(using a WinTV USB device, a PC and Real Player) I will start by explaining why you may want to do this: if you want to take ordinary VHS footage (you can plug other format cameras into the S-video input as well e.g. hi8 etc.) and put it on the net but don't have an s-video/tv input on your computer. First of all purchase your WinTV USB device, a list of vendors are at the bottom of this list. (*soon*)
Win TV USB Next you need to plug a standard aerial lead into the 'out' port of your video recorder and plug the other end into the WinTV box. Take the USB lead and plug it into your USB port. Take a mini jack lead and plug that also into the 'out' on the WinTV box and into the 'line-in' on your computer. Install the driver for WinTV (I do recommend you check for upgrades on the site). Now open up the WinTV 2000 interface, a TV set appears.
First of all you need to set up the channels which is a simple matter of tuning the device into the correct frequencies (I won't give too much detail in this bit, partly because the instructions are pretty comprehensive and partly because their tech support is really good, helpful and friendly!). Once you have set up the channels you should be ready to start recording. Open the remote control that is (for some strange reason) located in the bottom right hand corner. Once you have opened this click on file, this will set the file that you record to (n.b. you will need to click on file like this for every separate recording - you don't get to set the file name afterwards). You also need to decide upon the recording settings, I can recommend a screen size of 180 x 240, 44 KHz 16 bit mono sound, and 16 frames per second. The output file should be AVI. Editing Once you have made the file you could try using a package like Premiere to clean up or edit the footage you imported. If you don't have anything like this don't worry just try to be as accurate as possible when importing your original footage. If you do use Premier use similar settings to the ones above only you also need to check that you haven't got compression turned on for the final output file since Real Producer will add its own compression later on. The next thing you need to do is install the latest version of Real Producer; this is harder than it sounds because they REALLY want you to buy it, this URL should get you to the right page:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/producer/index.html?src=pdcrup,rpcntrl_022101 Real Player Load Real Player. The actual process for converting the file is really simple using the wizard that pops up, however, the hard part comes when you try to paste it into your web page. You really need to use the options under the tools menu for create web page and publish web page this way you can make sure that all the necessary files are placed into the html. You also need to make sure that you use the option for a pop-up player, the embedded one doesn't seem to work. Once you have uploaded the film to your site you can then download it again to make any changes you want to the finished page, just be careful not to delete any of the necessary html. If you are interested in putting any of your films on this site click here |
