media-less video recorder - brainstorm.

[Axel]

I was kicking around the idea of putting a video capture card in a computer with a scsi raid5 disk array to capture movies off cable for re-viewing later.

I want some ideas for components and software -

Is netraid the way to go, or does someone have a different idea for a storage scheme. I want it to hold about 96 hours worth of programming and then I want to be able to edit out commercials. I want the finest signal definition as possible, so the commercial storage devices just won't do.

Then, I'd have a new floptical CD burner ( 10 layer clear CD's - holds about 1.4 GB of data if I remember correctly - I'd finish the edit of commercials, then burn the video onto the disk with some sort of play-back index as on DVD's.....

kick around some ideas -

I'd love to hear specifics of equipment people would use for this system and software. Please include links where possible.

Perhaps we could even go so far as to virtually design a finished product here.

[Joel Kleppinger]

Well, I don't have all the suggestions, but to store 96 hours of DVD-quality MPEG-2 video would take something around 500 GB of storage space... and for Ultra2Wide SCSI RAID setup, you're looking at about $10-15k just for the drives. However, if you tried a RAID ATA/66 setup, you could set up a 500GB array for about $5k.

You also will want to go with a Dual CPU setup... as fast as possible.

[Axel]

okay Joel - why the dual CPU when an 800mHz could probably handle the volume....?

Which OS would you recommend? Win NT4, or 2K, or win millenium - and why?

I'm leaning towards an NT product for RAM capacity. I'm also thinking rambus RIMM, but the chipset to make it work and the bus just isn't there as yet - same with the 800mHz CPU - lots of juice, but now-where to make use of it.....

the IDE RAID from Promise is only a RAID1 solution with mirroring - is that what you meant with the ATA66 RAID suggestion? - good fast access speed, but limited for storage to two drives - I hate what that limits us to for space.

The reason I thought of netraid for storage space is the ability to use up to 7 disks with a raid5 solution - so you can get that better access speed and not have a need for back-up tapes. Also - drive hot-swapping is SO easy should one go out and very expandible as storage prices come down over time.

Any suggestions on the Video Capture Card?

90

[This message has been edited by Axel (edited 03-23-2000).]

[Joel Kleppinger]

Dual CPU because you can offload certain tasks to the other CPU... and I'm not certain a single 800 MHz CPU can encode and store MPEG-2 800x600 DVD-quality video/audio. I know that my Athlon 600 storing MPEG-1 to ATA/66 disk using an ATI All In Wonder 128 doesn't do a good job of it... and that's just MPEG-1 640x480 (or 320x240.. I forget now what I used).

Definitely NT or Win2k. Win9x/ME won't have the stability and power to keep up.

Well, the FastTrack also supports Striping (across up to 4 HDs, I believe). However, the Promise UltraTrak (what I was referring to... it isn't on their site, though) supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 3, and 5. http://www.sysopt.com/articles/comdex99/index2.html

As for RAMBUS, I think that's a waste right now. I don't think the difference would ever be "noticeable" between that and PC133 CAS2.

As for capture cards, unfortunately I do not. You'd probably have to go with a custom one from a real digital video reseller. I don't think the Marvel G400 or ATI All In Wonder 128 Pro would do a good enough job, and they're currently the best two general cards on the market.

[Axel]

Thanks joel -

at this point, I don't think there is a good enough I/O chipset on the market to handle what I'd need it to do and get a high-definition picture out of it. On a tiny monitor, it might look okay, but when brought to a 32" color TV, I don't think it would look like much at this point.

Perhaps in 6 months, I'll repost and see if there are any nibbles.