Converting Your Conventional Video Library
into a Video Library
Why Convert Your Video Library to MPEG-1?
Many people don't maintain their video library on their computer. With the prior selection of second-rate computer media players to choose from, who could blame them?
But changes everything. Now that a media player with extensive and lightning-fast playback features is finally available, you're going to want to take full advantage of it. This may mean converting your entire video library from conventional VHS tapes and/or DVD discs to MPEG-1 video files.
While this will take some time to do, we believe it will be worth your effort for three reasons. First, you will find accessing video from your computer to be faster, more convenient, and more fun than maintaining stacks of VHS tapes or DVD discs. Second, 's playback capabilities simply blow away those of any VCR or DVD player. And third, 's cataloging system will allow you to bookmark specific scenes for immediate playback, anytime you want to see them. So no more shuffling through those VHS or DVD trays trying to remember which one contained that special scene you filmed or that cool dance move you need to brush up on! Instead, you'll have your entire video library in one location, with as your own personal video command center!
Just imagine it: as a dancer having your entire collection of dance video (instructional videos and any video filmed in clubs, congresses or classes) instantly available at your fingertips. And after you've bookmarked all the interesting scenes using 's cataloging features, you can instantly view any move you want at the stroke of a computer key! Regardless of what you do, dance or anything else, all of these same features can be used to help you catalog and view your video library, whatever the content may be!
What if I Already Have a Digital Video Library?
Even if you already have a digital video library, you might need to convert your content to a -friendly video format. This is because, for various technical reasons, many of 's awesome playback features work much better with some types of digital video formats than with others. We most recommend using the MPEG-1 video format.
Not all files will need to be converted:
Raw DV files (such as those transferred via Firewire from your digital camera) work fine, but are very large.
DivX encoded files may work just fine depending on how they were encoded.
Windows Media Video (.wmv) and MPEG-2 files will need to be converted in order to take full advantage of 's Advanced Playback features.
See the Supported Formats page for more info.
Click here to hide the information about MPEG-1 digital video.
While MPEG-1 is the recommended format for , it is not the most compact digital video format. These days, much more highly compressed formats such as DivX and Windows Media Video (.wmv) have become popular, because they take up less room on your hard drive, and much less time to download via the internet.
The catch is that in order to acheive this high degree of compression, some powerful playback features (such as frame-by-frame advance or jumping to any time code) was sacrificed.
But the far simpler compression technology of MPEG-1 makes having these advanced playback features not only possible, but optimal. As such, we believe that the extra capabilities you get with MPEG-1 outweigh the extra space these files will occupy on your hard drive. Of course, this is especially true if you have lots of hard disk capacity to spare.
To give you an idea of how much hard disk space you will need in order to convert your video library to MPEG-1, keep in mind the following:
MPEG-1 encoded at a high bit rate of 3,000 Kbps takes up about 1.5 GB per hour of video.
MPEG-1 encoded at a medium bit rate of 1,500 Kbps takes up about 900 MB (0.9 GB) per hour of video.
If you are concerned about hard drive space, we suggest that you increase your storage capacity. Disk drives are now quite inexpensive. For example, an internal desktop 200 GB hard drive (which will store 125 to 200 hours of MPEG-1 video) only costs about $130. Or, if you have a laptop computer, we suggest a pocketsize external hard drive (http://www.bixnet.com/307daba.html), which currently costs about $150 for the 40 GB size, and $220 for the 80 GB size (as of June 2005). These portable drives allow you to carry a large virtual video library wherever you go. (In addition, having an extra hard drive is an excellent way to maintain back-ups of your critical data files.)
So, we've told you why we think you should consider converting your video library to MPEG-1. Want to learn how? We can help with that, too. Just read on ...
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