DVTransfer is a utility that can be used to archive data to Digital Video Recorders (like mini-DV and D8 camcorders). DVTransfer uses the IEEE1394 (Firewire, or i-Link) connection between your computer and a DV Player/Recorder to archive and restore data to tape.
For those who don't know, there is a communit"y of Hi-Definition TV junkies out there who "want their HDTV." Many of these junkies (myself included) are also Home Theater PC (HTPC) users in constant search of the best audio and video that the personal computer has to offer to the Home Theater environment. Along the way, through the process of convergence, we are begining to see devices that are bringing these two worlds together like they've never been before. Namely, a few cutting edge products (TeleMann", AccessDTV, Haupauge, ...) are bringing us lucky users the ability to record High Definition ATSC streams to hard-drive for later playback in their full resolution. As one would guess, these streams are pretty huge. While hard-drives are becoming very inexpensive these days, they aren't really ideal for archiving huge amounts of data. Enter: DV Tape. It just so happens to be, thanks to research done by Andy K. and others, that consumer DV has a bandwidth that is greater than that of compressed HDTV. This means that the camcorder that you bought for the Summer of '99 vacation is just a perfect match for your HDTV-equipped PC. Of course, tape backup of digital data has been around for decades, so there is really nothing new to the concept. What is interesting is the cost-per-megabyte (or should I say gigabyte ;-) of the DV solution versus other solutions available today that have similar capacities.
The primary focus for the development of this tool was for the archival of data streams that are resilient to error. Don't use this tool to backup your company's sales database and expect a bit-for-bit restore in five years when you get audited. The ATSC streams that I like to archive with DVTransfer are MPEG-2 video streams that stand-up to a certain amount of packet loss and packet corruption. If you don't mind a glitch or to during a 2 hour playback, then this stuff works just great. In fact, under ideal circumstances, glitches are so rare that you'll find yourself looking for them rather than being annoyed by them. Given the current state of HD in the US, few of us are lucky enough to see a start-to-finish broadcast from the source without a glitch anyway.
There are other efforts underway to solve generic data backup requirements to this non-traditional media. At this time, DVTransfer isn't meant to be the be-all-end-all backup tool. I will consider feature enhancements to do things like forward error correction and seek-and-fetch lost frames during extreme CPU starvation. I also plan on releasing full documentation on how to use and control the DirectShow Filters in DVTransfer at some point...once I'm happy with their interfaces.
Glad you asked. Download it right here. And please leave some comments of your successes and failures using the tool.
Also glad you asked. None of this would have been possible without the work done by Andy K. and others. For me, this started on July 14 (day after Friday the 13th) when I started using Andy's DVSpoof for the first time on my "open-box special" Sony TRV-DCR310 that I bought the week before. I'd been reading the" AVSForum posts about this stuff and where it could lead and saw a call-to-action of sorts for help in DV Camera control. I downloaded the DirectX 8 SDK and started reading and hacking away.
The original tool (never released) chomped on the AVI files that DVSpoof 1.x spit out. It would archive them to tape and restore back to AVI format. I integrated the DVSpoof 2.0 beta source as soon as I could so we could go from HiPix files straight to tape and back.
I've got more DirectShow Filter work to do. The filters currently in this beta version are pretty much stand-alone. The real beauty of the DirectShow FilterGraph architecture is the plug-in component model. Ideally, the filter that formats data into DV should just be receiving a stream of data from any acceptable source. Currently, the filter just has an interface on it that allows a controlling application to point it to the files that it should archive. If these things are done right, you could imagine the HiPix application reading directly from the filter that unformats the DV frame on restore. You wouldn't have to have gobs of free drive space available to watch a recording (but you would loose the primo slider bar in the HiPix app).
Also, I'm sure this thing is riddled with bugs. I've only been at this for a week of evenings (and some of them were late ;-) so there hasn't been alot of testing, especially of edge cases. Please send comments and any error information you have if you see misbehavior.