Being Helpful: New Post to videohelp.com

In the interests of keeping this blog alive,
I've decided that I will start cross posting my answers I post
to the othe site I frequently contribute to, the wonderful
videohelp.com. Hopefully, this will keep my posting ratio
up, and energize me to write a bit a more.

here is my latest entry where I help a poster with a question
on how to get PDF Data onto an authored DVD he made in DVD Studio Pro 4:

My problem is:
I've authored a DVD in DVD Studio Pro, the size is 9GB, I then burnt this to a single layer
DVD with Toast 10 using fit to DVD compression,
the client now wants me to add a few PDF's to the disc, so that when they open the disc 
from the desktop they can access the PDF's,
I've tried adding the PDF's to the Disc's root folder, so they sit alongside the 
AUDIO & VIDEO_TS folders, then dragging the folder to 
Toast's Data tab >DVD-ROM and making a disc image from this,
I then mounted the image and used Toast's Copy tab > Image file 
(with Fit to DVD compression) to burn to a single layer DVD,
problem is the burnt disc does not include the PDF's when i open up the mounted disc
on the desktop, I understand that if my DVD came in at under 4GB I could just add
the content and burn, but I don't know of any apps outside of Toast that will 
re-compress to fit,
Any ideas?

I have DVD Studio Pro 4, Toast 10, Burn, LiquidCD and DVD2OneX
OS X 10.5.8

My answer in its entirety:

Toast will throw out the DATA folders when doing the Fit to Recompression.
This has been a long standing "bug" since the days of Toast 8
(i'm sure I've posted about this before, but I haven't had my morning cup of joe)

The trick is to do this in the following order. You use for the compression DVD2ONEX,
becasue on the recompression step, it is easier.
You then use Toast just for the burning to Disc:

(using DVD2ONEX)

1. Open DVD2ONEX

2. Select the 9GB Authored DVD from DVDSP4, select it's Video_TS folder

3. Set recompression to Custom, input 4220 in the size field
Select all appropriate audio, subs, etc.
Click and set Output as "File Set", not "image" or "Burn".
Click "OK" to re-author/compress.

4. When done, perform a "Get Info" on the newly created Authored DVD.
It should be about 4.12 GBs. ( if not, then there is an errant file ( either audio,
or video on a sub menu, or perhaps an "extra" of video that didn't re-compress correctly.
You may have to go back to DVSDSP to fix that)
Now, with that checked, Open the newly created Authored DVD.

5. Add Data folder of PDFs ( make sure they do not exceed 1.1GB in total data, if so, go to Acrobat Professional,
and recreate the PDFs, using its Compress PDF feature) to the newly created Authored DVD.
Close the folder. Check size using Get Info.

If it doesn't exceed 4.33GB you are good to go.

6. Open Toast, select DATA, select DVD-Rom (UDF) and drag and drop newly created Authored DVD w/data folder to window.
Click Burn. Insert Blank, click Ok. 

link to original post.

Random Ideas Sundays: 4 uses for a Canopus ADVC You may have not thought of....

At one point, some one will ask you:

"Can you get the footage off of this VHS tape?"

VHS, being the long dead dinosaur it is in today's
modern world, is still used by many producers of
video: it's cheap, it's easy to record to ( insert tape,
record) and it can be stored easily.

The most often used product to bridge the gap
between this tried and true format of yesteryear
and today's digital format is the Canopus ADVC
box. The current model is the ADVC-110, but
many still use ( and buy at a fraction of the cost)
it's predecessor, the ADVC-100.
( I myself proudly own an ADVC-100).

The ADVC-100 can digital transfer from
any standard analog RCA jack or S-VHS
source via Firewire to your Mac in DV Format,
making it suitable to get tons of old family footage
off of VHS into iMovie and then out to iDVD,
for watching in the living room.

Having done all of my VHS tape footage
over the course of 5 years, I put my ADVC-100
on the shelf last year & hadn't given it much thought.

Recently I pulled it down again while trying
to overcome some problems I was encountering
to some tasks that I wanted to accomplish.
Now, while their are probably other ways of doing
what I wanted, the fact was, by using the
Canopus ADVC-100 to accomplish these tasks,
I was giving it new life and new purpose.

Here now, I'll share these with you and see if you can use your
Canopus unit next time in any of these scenarios, or come up
with your own to extend the life of your Canopus ADVC unit.

1. Capture footage from VCDs:

Last week while trying to get around a problem of getting
some footage off of a VCD ( yes, I have some of those as well),
I encountered an I/O ( In Out) error trying to copy it
through my Computer's Optical drive.

Rather than give up I tried to play the file using VLC's player,
and came up with an idea: The footage could play fine,
but ended short of a few seconds where the bad spot
in the disc was.

So I then it struck me:
I could play the VCD though my settop DVD Player,
run the analog output through my Canopus, and
digitize to DV Stream in realtime,
capturing the footage in realtime direct into iMovie.

Since I only needed the small section of footage before the
bad section of the CD, this would avoid a crash of trying
to extract it through MpegStreamclip,
which would trash the resulting decoding once
it hit the bad spot in the disc.


2. Use it to Digitize Cassette Tapes:

Another such idea came to mind, since I could get
anything analog into the mac via the Canopus,
why not try my hand at digitizing analog audio?

Using a simple portable hand held cassette recorder,
I ran the audio into the Canopus using a trusty
Y- Stereo Audio Cable
from Radio Shack, going out of the player's
headphone jack and into
the audio ports of the Canopus.

Result: I was able to ingest songs from the player
directly into iMovie,
and then export to AIFF from iMovie to iTunes
to put on my iPod.

3. Use it to record video back to a DVD Recorder.

iMovie, FCE and FCP all have the ability to Print Video to Tape,
and by hooking up a mac via FW to the Canopus,
you can Print Video out via FW. The digital signal
can be then routed out to a standalone DVD Recorder
for realtime authoring to a DVD.

This is a great way to get a rough of your timeline out to
a DVD, in realtime. If you needed to show off
a rough edit to a client, this is a surefire way
to get a rough made and avoid the length
of time to compress via iDVD.

4. Use it to bridge Playback to a TV from your Mac.

Of course, a surefire use for the unit is to use the Print to
Tape feature to print out video playback of the timeline
through the Canopus to a VCR or DVD Recorder
connected to a TV, and you can then use your TV
as a cheap way to "monitor" your timeline to
see how your transitions and effects look on a TV,
as well as how the footage in general will look, and if you
need to color correct it before finalizing it.

While having a dedicated Playback Monitor setup would
be ideal so that you can color correct as you go,
for the Independent Videographer, or prosumer
hobbyist on a budget, this is a good way
to work until you get your movie editing to
pay for itself, and thus by new equipment
for your setup.

Mac App Monday: Spotlighting Great Little Know Apps

Apple Events often are REALLY, REALLY boring things.
You'd expect some great magical Steve Jobs-ian type
of moment where, you get introduced to something really
really cool, that would help you with your productivity,
or at the very least, help you get through a project
in iMovie or Garageband that your stuck on.

Instead you are often given 6 hours of butt to the chair,
non stop PR talk about how great Apple is doing,
how great Apple will be doing, and how you can
be a part of that by buying more apple product.

But occasionaly, you do get something cool for
coming, and not just the free can of soda that
comes with the boxed lunch.

And at this event, not only did we get to see something
cool from Apple, but then they gave it to us
( in attendance only) for FREE.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I Present the little app
that changes the game: Screen Capture.


Screen Capture, we are told leverages the power of
Core Video in Quicktime, and enables something
really cool: You can, for free, screen capture your
mac and save it to a quicktime movie file.
You can even record your voice while you work on screen,
annotating the event you are doing, and once done,
you can turn that into a podcast, or share it
as is with collegues to show them how to do
that which they have been stumbling around on
in their Mac app of choice. ( which is what I've
been doing of late)

The results are impressive: On an MBP Intel Core Duo 2.0,
I can capture 1440 x 900 at 5fps in Best mode
to Mpeg-4 with AAC audio at 1080 x 675 and
at 950 x 594 at 15fps in Better Mode to
Mpeg-4 with AAC audio as well, and yet it
was very watchable and played back quite nicely.

Now, it's no iShowU ( my favorite app of this type),
but it is two things: (1) FREE, and (2) leverages
both the built in iSight Camera and Quicktime
to put something together that costly apps can
only do one of ( iShowU does the video, but doesn't
leverage the isight Camera to record audio).

Word is now that Apple is incorporating this tech
into Snow Leopard going forward. The app that
was given to us at the even for FREE works only
on Leopard and only on Intel based Macs
( sorry PPC and Tiger).

If you get to go to an apple event, show up with a flash drive,
and be prepared to get at lest something for showing up;
while I didn't expect anything this cool, it was worth
the 6hours of butt in a chair aerobics I had to endure.