How live capture 3 video feeds at the same time (standard def)?

[Frowzy]

I need to set up a lab where we will be studying an engineering student solving a problem on a large pad of paper. We will have 3 different camcorders recording the 'action' (one to get what he is drawing, one to get his face, and one wide angle shot to get body gestures) - I need to be able to play back at least one of the feeds as soon as possible after it is recorded so that the problem-solver can observe what he/she did and elaborate on what they were thinking. This too will be recorded. So, my question is, what kind of computer setup do I need to be able to do this? I'd like to have one computer that can live capture video from at least 3 different cameras at the same time. Is this possible? Clearly, a very special video card is needed. I did find one called Nvidia quadro SDI capture. It can handle up to 4 cameras at once, but it may be overkill. It requires cameras with an SDI interface which I'm not even sure what that is! Is there a way to do this without requiring SDI? If not, that's fine - I just need to know how to set this up. We have a reasonable amount of money to do this, so cost, although I'd like to minimize it, should not be an issue. Also, besides the card, what do I need in terms of hard drive, processor, etc. Any ideas? Thanks!

[DB83]

SDI - Serial Digital Interface ( I looked it up)
Will that card do what you want ? I doubt it even at the $3K it would cost you before you consider the broadcast quality cameras that you would also need.
Would any card or a single PC do what you want? I doubt it. Not even the fastest HDDs or CPU could handle 3 simultaneous captures.
So three full captures = 3 PCs (and cost will be less than that card anyway)

Others may think differently.

[Cornucopia]

A Decent New/Fast tower computer, 2 or 3 Firewire cards, and 3 DV cameras should do the trick! I've conversed with Johnny Malaria of Enosoft and it's pretty clear he's been able to do more than that.

Now, syncing them and playing them back in a quad split might be a different matter, but it's also not a back-breaker. AVISynth could help you there.

Scott

[aedipuss]

if it were me i'd be looking for a real camera switcher. you have someone run the board controlling the 3 cameras and output one video. it could be recorded to flash memory and played back quickly. there are some deals out there but you would probably need an experienced video editor to run the setup and a couple other pieces of equipment.

http://www.resplendentd.com/panasonic-aghpx170-3-camera-pack-w-avhs400a-switcher-p-644.html

[Computer Nerd Kev]

How about looking at video surveillance software?
I couldn't tell you for sure, but you might be able to set up some of those programs to record SD video. Of course you wouldn't want to set up much in the way of compression and you would need a good HDD, however I doubt it would be impossible with modern hardware.

As for the capture cards, I have a few old capture cards from the early 90's (and I'm pretty certain of the age) which have up to four composite video input plugs at the back, which I'm fairly sure are not sound inputs. Mind you I haven't a clue what the modern equivalent is for these, but one assumes that these things still exist.