Video Recording

[spikeydude14]

Hi again everyone,

 

Does anybody know what the best way of video recording is, I use an application called Camtwist to edit my video live, but unfortunately I cant find anything any good to record with so I've decided to record using DVD recorders and then I'll edit this after, is this a good Idea, or is there a better way, maybe something I'm missing out on!

 

Cheers

[Stee_cri1]

hi there

 

I guess it all depends on what you are recording. I record onto mini DV tapes using a sony DSR-45 or straight onto a Grass Valley recoding unit and then edit from that.

 

Personally I wouldnt record onto DVD the rip it off to edit due to the loss of quality I find you can get when recording, especially when you are recording high quality images also depends on the audio as the DSR and grass valley can have up to 4 audio imputs that can then be edited.

 

I hope this helps if you have any more questions about these please feel free to pm me

 

Regards steven

[Pete McCrea]

As above- it depends on the kit your using. Going from the website, it looks like consumer cameras, so I'd bung a tape into each of these then import those into the edit machine and edit that way. I'd also take a mix output from the vision mixer to give a rough starting point, and record this to the same format, using a deck.

 

As said above, DVD is a lossy encoding process- if your using a decent camera, then recording to DVD will lower the quality, and you will not be able to get this back. You'll also need to re-encode to another format for the editing, so this will add time to your process. Keep it in the native file format until you need to encode for DVD or web, and keep the master edit as a native file format so you can always re-encode later if needed.

[Ollie80]

We shoot a live 4 camera mix onto DVCAM. One of the cameras, usually an audience cam is also patched to another DV recorder to pick up audience reactions. This is then cut into the final mix if need be. We normally back up on DVD or if someone wants to take a copy straight away with no thrills.

 

Shooting on DVCAM has never been an issue and we find most production houses / agencies use this format.

 

Or of course mini DV, but remember a mini DV cassette is 60mins but will shorten to 40mins if used in a DVCAM machine ie DSR 1500P (machines we use)

 

Ollie

[spikeydude14]

Thanks for your help everyone, I'll scrap the DVD recorder idea and look out for some other kind of recording unit.

 

Cheers

[slim_mcslim]

I reckon these are pretty cool for recording onto, and unlike other offerings in the same price bracket, they are rack mount, with removable hdd in caddies.

[Lee House]

You may also want to take a look at this unit as well.

 

http://www.edirol.com/index.php/en/product...-field-recorder

 

Email me if you are interested and need a price.

 

Kind regards

 

Lee

[DangerousMark]

For non-pro apps, DV is pretty much what you want at the moment until HDD and hi-def recorders properly mature (well they might be already, but the price is quite high and I'm unsure on how low you can set the compression). It's a format that was specifically made for the task, for one thing. High data rate to cut down on artefacts, no interframe compression (so with decent equipment - or after ripping to PC - you can do frame-accurate cuts without any need for re-encoding etc). The only minus point being it not liking intense reds very much (particularly if you have to record NTSC for some reason - the colour resolution takes a real hit). Getting it into the PC is a pain, and it chows a lot of disc space, but it's all good from there on out, the cameras seem fairly reliable, and the tapes aren't mahoosive (heck, at least as easy to get in an average pocket as a miniDVD). And as seen in the links above, its not unknown for non-tape pro systems either.

 

DVD I have used as a primary recording source in desperation before... in place of doing an uncompressed video capture. If you can manage that (say streaming direct from a camera into a high powered laptop with a big big hard disc, optionally compressing with something lossless like HuffYUV or low-loss e.g. max quality MJPEG) then it should surpass DV.

DVD even at maximum rate still isn't supergood when encoding realtime, and at lower rates - such as what you'd need to get any realistic length recording (even that of a higher-speed drive such as DVCAM) done on a typical camcorder mini-DVD - you really need to be doing it 2-pass to get the best use of the available bandwidth. I have severe reservations about it as a "live" or even home-user recording medium and actually still prefer to timeshift my TV watching on VHS as I've found it more reliable (both in terms of wrongly reported remaining time, and all-out failures - VHS has no "index" or "menu" from where your stuff can be permanently lost because of a glitch) and user friendly (inc better ffwd/rwd/frame-perfect rerecord-start points) than either DVD or the PVR I was able to afford :blink: (and though the quality is lower, esp in LP, it's still "nicer" than the digital break-ups it smooths over).

 

Not to mention the effects of scratches on the disc surface, Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. :blink:

 

Hopefully the "next generation" will be better; EG my mother just got an MPG4 mini video camera thing from where she works for some project or other, we'll have to see what kind of quality results.

[paulears]

The problem for recording to DVD and then editing this is the fact that you cannot edit with frame accuracy, as not every one is recording using the GOP system. This is sufficiently bad that getting exact edit points is difficult, and syncing cameras is also quite difficult. I'm not sure that VHS has any place at all any longer - SVHS is a pretty reasonable medium, quality wise, but tapes wear out, get wrecked by condensation and drop outs are common. DV and DVCAM are pretty good really if you wish to record digitally, but whichever medium you use, it's going to be expensive. I rather like the small nnovia recorders, and I have had good results from them using them as playback machines - no glitches and rock solid performance. If you want to record via a computer in non-compressed formats, then Adobe On Location is rather good, but the oiginal version of this before Adobe blought them was DV Rack, made by Serious Magic - which Adobe bought a couple of years ago. I've still got this on one older machine and although On Location is as good quality wise, DV rack had some nice extra features.

 

One thing with hardware systems is running costs - a service on a pro machine can easily cost more than you'd ever believe. If you need a new head drum on some of these, then you could easily buy a couple of decent laptops for the money.

 

As you're not using one of the pro-style editing packages (Final Cut, Avid, Premiere, Vegas etc) is your budget pretty low? If so, you're going to have to accept some compromises. A £40 DVD recorder could well be good enough - what are you doing?