PC documentary workflow (capturing a low quality footage)

[neolinski]

hello,

i have a documentary project in pre-production.
all in all, i am going to shoot all footages in 24p hd format.
after every shooting, i want to capture low quality down-converted footages
(easier to handle and manage, save the disk space, keep all tapes for later)
or i'd like to just capture a still picture of every scene

of course i would like to do this in the simplest way as possible.
(e.g. i dont want to capture everything, down-convert, export, and erase the original)
or is there a software that capture stills of each scene automatically?
or using USB port or miniSD

can you guys and ladies help me out?
thanks

ps : i have HP Compaq tc4200 which is an awesome practical tablet pc but not powerful at all. however as i'd somewhat travel with this, i'd like to keep track of my stuffs on it. All editing and post will be on a different computer

[Mal]

The simplest and best solution:
CatDV (http://www.squarebox.co.uk/)

re-EDIT: CatDV doesn't support M2T yet, so after recording as HDV,
HV20 needs to be set to DV LOCKED when using it with CatDV, as CatDV is DV only.

This should woirk perfectly like that though, although not sure how one would recapture from the scene detection timecodes.

[neolinski]

that's an interesting software and exactly what i need.

doesnt hv20 have an internal down-converting (hdv to dv) option when using a firewire?

[Stuart]

Just a reminder; HD (HDV) files are for all intents and purposes, exactly the same size as SD (DV).

[neolinski]

hdv is 'heavier' to handle. hdv is more compressed than dv therefore requires more computer power, cpu+memory+etc, to work with
dv is still heavy (to this purpose). i'd like to have very small quicktime files and/or stills

[Mal]

doesnt hv20 have an internal down-converting (hdv to dv) option when using a firewire?

Oh, wait, you are right!
You mean, you can record everything to tape in HDV; then when you are next to a computer you can set it to DV LOCKED, and use CatDV like that.
Yes, that should work; in fact I like the idea a LOT!!

[neolinski]

is there any other program which does similar things?
perhaps freeware, betaware, or something cheaper for a student?

ah i hate being poor

[Mal]

Not that I know of, no.

There's Scenalyzer, but that costs money too:
http://www.scenalyzer.com/

[Numbox]

I'm not sure if i understood you correctly, but if you want to extract stll images from m2t, try this (http://paul.glagla.free.fr/imagegrab_en.htm)

[Sean Michael]

With regard to capturing clips, can't you do the same with Adobe Premiere Pro (by checking the "scene detect" box)? I often just press record and let Premiere capture all the individual scenes. Then I'll review and delete as necessary.

[neolinski]

Numbox and Sean, I am trying to avoid capturing DV or HDV. All I want is to keep track of what documentary footages I have, so I'm only trying to get either
1. small quicktime video (perhaps divided into each scene)
2. still images of every scene
and I'd like to be able to do this automatically.

I think CatDV and Scenalyzer can do this pretty efficiently.

[24Peter]

hdv is 'heavier' to handle. hdv is more compressed than dv therefore requires more computer power, cpu+memory+etc, to work with

Well you know better what you need than anyone else... But just for the other viewers out there, 1) HDV & DV are identical in their storage requirements (~11GB per hour of hard drive space) and 2)with the right software, HDV is as easy to use as DV, even on computers a year or two (or perhaps even three) old. Granted it will take longer to render HDV files to most formats when compared to DV files, but that's to be expected when you have 2 1/2 times the resolution.

Also for the record in my experience using Vegas 7, standard def DVD's created by downconverting footage in the computer look significantly better than those created by downconverting in camera. Again, it does take longer to render those files but there definitely is an improvement in quality. (Of course neolinski isn't talking about making DVD's so this doesn't apply to him. But for anyone else out there...)

[white_2kgt]

I think we are missing what he wants to do.

Say he has a 1hr tape, with maybe, 30 different 'cuts' (different start/stop points). I think what he wants is an image of the first frame of each 'cut'. That way he can look through these images and find the scene he wants and THEN just capture that scene from the original tape or the whole tape. Is this right neo? If so I think that's a grand idea! That maybe what Mals suggestion does as I'm not familiar with CatDV. If it does please let me know, if this is even possible!

[neolinski]

white_2kgt that's exactly what i want

for your info, here's my plan;
1. document everything on 24p HDV
2. review a tape and capture few-several pictures
3. import them and write down some stuffs

Although CatDV and Scenalyzer seem really cool,
i told myself that i'll most likely want to review
each tape and to describe what i have.
(also why not, save some extra money and maybe spend on lighting haha)