30 min videos

[tgoode]

have a buddy who has several videos (30 min each) from a PBS station (he owns the tapes so no problem there) but wants to allow some users to view them.
the question is:
1. about how much space per tape will i need ?
2. what format would be best for overall users?
3. where do i go to find out "how" to convert them so i can get them into my pc for upload?
thanks
Terry G.

[Rick_E]

Even though he has purchased a copy of the tapes, he may not have the right to rebroadcast them. He should check with PBS on that.

You will use a video capture card to get the video into your computer then encode it to a streaming format such as Windows Media, Real, or Quicktime. There are free or almost free encoders provided for this purpose.

The free Windows Media Encoder can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/create.aspx

The free Real Producer for encoding RealMedia is at
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/index.html

and the Pro Version of the QuickTime player, which will encode streaming QuickTime files is at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/

Performance:

You would get improved performance by hosting your streaming media on a specialized media server, but for low-traffic sites you can host your streaming media files on your web site and use http streaming.

Many people encode a broadband version at around 250 kbps and also a dialup version at 28 kbps. Obviously, the broadband version will have better quality and frame rates.

[Rick_E]

The space required depends on how large you want the image, the frame rate, and bitrate. This varies greatly so you'll just have to experiment.

Probably 95% of users have Windows Media. The non-Windows world often uses QuickTime. Consider using one or both of those formats.

[damber]

If you don't have a capture card, some Digital Cameras allow you to input an analog video signal and record it to MiniDV Tape. You can then upload it to your PC as a digital file. If you know someone that has one, look into it.

I own a Sony TRV950 camera and do this on the odd occasion. Saves you buying a Capture Card (unless you plan to use it a lot, then its worth investing in it). Its a 2 step process and works just fine (no problem with any visibile quality degradation).

For Space.
Raw video AVI files (converted from my camera) run at 12 Gig per hour. I'll let you do the math.

My personal choice for compression is into a wmv file at 256Kps (2 Meg per minute). You can see some examples of streaming web at my personal site (hosted on powweb):

www.emuvideo.com