Moho Forum

As an animator, one way I learn new techniques is by imitating the techniques used in other animated shows in my own work. However, this process is not a very efficient way to work.

For example, let's say I know a certain episode of a certain show has a scene in it that would work well in my own content. In the past, I'd have to step away from my computer, locate the DVD/VHS tape in question, insert it into a player and manually fast forward through it to reach the scene in question.

However, this is no longer the case. I've recently acquired one of Apple's new 80GB video iPods and have started a massive effort to move all of my old DVD/VHS content onto the iPod, in order to create a powerful, portable database of every animated show I have on hand.

The result, is that I can now bring up any scene, of any episode, of any show stored in the database on demand, and examine it as needed without having to interrupt my workflow.

While the process of converting my archived content isn't very fast (about 4 hours for 13 episodes), the long-term benefits such an instant-access archive could prove invaluable. In addition, the sheer number of shows I can put into the database is mindboggling. Using various methods of compression, I can reduce a single 25 minute episode of programming to just under 30MB... meaning, I could potentially store around 2,500 episodes worth of shows into the database on a single iPod.

The really interesting thing about this, is that such databases could prove useful in other fields as well. Imagine being a mechanic with a video database of repair/replacement methods for various parts, covering every make and model of a vehicle from every major automobile manufacturer in the world. Now, if you were to come across a vehicle you weren't familiar with, you could simply pull the database out of your pocket and bring up video of the vehicle in question and how to fix it, without having to climb up out of the pit and thumb through a 1,000+ page book for the same info. Instead, you could work on the actual vehicle and view video of the repair process at the same time.

Anyway, I've only got about 75 episodes of content archived, but I should be able to complete the database updates in 2-3 months. At which point, I should finally be able to determine just how useful this kind of database is for producing animation work.

I've now had a chance to run some brief tests. It seems that while the 5G iPod does allow some still frame stepping, it does so at a minimum of 5 second increments. Not quite enough to get a good frame by frame overview of an animated scene, but it is perfectly adaquate for getting a detailed storyboarded view of a scene's construction. (Perhaps a future update of the iPod will allow for a more analog jog dial response from the iPod click wheel.)

In the meanwhile, I've now managed to get 205 twenty-five minute episodes of content onto the device, across a variety of shows. This accounts for about three solid days of uninterrupted playback, all stored within a mere 10 gigs of space. Using these figures, this suggests that I can only store about 1,500 to 1,600 episodes of content... or about one complete month of non-stop content.

Another useful trick I discovered, was the ability to use a $5 3.5" miniplug to RCA patch cord to output video from the iPod to any display with RCA inputs. However, in order for this to work, you need to swap the colors around on the connections in the following pattern:

- Red to Yellow
- Yellow to White
- White to Red

The reason for this change is due to how the iPod's miniplug connector is designed, that allows for both a video patch cord and a standard set of headphones to work using the same port.

My database is slowly on it's way to completion. I now have 375 episodes of the following shows stored and sorted:

- The Angry Beavers
- Family Guy
- Futurama
- Home Movies
- Invader Zim
- Ren & Stimpy

Total database size so far: 18GB
Average size per episode: 48MB
Total playback time: about 5 days

The most time consuming part of the process seems to be in sampling the broadcast video captures and getting them to properly converted down to an iPod usable format. On average, a single 30 minute episode takes about 1.5 hours to clean up and process, vs. a direct from DVD rip that only requires around one hour to convert.