PCA Forums

Hi All,

I have a few questions.. I manage a Gas Station part time and I installed a computer surveillance system a long time ago. Well, we finally ran into a need to view some of the footage and I had been busy with some other stuff and could not get back to the station to start a new file for about 5 days.. So, the results were a 17GB video file in the programs format. After converting the file to .avi I now have a you ready? 113GB file.. *cry* I'm trying to find the best and easiest way to split this file up into much smaller pieces so that I can take the last 9 hours of it and break that up and put it on DVD. This file is on a 200GB HD and the only other drives I have laying around are my 120GB in my main rig which is almost full (But this may change tonight as I feel the need to start fresh) and some 80GB drives.

So...

1.) What program do you recommend for splitting the .avi file up into smaller pieces. I need something that is a proven good method as I don't want to spend 3 more days decoding this footage.

2.) Will the above program require more space to do the splits?

3.) Does anybody know of a better software that Digi-Watcher for webcam surveillance? If so, what's the name and does it allow scheduling so that I don't have to keep recreating a new file daily?

TIA

eGo

Wow, I would recommend http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Virtualdub to split it, but I don't know if it can handle a 113GB file. And if your just wanting to cut to and save the last nine hours of that video VDub should let you do that and you should have enough space to save it using divx/xvid compression.

Yup, assuming the file is not too large for it to handle, Virtual Dub is the fastest and easiest way to crop it down. Do a Google search for VirtualDub tutorials - there's lots of them.

Bah.. Ok, tried VDub and it hasn't been much help.. It loads the file just fine and will play the first 8 or so hours, but after that it just crashes. Not sure what the deal is there. I'm trying to load the file in another program to see if maybe the avi is corrupt. If it is, I'll be pissed.. I've spent a lot of time trying to get this done and so far it's not working how I want it to...

Is this time-lapse video?

No, it's just straight video. But it's in a crappy format originally and then converting it is time consuming. *sigh* So far nothing has worked..

webcamXP is pretty good, it has motion detection capabilities and you can stream the capture file to pretty much anywhere.

Just sent you an email

Got it Phil.. Back at ya..

wpublic : I'll have to check into that. I'm also gearing more towards the idea of motion detection, but will have to run that by the owner..

eGo

Ego. I was afraid VDub would balk at such a large AVI file. That really is huge.

If you can play the video back (either from the AVI or the original video capture system) the easiest thing might be to just play the video output into a VCR or video capture device and only record what you want. You'll lose a little quality, but better than nothing.

You wouldn't lose much if you dubbed it to digital like a DV camcorder.

Sending you a PM with another idea as well...

Yah, I've been thinking about using my DV cam to do the dubbing, but have had little success in getting the cam to pick up the video and send it to a VCR in the past, and since my last VCR went the way of the dodo about 4 months ago that's no longer an option for me

Once you have it in the DV cam you can easily dump it to DVD if you have firewire on your PC.

Well, after many failed attempts at the desired effect, I don't have much choice but to leave the footage in tact as it is and show the people who need to see it how to use the software to view it. They can play it back at about 5x the normal speed while using the software which means they'll have to load it and let it run for about 12 hours or so then come back and monitor the footage.. I had thought about setting up a webcam to record what's on the screen, but that's honestly too much hassle.. Anybody know of a proggy that will record the action on the screen? I'd say something like capture avi would work, but I don't think so as the video source is not avi.. But thinking about that it might be a good idea? Anybody recommend a good ap for that? lol

TIA

eGo

you might want to look into frameserving with Avisynth.

it has a bit of a steep learning curve, here is one place that describes frameserving avi to mpeg2(DVD) format:


http://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/87270.php

tonto uses Adobe Premier. He'll be back Sat. if you want him to look at it.