El Matarife
26th June 2007, 01:48
I'd played around with video capture cards and their (usually crappy) bundled software for a few years; but the effort and patience involved in using them always seemed disproportionate to the results.
Then recently a friend offered me an old DataVideo VDR-3000. Neither of use knew what it was but it seemed cool so I took it off his hands.
http://www.datavideo.us/fs/products/discontinued_products_fs.htm
It turns out that its a dedicated bit of real-time MPEG-2 encoding hardware. One touch recording, no dropped frames, 4.8 Mbps data transfer rate. And it creates .MPG files that you can then edit and manipulate on your PC - schwing!
The only problem with it is the media it uses - CDs (it was made in 2001). At the 4.8 Mbps setting you can only get 17 mins of video recordings on a disc!
But then I saw this - essentially the same unit but with a its CD-RW drive replaced with a 2.2GB ORB drive:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150131722568 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150131722568&rd=1&rd=1)
So my question is, does anyone have any knowledge or experience of replacing the drives in this device? The CD-RW drive in them is a standard piece of PC kit. Theoretically it would be simplicity to put a DVD drive or a hard drive in its place. But this seems too easy! Plus DataVideo say you definitely can't do this...despite the existence of these other modified devices.
Would a bit of hardware like this require some sort of firmware upgrade to allow it to control anything other than a CD drive? I am a clueless (but enthusiastic) budget amateur, so any opinions, suggestions or assistance would be much appreciated! I'm convinced a unit like this has great potential!
Thanks!
Then recently a friend offered me an old DataVideo VDR-3000. Neither of use knew what it was but it seemed cool so I took it off his hands.
http://www.datavideo.us/fs/products/discontinued_products_fs.htm
It turns out that its a dedicated bit of real-time MPEG-2 encoding hardware. One touch recording, no dropped frames, 4.8 Mbps data transfer rate. And it creates .MPG files that you can then edit and manipulate on your PC - schwing!
The only problem with it is the media it uses - CDs (it was made in 2001). At the 4.8 Mbps setting you can only get 17 mins of video recordings on a disc!
But then I saw this - essentially the same unit but with a its CD-RW drive replaced with a 2.2GB ORB drive:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150131722568 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150131722568&rd=1&rd=1)
So my question is, does anyone have any knowledge or experience of replacing the drives in this device? The CD-RW drive in them is a standard piece of PC kit. Theoretically it would be simplicity to put a DVD drive or a hard drive in its place. But this seems too easy! Plus DataVideo say you definitely can't do this...despite the existence of these other modified devices.
Would a bit of hardware like this require some sort of firmware upgrade to allow it to control anything other than a CD drive? I am a clueless (but enthusiastic) budget amateur, so any opinions, suggestions or assistance would be much appreciated! I'm convinced a unit like this has great potential!
Thanks!