Laptop video editting / video out solutions?

[Aryko]

Hello all,

Looking for a bit of help as I think about transitioning my video editting situation...

I'm looking to move from a desktop video editting system to a notebook. My current setup is a P-500 with a Matrox G400/RR-G combination, so there's no problem with getting the video out and in. My main concern at this point is getting the editted video out of the notebook and directly onto a VHS tape. I figure that most laptops have TV-out RCA ports or even S-Video, and if not then there are a hefty number of third-party devices which effect a TV-out from the SVGA port.

The problem is that the majority of the stuff I tape is in 16:9 format and the camera stretches the image in the vertical plane to achieve this effect.

With the G400, I can just use the PC-VCR program to play my .avi files and select the 16:9 aspect in the application itself; with the Dualhead DVD_MAX option enabled I can play it on the desktop in a window and have it export through the TV-out in glorious 16:9 direct to my television. I guess what I'm looking for is a similar functionality for the notebook. Unfortunately most notebook TV-outs just act as a clone of the primary desktop.

I guess what I'm trying to solicit are some viable solutions. Here are the ones I think come immediately to mind:

1. Find some SVGA -> NTSC converter that has enough bells and whistles to let me scale down the image in the vertical axis, so that when it plays on the television, it's in the correct aspect. Anyone know of anything like this? I haven't the faintest idea where to begin looking.

2. Third party software which allows for on-the-fly resizing while playing back the source file? I assume this is what PC_VCR does, but of course it's Matrox-specific.

3. Edit and apply a video resize to 16:9 aspect; I'd rather not do this as it requires re-rendering the entire project, which takes up alot of time. I'd much prefer to editting the DV with as much smart rendering as possible (Ulead MSP6.0).

Your opinions would be greatly appreciated... thanks!

- Aryko

[wkulecz]

On my notebook I edit in DV using a PCMCIA firewire card. The internal hard drive is too slow to output back to tape, but captures are OK (at least for the relatively short 20-40 minutes allowed by the "small" 20 GB drive.

It really became useful when I added a 1394 disk drive. Works great as long as I remember to remove all USB devices before outputing to tape. For some reason USB interferes with output from the 1394 drive back to the camcorder to make a VHS tape via pass-thru. I have a PIII-700 Dell Inspiron 7500. Don't have this problem on my destop systems.

I think the problems will be worse for analog video.

--wally.


PS, forgot to mention I often capture SVHS straight to DV using the TRV120 A/Vin-->Dout "pass thru". I edit in DV and output back to VHS or SVHS as required.

[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 25 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 25 April 2001).]

[Aryko]

Hi Wally,

I wouldn't want to mess with an analogue situation on a laptop, that's for sure... I'd like to avoid the complication and added step of sending the output back to DV tape.

My question to you is why not just play the editted video from your laptop setup through the tv-out direct to your VHS?

[cjyo~]

Not an answer, but another related question:

I have heard reports that laptop (composite or S-Video) TV-outs are not the best in the world, compared to desktop TV-Out solutions, which makes sense to me.

I have been looking into laptops recently, including Toshiba, Dell, Sony and HP. Can anyone give me a personal report on respective video quality of the analog TV-Out quality on these machines (from a video enthusiast perspective)? Would it be worth the extra expense?

[wkulecz]

I don't try the TV out built into my notebook (ATI Rage Mobility chipset) because past experience ATI All-In-Wonder Pro TV out says the quality is poor. When I do the export function in Premiere or MSP that is designed to work with TV out type of systems (full screen output with black borders attempting to guess the overscan) the quality on my monitor is not something I'd bother recording.

Playback over firewire with the camcorder doing the DV to analog conversion gives the best quality I've seen on personally affordable systems.

--wally.

[cjyo~]

Thanks for the info. I'll take that as a "no, don't bother with a TV-out on a laptop." I'll concentrate on getting one with a firewire/DV port (which I was going to anyway).