H
Howard J
A non-profit I volunteer with occasionally has events that last approx 3
hours. We have recorded them on request. Up to now we've used an aging
(70's or so) camcorder. It's been unclear how to get it to go to a slower
speed, so we end up having to change the tape, plus of course at the end all
we have is analog taping. Also, we end up either zooming in on the part of
the stage where most of the activity is, or we zoom out a bit to include
both that side and the other side (where there's less activity). (Panning
during the event is basically not an option.)
I'm suspecting that using MovieMaker might address all of this. That is,
recording directly to the computer, so we'd not run out of recording time.
And perhaps doing it with two computers simultaneously, from different
angles.
Please give your opinion and please advise as to what additional equipment,
if any, we should obtain. (Needless to say, there's essentially no budget,
but on the other hand we're hoping to avoid time-intensive solutions. The
one thing that can be flexible probably is the processing time; that is, if
necessary, it's OK to put off processing (rendering?) the result and writing
it to a DVD.
I tried recording with the lowend digital camera and a microphone for about
ten minutes. It worked fine in a small room / office setting. Any cameras
and computers have to be in a former choir loft. The loft is on one side of
the room. It is one story higher and about 30 feet in front of, one side of
the stage. And it's about 50 feet or so from the other side. (These are
rough estimates.) The events are amplified--I'm trying to find out if
there's a way to patch into the audio, and I don't know yet. The audio
using the aging camcorder works fine. I'd guess that the videocamera is
picking up the amplified sound instead of "zooming" its mic all the way to
both sides of the stage. I'm concerned that using a computer microphone
might work poorly, because the typical use for a PC mic is probably no more
than 5 feet or so.
We have at present:
--The aging camcorder. It has a port that says AV out. The jack comprises
8 small holes arranged along its circumfrence, and three larger holes also
arranged along the circumfrence. Each set of holes is roughly evenly
spaced. We've never tested it, and I don't know if we have a cable for it.
(I don't know if it requires a proprietary cable, or whether we have such a
cable.)
--We can borrow a mid-90's digital video camera. I don't know if it will
have a firewire port--I suspect not--and I don't know if it will handle long
periods of unattended recording.
--A firewire port card and utility program, DV Pics Plus.
--MyDVD software
--A working Pentium 1.4 gigahertz XP Home desktop, 1/2 gig Ram, 8 gigs free
on the 40 gig hard drive. It's unstable when running Office programs but
usually OK otherwise.
--An unopened new this year 80 gig
--An unopened new this year 160 gig
--A not yet built AMD desktop approx 1.6 gigahertz with 1/2 gig RAM. (We
could put either or both of the hard drives in it.)
--A low-end pocket digital camera, that can serve as a webcam via a USB
cable. It has no audio.
--Another low-end pocket camera. I think it doesn't have a USB cable.
--A couple of web-only cameras--that is, cameras that only work via USB,
they don't have a way to record pictures independently.
--A perhaps 500 mhz, 1/2 gig Windows 2000 desktop, currently with a small
hard drive.
Of course, using the PCs to hold the hard drives means having to move the
PCs each time there's an event. Possibly someone will have a laptop or be
willing to buy a firewire hard drive, but presently we have only weak
laptops. If a firewire hard drive is a simple solution, I'm open to just
getting it.
We don't yet have a DVD writer. Please advise what spec.s if any we should
use. Somewhere I read about being able to record directly to DVD. That
could be attractive. We are interested in being able to edit the video, but
being able to issue a completed DVD (and make copies of it) without editing
would be great.
Questions include:
Will a 3 hour recording be a problem? Does the recording work like a
database--recording mostly to the hard drive, including when it's being
edited--or is it all kept in RAM? That is, at what point would one need to
make separate starting clips (scenes?) for a long video?
Having the recording start automatically (i.e., start on a timer) would be
great.
Thanks!
hours. We have recorded them on request. Up to now we've used an aging
(70's or so) camcorder. It's been unclear how to get it to go to a slower
speed, so we end up having to change the tape, plus of course at the end all
we have is analog taping. Also, we end up either zooming in on the part of
the stage where most of the activity is, or we zoom out a bit to include
both that side and the other side (where there's less activity). (Panning
during the event is basically not an option.)
I'm suspecting that using MovieMaker might address all of this. That is,
recording directly to the computer, so we'd not run out of recording time.
And perhaps doing it with two computers simultaneously, from different
angles.
Please give your opinion and please advise as to what additional equipment,
if any, we should obtain. (Needless to say, there's essentially no budget,
but on the other hand we're hoping to avoid time-intensive solutions. The
one thing that can be flexible probably is the processing time; that is, if
necessary, it's OK to put off processing (rendering?) the result and writing
it to a DVD.
I tried recording with the lowend digital camera and a microphone for about
ten minutes. It worked fine in a small room / office setting. Any cameras
and computers have to be in a former choir loft. The loft is on one side of
the room. It is one story higher and about 30 feet in front of, one side of
the stage. And it's about 50 feet or so from the other side. (These are
rough estimates.) The events are amplified--I'm trying to find out if
there's a way to patch into the audio, and I don't know yet. The audio
using the aging camcorder works fine. I'd guess that the videocamera is
picking up the amplified sound instead of "zooming" its mic all the way to
both sides of the stage. I'm concerned that using a computer microphone
might work poorly, because the typical use for a PC mic is probably no more
than 5 feet or so.
We have at present:
--The aging camcorder. It has a port that says AV out. The jack comprises
8 small holes arranged along its circumfrence, and three larger holes also
arranged along the circumfrence. Each set of holes is roughly evenly
spaced. We've never tested it, and I don't know if we have a cable for it.
(I don't know if it requires a proprietary cable, or whether we have such a
cable.)
--We can borrow a mid-90's digital video camera. I don't know if it will
have a firewire port--I suspect not--and I don't know if it will handle long
periods of unattended recording.
--A firewire port card and utility program, DV Pics Plus.
--MyDVD software
--A working Pentium 1.4 gigahertz XP Home desktop, 1/2 gig Ram, 8 gigs free
on the 40 gig hard drive. It's unstable when running Office programs but
usually OK otherwise.
--An unopened new this year 80 gig
--An unopened new this year 160 gig
--A not yet built AMD desktop approx 1.6 gigahertz with 1/2 gig RAM. (We
could put either or both of the hard drives in it.)
--A low-end pocket digital camera, that can serve as a webcam via a USB
cable. It has no audio.
--Another low-end pocket camera. I think it doesn't have a USB cable.
--A couple of web-only cameras--that is, cameras that only work via USB,
they don't have a way to record pictures independently.
--A perhaps 500 mhz, 1/2 gig Windows 2000 desktop, currently with a small
hard drive.
Of course, using the PCs to hold the hard drives means having to move the
PCs each time there's an event. Possibly someone will have a laptop or be
willing to buy a firewire hard drive, but presently we have only weak
laptops. If a firewire hard drive is a simple solution, I'm open to just
getting it.
We don't yet have a DVD writer. Please advise what spec.s if any we should
use. Somewhere I read about being able to record directly to DVD. That
could be attractive. We are interested in being able to edit the video, but
being able to issue a completed DVD (and make copies of it) without editing
would be great.
Questions include:
Will a 3 hour recording be a problem? Does the recording work like a
database--recording mostly to the hard drive, including when it's being
edited--or is it all kept in RAM? That is, at what point would one need to
make separate starting clips (scenes?) for a long video?
Having the recording start automatically (i.e., start on a timer) would be
great.
Thanks!