Video recording

[soundspider]

Hey, Just looking some advice on video recording in a church. We currently have 3 pan/tilt/zoom dome cameras, CCTV style (Sunkwang, 480TVL), connected into a Kramer VP-719xl, one output of which goes to a projector and the other is scan converted to composite and fed into a DVD recorder (Bush I think). The problem is the picture quality on the recording is quite poor, with shadows and ghosting and a lack of clarity to people's faces etc. Do the cameras need upgraded (and if so to what), is it the recorder itself (it is always set to high quality which, when recording TV is pretty clear), or is there something in the chain that makes the signal poor? One suggestion I had was to run Cat5 for the video cable (two cables are 20m of quite thin coax, the other is 40m) with a balun - don't know if that would help or not? Any suggestions would be gratefully received, and if any more info is need, please ask. Cheers, Alan

[smalljoshua]

What is the quality of the feed to the screen? This should tell you pretty quickly if the cameras are an issue.

 

If the quality on the screen is good compared to the recording and as you say the DVD recorder isn't as fault, this would lead me to believe that the scan converter is at fault. What sort of quality is the scan converted image when viewed on a TV?

 

Josh

[paulears]

Those cameras are standard composite, as far as I can determine, so I'm guessing you're using the Kramer to provide VGA to the projector? The Kramer has two composite ins plus the cleverer ones - so how are these cameras wired? The scaler only has VGI outs, so where is the feed to the DVD recorder coming from? You are not using the 2nd VGA output and then using another converter to get back to analogue are you? If so, that's two rescaling operations, and that is likely to be the quality problem. It could be simpler to feed the composite sources into a mixer of some kind, then use the scaler just to provide a VGA source for the projector - but why not try composite to that too - the quality might be perfectly acceptable, and possible even better?

[soundspider]

Hey, cheers for the replies. I thought the processing may have been the culprit - was thinking of using an AV Toolbox AVT-8120 to switch the composite video signals and then just take an output to DVD recorder from that. I think my basic question was should we expect to get a decent quality DVD recording without shadows/ghosting etc from those cameras?

 

Thanks again,

 

Alan

[Stuart91]

I think my basic question was should we expect to get a decent quality DVD recording without shadows/ghosting etc from those cameras?

 

Simplest way to check is to feed one of the cameras directly into the DVD recorder and give it a try. If that looks OK, then it's the processing that's at fault.

[paulears]

That switcher can do basic switching fine, and isn't that expensive - the idea of going straight from one camera to DVD as a test makes a great deal of sense, and will identify the culprit! I would try the composite input on the projector too, I can go into my projector in composite and out onto a pretty big screen with quite decent quality.

[soundspider]

The only problem with that is, its all installed - the projector is on the ceiling with the wires running under the floor, up the inside of the walls, so getting a composite lead up to it neatly (you know what churches are like!) would be difficult. I'll convert the composite out of the AV Toolbox thingy back to VGA - camera feed to big screen isn't that important anyway, its more the recording.

 

Haven't had a chance to try plugging directly into the DVD recorder, but can you suggest a decent upgrade in cameras if necessary?

 

Thanks,

 

Alan

[mm289]

Hi Alan,

 

just wondered how you had got on with this? We are just installing a Sony EVI D70 PTZ which will go into a 4 way video mixer to combine with user operated video camera feeds. I then want to record the output from the video mixer and was wondering waht to use - was thinking DVD recorder but wasn't sure if this would work.

 

Not looking to do much video editing, just take a straight feed onto DVD.

 

Thoughts/experiences?

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

 

Paul.