Unattended event recoding, trainning class recording.

[jasabel]

Hello guys.
We have two classrooms where we hold some trainning for employees and customers. We would like to record the whole trainning unattendenly, then pick all these media and hire somebody for the postproduction. These courses can last for 4 hour, one day or two days (8 hour a day).

My heaven would be to place a couple of cameras on the ceiling and walls to record from several angles, let them roll for the 8 hour, at the same time record the sound in a separate device and bring all this files for editing where a postproducer removes all the coffee brake times, etc and come up with a decent course splitted in let say 2 hour chunks.
However I am getting crazy with the cameras, I would like to have some sort of camera with cards being able to record for 8 hours otherwise I had to route cables to the walls and trust on a computer to record, and I don't trust computers for this, or doing it via WIFI that sounds even worse. Of course I want a more than decent video quality like 1080p.
Unfortunatelly what I see is surveillance cams with poor quality and unable to record 8 hour or handycams like Sonys that I guess rarelly can record for 8 hour or very professional units out of my pocket.
What would you do, I am planning to do these "Ted's talk" conferences but more on a industrial manner.
We want something easy to record classes easyly, every idea is more than welcomed.
Thanks beforehand.

[DB83]

I guess that if the camera supports it, a 64 gig card could record 8 hours.

But you will struggle to find a battery that would last that amount of time.

[Cornucopia]

These would be wall-mounted, etc. in this classroom, so there should be no problem with using AC power source instead of just relying on battery. So the limiting factor is card size vs. bitrate.

Very many cams hover at the ~25Mbps range for HD using AVC. Using that as a benchmark, that gives you ~88GB/8-hour period. So you would either need 2x64GB cards (swapping out at 4-hour halftime mark) or 4x32GB cards (swapping out at 2-hour break periods) or go for the 128GB card and leave it in all day.
Note: you may not be guaranteed to have a continuous recording during this whole time, as many cameras have the artificial 4-GB filesize limit (due to either FAT32 filesystem or AVI or MOV* container limitations). Using 64+GB size cards will likely use exFAT, thus removing the filesystem problem, and using MP4** container should remove the container limitation.
When the limitation occurs, you might have a few seconds gap before the next "recorded segment" kicks in.

Scott

*MOV is capable of >4GB if using 64bit extended offsets, but it is rarely implemented/implemented correctly.
**MP4 is also capable of >4GB for the same reason, and their implementation is more standardized and thus more likely to be implemented correctly.

[Khaver]

Camcorder with internal hard drive.

[Cornucopia]

While a cam with internal HDD might solve the problem of record time, it ADDS a problem of offloading (Extra time, logistics).

Scott

[jasabel]

Thanks Cornucopia (shuffling throw the Texas Sand) and others.

I adore your calcs, they bring me to my high shool times... Now I know what I was suspecting, I need at least a two cards camcorder and two big SDs.
However going back to the market and reallity I suspect there is no such camera. I was digging into the mid-range of Sony and JVC and most have only one slot, and I have also read somewhere that some of them have 2 hour recording limitation (maybe because of sensor heating).

I was out of the video market for many years, so I don't know models and brands. I suspect with the advent of smartphones and DSLRs pure video cams are more limited every day. I may not hang four pro $2000+ or $3000+ cameras on the walls, and models under $1000 seems to have extraordinary features (for families) but not in my direction. Quite honestly I didn’t cover all of them in depth as the webs and material is very family oriented and it is hard to find serious specs.

I suspect that my only option would be to hang some device with ethernet connection and record in a computer, the same way the surveillance does. Surveillance cam can stand 24 hour recording but my assume the sensor, optics and tweaking is much more limited. Let me spead aloud, but as I think it is hard to find something able to record for 8 hour locally, maybe the best option would be something like with the quality of the smalls handycams and record remotely using some PC software.

I think I can manage to have a plugset and ethernet on the camera spots if I need to.

Please let me know specific models as I am lost in brands and specs.

[Cornucopia]

Why 2 card slots? If you are taking a break/lunch, a changeout swap of cards takes all of 15 seconds (probably less).

What's your budget?

Look for actual camcorders, not phones or DSLRs (because you're right about sensor heat & time limitations there), but there should be plenty of consumer models to choose from which can go all day without overheating.

For actual specs, go to the manufacturers' support pages and download their pdfs. And then look at review/fan sites.

Scott

[jasabel]

You are right, but I am afraid that somebody may forget to swap the card and also move the camera.
I will have to dig into the real world and see some models.