the suggestions!

Re: Good 4:4:4 Video Capture Device?
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Moore : Does anyone know of a good video capture device that will capture 4:4:4 uncompressed, or near-lossless compression? I'm not talking DV. I want to get a real high quality capture from laserdisks. I can use my camera ADC to DV, but I don't think that will result in the highest quality image I can get. Also will it break my budget?

Thanks,

Peter -->>>

You don't need this kind of quality except you want to do some serious vertical layering with lots of graphics.
Secondly,laserdiscs don't give out 4.4.4 uncompressed video.It is like looking for that from a Hi-8 or superVHS signal.
Thirdly such cards are costly,check out www.bluefish444.com

<<<-- Originally posted by Martin Munthe : No the Targa is 4:2:2 hardware. The codec and software handling is 4:4:4. Targa and CineWave are the same thing. CineWave uses a 16-bit 4:4:4:4 codec if you want it to. That does not mean it captures 4:4:4 and outputs 4:4:4. And when it comes to digital video formats there are really only two devices that deliver 4:4:4 and that's HDCAM SR and D5. -->>>

I think you have to add D-9 in there don't you?

<<<-- Originally posted by Mike Rehmus : <<<-- Originally posted by Martin Munthe : No the Targa is 4:2:2 hardware. The codec and software handling is 4:4:4. Targa and CineWave are the same thing. CineWave uses a 16-bit 4:4:4:4 codec if you want it to. That does not mean it captures 4:4:4 and outputs 4:4:4. And when it comes to digital video formats there are really only two devices that deliver 4:4:4 and that's HDCAM SR and D5. -->>>

I think you have to add D-9 in there don't you? -->>>

Points of correction,the only tape format as of now that records the full RGB 4:4:4 signal is HDCAM SR.
D5 and D9 are 4:2:2 formats only.
Another thing is that quicktime is not compatible with 4:4:4 RGB video(meaning that MAC is not compatible) and that is why digital voodoo is switching completely to the PC platform.

The Mac can do 4:4:4 RGB - don't let yourself be taken in by Digital Voodoo. They moved to the PC platform because they burned all their mac customers. They promised product and didn't deliver, and promised features that didn't work. They lost their head guy, who formed black magic design, and who's products are going from strength to strength. He's also a complete quicktime guru.....

Graeme

Hmmm,i am yet to see a mac based NLE with the capability of capturing uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB.I have looked but they all seem to be PC based or on other platforms including even linux(Smoke SD).
Mac based NLEs can process internally in that format but capture?A big question mark there.

Akin: Thanks for the input. I thought D5 was 4:4:4 but I was wrong.

No there are no MacOS solutions for hardware 4:4:4 to my knowledge. But that doesn't have anything to do with Macs being more limited. It's basically the same hardware and there's nothing in MacOS that can't handle 4:4:4.

Bluefish444 (sister company to Digital Voodoo) doesn't offer any 4:4:4 solutions despite the name. And all of the cards are QuickTime based despite Bluefish/Voodoos claims to QT being inferior to whatever.

It wasn't only bad business behavior that scared Voodoo out of the water. Voodoo was started by Grant Petty who now rund DeckLink. How many cards do you think Voodoo sold after their former engineering genius started selling DeckLink HD's at $2K? And now that DeckLink is running on PPro I don't think we'll se much more from Bluefish either but that just me speculating.

File Sizes
 

Don't forget captuing in 4:4:4 uncompressed equates to 540Mb per second or about 190GB per hour of video. My experience says that not even in professional video productions (TV movies) is 4:4:4 used. The standard is DigiBeta (4:2:2) and even it is compressed slightly (1.3:1), even that is about 95GB per hour.
If you can record from the LaserDisc player to a high quality hardware DV codec (Canopus AVDC-100 or the like) the image quality will be more that acceptable. The problems will be with the conversion to DVD however at high bit rates (8Mbps) you will still be impressed with the final result.

Good Luck

Devlyn