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PixeDV:
Capture, Import, Export, Organize Video
PixeDV for Mac is the main application you will be using to Capture video, Organize the video
you captured and even Import video from other sources
PixeDV for Mac, despite its name, DOES NOT CAPTURE DV. It only captures MPEG1 and
MPEG2 files. MPEG files are necessary for the creation of DVD or VCD movies.
Once you install the software and connect the hardware, you will be able to Preview the video
live from any analog source and capture the video into the right bit rates for making a DVD or
VCD Movie.
USB Instant DVD can capture video up to 6 Mbits (6 Megabits per second). Most DVD movies
that you rent or buy today are only encoded at 4 Mbits (4 Megabits per second). The higher the
capture bit rate, the better the quality but you will also take up more hard drive space.
Commercial Blank recordable DVD disks have a capacity of 4.7 GB.
When capturing MPEG-2 video at 4 Megbits of data per second (Mb/sec.) you will use up
approximately 2 GB of hard disk space per hour. This means you can record and burn about 2
hours of MPEG-2 video onto a single DVD disk.
This is very important to know since 3 hours (180 minutes) of video that you capture at 4 Mb/sec.
would result in a file size on your hard drive of:
5400 MB (MegaBytes) or about 5.4 GB (GigaBytes) !!!
This is more than you can record on a 4.7 GB disk!
Audio is one more thing to consider when capturing Mpeg video. The two most common audio
formats for DVD video are MPEG 1 Layer 2 and PCM.
PCM is essentially uncompressed audio recorded at 1.5 Mb/sec. This data rate is added to the
video bit rate to arrive at the total video file size. The PixeDV for Mac software only captures
audio in MPEG-1 Layer 2 format. MPEG 1 Layer 2 is a compressed format and is the cousin of
the more famous MP3 audio format. MPEG-1 Layer 2 is generally captured at
224 Kbit/sec. – 384 Kbit/sec. This data rate is added to the total video file size, but you can see
that it is much smaller than PCM.
Most late model home DVD players in the North America can playback MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio.
The general rule is that if the DVD player supports VCD playback, it will support DVD's with
MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio format. All European (PAL) DVD players support MPEG-1 Layer 2 audio.
So if your goal is to capture 2 hours of video to burn on a single sided 4.7 GB DVD disk, we
recommend you set your capture rate at 4 Mb/sec.
USB Instant DVD for Mac 5
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