[rescue] Video encoding

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2002 at 03:26:12PM -0400, Big Endian wrote:
> >Octane and cheap video capture never go in the same sentence.  An o2 would
> >work.  A mac with a DC30 card would work (there are better cards that cost
> >more, but I don't know of any better or equal cards that cost less).  A
> >second PC w/ a DC30 card would also work, but I refuse to recommend that on
> >principle.
> 
> Can't the ICE chip in an o2 do MPEG?  Or does it do MJPEG?

I think it is just MJpeg or uncompressed.  Converting from mjpeg to mpeg
isn't the greatest, but if you are using a 4:1 compression ratio for the
mjpeg, then it isn't too bad.  That just means that you need disks that
can sustain something like 8megs per second, which is really easy in this
day and age.

Wait, according to the DM product guide, the AV option also does MPEG1 in
hardware.  And of course, if SGI provides the support for the format, then
it usually means that the O2 is hardware assisting the 
compression/decompression, to my understanding. 

You'd have to experiment to find out if hardware mpeg1 encoding at 150kb/s
is better or worse than top quality mjpeg, compressed using a software
compressor.  Couldn't say for sure which way.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd