Topic: Capturing and Organizing Video Clips and Routines

Message:

Posted by: John Long (Dec 23, 2004 10:55pm)

I am trying to organize my growing knowledge of magic tricks, resources, routines, patter, and techniques within a series of interconnected Excel templates.

A significant part of this is hot-links to video clips(WMVs, MPEGs..) stored on my hard disk. These have largely come from online demonstrations of tricks. Its nice to be able to quickly load a short clip that shows a retention vanish..

I have two questions

1) A big question has been how to capture segments from DVDs of video tapes, and convert the desired (small)segments to a WMV, MPEG... format to store on my hard disk(so I don't have to dig out the right DVD, find the right track,.. and then play it. How can I do this? will I have trouble with the protection schemes on the DVDs? Can I transfer from a DVD to a VHS tape and then back to a recordable DVD(to get around the copy protection?) Since this is for personal use, not resale, I would hope there is a way to do this.

2) I am trying to develop a short hand notation to describe the performance of a trick. So for each segment, I have adjacent columns that describes an individual segment of the trick: i)a general description of what is happenen ii) separate columns for left and right hand activity(e.g. CP{$} for palming a coin) and iii) patter..
Has anyone developed a good way to do this?

Thanks
If this better fits in another forum, let me know

Message:

Posted by: ScottRSullivan (Dec 28, 2004 11:16am)

John,

I am afraid there are several issues at hand here. First, you are not authorized to copy material from a DVD to your computer. It says so in first 10 seconds when you look at that FBI warning. "This disc may not be copied, reproduced, yada yada yada." That means it may not be copied or reproduced. Period.

If you are determined to build an index of your existing DVDs, I feel your pain! Years ago, I tried this with my books. However, after just a few, I realized two things. First, I had way too many books to index each trick/sleight/reference/etc. Second, I had already indexed much of my collection already! I realized that I already knew what was in most of my collection down to the chapter.

The best way (at least for me) was just going over the material. I was familiar with my collection just from reading it. Thus an actual index was redundant. Since then, my library has doubled and I still know pretty much where to look for something.

My opinion on this matter for you would be forget about trying to bypass copyright protection on DVDs and spend that time reviewing the material. I personally prefer books, but, hey, that's a much bigger discussion and better covered in a different thread.

Cheers!

Scott

Message:

Posted by: John Long (Dec 28, 2004 8:46pm)

Copyright issues aside, the intent is not to reindex my books, but have an *organized* way of storing(cross indexing) information from many sources, books, DVDs, downloaded teaching videos, ideas from Magic Café, my ideas... I've done this for my professional resources and other technical information, and it has been invaluable. There is just too much infomation out there, and for downloaded teaching or demo videos, for someone who can't spend too much time on this, I can think of no better way to quickly find a video on my hard disk(I already have hundreds).

Message:

Posted by: John Long (Mar 30, 2012 12:02pm)

At long last, I have found a program that will allow me to create small video clips of my DVDs. I had been making video clips by using my camera as the video played - tedious.

Video Converter Ultimate: Its main purpose is to convert between different formats, but it has rudimentary editing capabilities, and the ability to semi automatically break the DVD into its "chapters", and store in many different formats. You can read a review from the link below, and download a free trial.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,156136-order,4/description.html

John

Message:

Posted by: Ihop (Apr 20, 2012 5:14pm)

[quote]
On 2004-12-23 22:55, John Long wrote:
I am trying to organize my growing knowledge of magic tricks, resources, routines, patter, and techniques within a series of interconnected Excel templates.
___________
I was planning on doing a similar project but on a larger scale. I develop programs with a database package called Filemaker Pro.
I was going to write a program to do what you wanted plus much more, such as magic inventory, customer info, letters, videos, PDFs.
The more I looked into it, the project got bigger & bigger.
After asking around on this Forum, someone suggested a program calle MagicBase Pro, also written in Filemaker.
I downloaded the demo and thought it was well done except it was not very user friendly.

In any case, I dropped the inventory project because the time it would take is not worth the benefits.
Ihor

Message:

Posted by: John Long (Apr 23, 2012 11:51am)

Ihor:

Do you have a reference for Magicbase Pro.

What I REALLY wanted, rather want, is a window's version of Lotus' AGENDA. You could enter an item once, and have it crossed indexed/categorized. For example, I may enter Pin-demonium, with an associated video clip in a section on Penetration effects, but could also have that same information listed on a different "page" for effects with particular objects; in this case safety pins. If I update the inromation in any of those sections, it is automatically updated in the others (since it is really just one entry in the underlying database)

Sadly, Agenda never made it into the Window realm. I run it under DOSBOX, but creating the functional equivalent of hyperlinks in Agenda is very cumbersome. Alas, those were the (DOS) days :)

Message:

Posted by: Ihop (May 5, 2012 4:39pm)

[quote]
On 2012-04-23 11:51, John Long wrote:
Ihor:

Do you have a reference for Magicbase Pro.

http://www.magicbasepro.com/

It does quite a bit.
I downloaded the demo but I did not buy it.
I use the same database program (Filemaker Pro) and write my own databases.
Bob Miller did an excellent job.

Sorry for the late response. I just came back from a trip.

Ihor

Message:

Posted by: cchesmark (May 11, 2012 2:03pm)

Awesome! Thanks for the link!

Message:

Posted by: John Long (May 18, 2012 10:40pm)

Thanks for the link. I just came back to this thread.

The description of the program seems more oriented to managing a business/contacts, but I'll have to look more closely at it.

John

Message:

Posted by: videokideo (Aug 25, 2012 6:36pm)

John...what you are doing is going to take a lot of time and there is no way of getting around it. I did what you have talked about...converted all dvds and vhs onto computer files. Also divided each illusion or trick into its own titled chapter so that if I'm only looking for one specific kreskin piece out of 20 years, it will pull it up. Kinda like one song off of a album of 14. I did this for the purpose that when I'm working on my show and want to go over pieces others have done, I don't have to put in a tape and spend the time searching for the section I want. I save tons of time this way.

My books were the tough part. In the end, it was well worth it but 97% of people wont take the time once the see how long this takes. As far as the copyright issue, I'm not getting into that arguement. Im not sharing or selling these. I have the right to make my life easier by indexing what ive purchased. They can sue me if they wish.

I wont go into how I did all of this as it would take pages to try to discuss. But there are programs that allow you to record dvds and vhs into your computer, and chapter them at certain times. You can choose what format they record into. Because disk space is almost unlimited these days, I did mpg. Books are simply scanned and created into pdf...divide each routine separately or as a total book. I can now carry one drive or card with me and have my entire library as I need it.

This worked out well due to the fact that Im into mentalism. So many suggestions come from so many sources for one routine. Hard to want to look through 10 books and dvds for the one little part you need. Although I'm not performing illusions anymore, I did archive all of my blueprints and plans for illusions.

Now I archive things as I buy them into my library. Its an awesome idea when complete...but pain in the butt to do so. No easy way.

Vhs to computer I used Roxio programs.
Editing and chaptering I used Adobe programs.

Wrote and coded my own program to organize and store them away. Creates one .exe file that I can open and search anything I need in the library, play them in a built in video player or read them in a built in pdf reader with text to voice option.

Message:

Posted by: videokideo (Aug 25, 2012 7:13pm)

By the way forgot to mention for those concerned all material and program could land in the wrong hands or be stolen. Its coded to where it needs a password to enter past the splash screen. And also, when the exe is opened, it sends me an email from the ip location that it was opened from. Chances are if this is ever stolen, they took more objects of mine and will allow me to find them. Has never been the case, but something I thought about and fixed ahead of time.

Good luck with your moving forward...once again well worth the time and effort if looking through your libraries for certain ideas is something you often do. ;-)