Travel Technology - Storage/network for video editing and playback on TV?

Not really "travel" technology, but I plan my travel from my home office, where I plan to install the following. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif

I am looking to edit some video at home. I would like to use wires to hook a workstation and any storage (both yet to be purchased) to a wireless hub so I can watch the video on my TV (with whatever wireless recieving hardware I'd need to do that).

I have a 4-port network hub with integrated 802.11g. I need a workstation and networked storage, or just a desktop with a lot o'disk storage, to do this work and to store it. I read that it takes about 1Gb of storage for each hour of video (?). If that's true, I'd like to start out with 300-400 Gb, knowing that I'll need probably half that for the operating system, software, and room to work.

I do NOT want to have to back this up with tape, so I am looking for a solution that will mirror the data on different drives (does that mean I need even more storage than I think?)

I want to do this on the cheap. If that means used/refurbished/generation old equipment, that's fine.

As you may have picked up from the requirements above, I'm no expert. Any suggestions on how to configure my system? Sources for equipment? Tips on how to construct my own system from pieces parts?

Thank you in advance, and Happy New Year.

How big of a device do you want? And truly what is the ideal budget?

I am looking for about 300-400Gb of storage. And I'd like to spend no more than about $2,500. Keep in mind that for this budget I'll need not only the storage, but a desktop system (and software) capable of doing the work.

At Dell, I configured a system for about $4,000. I am looking to do it for a little more than half that.

Thank you for the response, and any suggestions that you can provide.

Mike

Did a quick search for "Network Attached Storage"

See the results:

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=network+attached+storage

Another option is to stick two 300GB+ drives into a fast cheap homebrew PC and mirror it....

Get yourself an XPC PC and a LaCie bigdisk (500Gb), systems are out there for around $1000 (like this one: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=671976&Sku=S451-3065%20B&CatId=1210 ) as for the LaCie: http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10117 , price around $650 ( http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/site/product/index.html?id=000665730&zone=zbs )

Even cheaper would be just getting system, adding 2 250Gb drives and getting a RAID/mirror capable ATAPI card and turning them into one large 500Gb drive...

LaCie also has a nice 500Gb NAS device for $1299: http://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/site/product/index.html?id=352045

Scott, do you have one of the Lacie USB drives?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by NickP 1K:
Scott, do you have one of the Lacie USB drives?</font>

Yes, but an "old" 400Gb Firewire version. Absolutely amazing performance and used mainly for video storage/encoding etc...

Thanks, guys. You've given me a good starting point.

Mike

Unless things have changed, the LaCie 400GB drives are 7200RPM and the 500GB drives are 5400RPM... not sure if your consideration is more space or performance but it's something you need to know.

The 400 and 500GB drives are actually two 200 or 250GB drives.

You can get Hitachi 200GB 8MB cache 7200 rpm drives from Outpost.com for $109 after $90 MIR. Get some for your friends and you could get a TB for a little over $500.

Or else get a 400SC server from Dell Small Business for around $300, then add two 200 or 250GB drives to give you some excellent NAS, preferable using 1000BaseT cards and switches.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PW1P:
The 400 and 500GB drives are actually two 200 or 250GB drives.
.</font>

Right... not sure why they used 5400RPM 250gb drives (heat?) Regardless... I'm going to see what happens when you slap two 300gb drives into one of those LACIE cases. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/biggrin.gif

You can get a PowerMac G5 (http://www.apple.com/powermac/) 1.6GHz with two 250GB 7200rpm SATA HDD's for $2449. That's going to have everything you could need.

[This message has been edited by Dave_C (edited Jan 02, 2004).]

I'd be curious to see if 802.11G performs adequately for your home audio/video needs.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by UALOneKPlus:
I'd be curious to see if 802.11G performs adequately for your home audio/video needs.</font>

From what I've read, real-world performance is 6+ Mbps.

I don't know whether that's enough or not, but I'll give it a try and if it's not, I'll just run a wire.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Mikey likes it:
From what I've read, real-world performance is 6+ Mbps.

I don't know whether that's enough or not, but I'll give it a try and if it's not, I'll just run a wire.</font>

Speed isn't the only factor, latency is too, WiFi has a fairly high latency so you might have some problems doing HD quality without dropping frames...

here's some interesting speculation...

http://www.macosx.com/content/article.php?cid=53

I know nothing about this. Could be pulled out of someone's hiney for all I know.

At any rate, it'd be wise to wait until after 01/06 before making any decisions.

For video editing you're **REALLY** better off with local disk. Get a SCSI card and a couple of SCSI disks. Stick them in your PC and away you go. Watching video over a wireless network is probably possible but editing will be realllly slow.

I'm looking to use the desktop or workstation (which will either have local or hardwire networked storage) for the actual editing, then to use wireless only to transfer the material to the TV.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I like the Mac suggestion (double Diners points).

Mike

Some of my co-workers have been testing gigabit ethernet on PC desktops and have reported good performance on video type apps when using network storage. With cheap gigabit ethernet cards going for $40 and the better ones with a processor going for $150 this is also another option.

Gigabit ethernet is standard in Apple's pro line: G5s, G4 towers, and Powerbooks. Also, if supplemental drives are necessary,

Firewire 800 external drives are available through LaCie and others. LaCie can be sketchy with supply. It would be worthwhile to call the company you purchase LaCie products from to make sure they have what you want in stock.

Since you're talking both editing and distribution ostensibly from the same system, that complicates matters.

It would help to know what you want to edit. Raw DV footage? Off-air recordings of TV shows? Pirated DVDs? (JK...) And what you want to end up with (I'm assuming MPEG-2 files, a la DVD format).

At a minimum, I'd think you'd want the fastest honking system you can afford, because video compression times for the best quality are measured in multiples of hours (for two-pass VBR, for instance, in MPEG-2).

Plus, you'll need separate, dedicated storage for editing and for playback.

I don't know if gigabit ethernet is fast enough for MPEG-2 distributions, so I'll defer to wiser heads on that.

But feel free to email or post here with more information on the edit side of the equation.

And, having just edited an hour documentary with it, I highly recommend Final Cut Pro...and I wish I could afford a new dual G5 http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif

Hmmm.... maybe this is more complicated than I first thought.

I have a miniDV camcorder that I use to take home video. I just want to

a) store that content electronically;
b) edit that content to create short movies, which I would then archive and probably burn to DVD for distribution to friends/family;
c) display those movies on a TV, preferably wirelessly (when at home)

Any suggestions you could make on how best to accomplish this would be appreciated.

Mahalo.

Mike

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Mikey likes it:
I have a miniDV camcorder that I use to take home video. I just want to

]a) store that content electronically;</font>
Import over Firewire (already built into your DV camcorder) to iMovie. A three-step process: plug in your camcorder, hit "play" on your camera, click "import" in iMovie

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">b) edit that content to create short movies, which I would then archive and probably burn to DVD for distribution to friends/family;</font>

If you expect to have more than, say, 50 hours of video, Get a large, external Firewire hard drive. You can keep all the raw content on it. Burn the finished products onto DVD using iDVD.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">c) display those movies on a TV, preferably wirelessly (when at home)</font>

The easiest option right now will be to just play your burned DVDs with your DVD player on the TV. It's actually rather complicated to be able to play the movies from your computer on your TV, since there has to be some kind of interface that allows you to:
- connect remotely to the computer
- browse the contents of the hard drive
- select the media to view
- display it in a format that is visible on a TV screen (adjusting framerates, NTSC/PAL, etc)

Additionally, I don't know if our current wireless technologies can stream that much content adequately. It may not be an issue at all. I'm just not sure.

I have seen photo slide shows streamed to TVs wirelessly from computers now, but not video yet. Gateway or Sony or somebody has created a box to do that. But the DV editing software out there for Gateways and Sonys is lousy compared to what's out there for the Mac.

iMovie and iDVD are so easy to use and so well suited to the first two things that you want to do, that if I were you, I would compromise on the third for now.

What hardware is best for #1 and #2? Really you could go with anything from a $799 eMac to a $2999 G5 tower, since all of these models can encode and burn DVDs. The G5 tower is going to do it faster than the eMac. For a really great machine, go with a dual 1.8 GHz G5 tower for about $2400. For a good machine, go with a dual 1.25 GHz G4 tower for about $2000. These are full prices. Look in the Powerbook G4 (http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/Forum4/HTML/000832.html) thread for good suggestions on finding a deal.

Back to software... There are options beyond iMovie and iDVD available. I would start with iMovie and iDVD, sincethey're included with every Mac, and if you find that your requirements are more sophisticated, you can move to the other options...

- Final Cut Express: This is the "light" version of Final Cut Pro, for folks who need something in between iMovie and Final Cut Pro. It's $299.

- DVD Studio Pro: Provides more options for making DVDs (more and more flexible menu options for DVDs, more encoding options, etc). iDVD should be just fine for the home user. This is pretty pricey at $499.

- Final Cut Pro: Professional digital video editing and encoding. Considered the best in the field. $999

Please keep in mind that MacWorld, the annual Macintosh users conference is going on next week. The keynote is on Tuesday, the 6th. This is typically a time when new product announcements happen. It's always a good idea to wait and see what happens at the keynote to be sure that you have all of the options in front of you. Things evolve quickly in this industry.


[This message has been edited by swise (edited Jan 04, 2004).]

For c) display those movies on a TV, preferably wirelessly (when at home)

take a look at Pinnacle's ShowCenter (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/docloader_n.asp?doclink=/newsletters/october/flash2.html&templ=62&fam=1116&Langue_ID=7) (review (http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20031205/index.html)) or the Prismiq Media Player (http://www.prismiq.com/products/index.asp) (review (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1131079,00.asp)). Both have built-in ethernet and support wireless via PC-card expansion slots: 802.11b for the Pinnacle, and a/b/g for the Prismiq.

swise more than covered the territory; I was probably making things more complicated than they needed to be.

iMovie and iDVD on the Mac should be perfect for you. Major updates on both will be announced on Tuesday. Might be more announcements, too, that could directly address item (c), playing movies on a TV, as well.

The Pinnacle and Prismiq products ABQ Jon references sound interesting, too. Pinnacle is a long-time maker of high-end broadcast stuff, but I have no idea of how their consumer products stack up.

But with DVD players selling for $59 these days, perhaps that's the simplest and cleanest way to go...for now.

Oddly enough, I was talking to a friend at a Sugar Bowl party last night and he is looking for the same kind of system.

Based on the comments on this board (do some of you work for Apple?), I am planning to look for an Apple system, especially if I can get a deal on one post-new product announcement.

Thanks to all for your help!

Mike

Some devices similar to Prismiq and Showcenter are by Gateway (look for connected DVD player), Neuston http://www.neuston.com/en/mc500.asp , both with wireless although I think only "b" not "g". Can also hack an X-Box http://www.xboxmediaplayer.de/ to similar effect but much more work.

There are some kinks to be worked out in all these products, but they sound interesting and I hope a lot of new products are coming down the pipeline. I think a lot of the hardware is readily available, so should be open to a lot of competition. Not sure how Mac compatible any of this is.

I'm not above doing a bit of last-minute rumor mongering...so here's the already-somewhat-discredited rumor about the iBox:

http://www.macosx.com/content/article.php?cid=53

Bump to see if anyone's heard of any great Apple deals post- MacWorld. I've been watching the sites mentioned in the other thread, and haven't seen anything mindblowing.

Macrumors.com and appleinsider.com are strongly speculating that Apple will announce new product on the 23d or 30th.

If that's true, glad I waited. If not, I'm going to bite the bullet anyway.

As an update, I got an Apple G5 1.8 Dual with 23" Cinema Display. It is bada$$.

The Safari browser takes some getting used to.

For c) display those movies on a TV, preferably wirelessly (when at home)

take a look at Pinnacle's ShowCenter (http://www.pinnaclesys.com/docloader_n.asp?doclink=/newsletters/october/flash2.html&templ=62&fam=1116&Langue_ID=7) (review (http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20031205/index.html)) or the Prismiq Media Player (http://www.prismiq.com/products/index.asp) (review (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1131079,00.asp)). Both have built-in ethernet and support wireless via PC-card expansion slots: 802.11b for the Pinnacle, and a/b/g for the Prismiq.

FWIW. www.prismiq.com is going out of business and is selling all their products are an insanely low price. The media player is now only $59.