Total Newbie... need good advice!

[ggmike]

Hi everyone, I'm glad I just found these forums and I have some questions that I haven't been able to find answers to by searching the internet.


I work at a clinic where we do psychological evaluations and interview patients when they come in. Each interview lasts about 3 hours and we need to archive these interviews for future reference.

Right now, we have 1 digital video camera, a Canon ZR80 that records to DVC.

Our dilemma is this: Originally we wanted to transfer all of the data from DVC to DVD and archive those, but now we are realizing that it will take probably several hours to create each DVD and it will also cost alot of money to purchase 1 DVD for each interview. Now we are thinking of just archiving the DVC tapes themselves, but this may not be a good idea because playback is not as easy and the tapes themselves I believe have a shorter shelf-life than DVDs.

Can anyone recommend a solution for our situation? We see about 2 families a week, for a total of 8 interviews at 3 hours each. You can probably see how this gets very messy quickly . Playback is not that much of a concern, since the tapes won't be viewed that often, but we don't want it to be too hard either so we are considering buying some kind of a DVC playback VCR or the equivelent for that purpose.

Oh yeah, is there some other recording format other than DVC that will allow us to record for longer periods of time? We'd rather not run in LP mode or reduce quality by doing things like that.

Sorry this turned into a really long first post, I'm really grateful for any advice you guys can offer. Thanks in advance!!

[Capmaster]

I work at a clinic where we do psychological evaluations and interview patients when they come in.

How appropriate for this board. You might get some new patients, as we are a mixed bag of nuts here

You apparently have given it some thought. I personally wouldn't try to archive to HD, as the cost of that will exceed the cost of blank DVDs. Good quality blanks only cost $1 - $1.50 each. Ditto with archiving to tape. They will deteriorate and could break at any time.

If I were you I would transfer your DV from the camcorder to the PC with firewire and use an editing app to do any changes. Then you can save it as MPEG and author/burn.

Start out by looking through the guides (upper left of screen) and familiarize yourself with the basics. It's a lot faster than posting each and every question, and less frustrating too.

[Matteo693]

You could invest in one of those JVC camcorders that record straight to DVD...?

By the way, are your patients aware that you're videotaping them???

[andyp1]

I would have thought it would be possible to link the camera to a standalone DVD Recorder and record directly to DVD at the interview.

As long as it is geting an input it will record it.

[johns0]

Another quickway to archive your data is to record onto a dvd recorder so there`s no need for going to a computer.

[FOO]

What kind of quality do you need , recording an interview with
crazy people sitting in a chair ?

If I was doing it , I would go directly into a stand alone DVD recorder.
Zero work after the session

[ggmike]

Thanks everyone - these all sound like good ideas. I'm going to look into getting a standalone DVD recorder. Does anyone know how many hours I can typically record with one of these? Is playback pretty universal?

[Matteo693]

What kind of quality do you need , recording an interview with
crazy people sitting in a chair ?

Better use a high bitrate, or you'll get macro-blocking when they start spasming & convulsing all over your office.

[indolikaa]

You could archive to VideoCD. You'd need three CD's per session, but CD's are cheap enough, and VideoCDs are pretty easy to make, and they don't take as much time to encode as MPEG-2 DVDs.

Otherwise, I'd spend the bucks and get a realtime capture/encoder system so you're DV material moves to an authorable MPEG format 'on the fly' without the added time incurred by encoding after capture.

[andyp1]

Thanks everyone - these all sound like good ideas. I'm going to look into getting a standalone DVD recorder. Does anyone know how many hours I can typically record with one of these? Is playback pretty universal?

You can get 6hrs on some 8 hours on others , but for quality if you stick to 3 hours you should be perfectly happy.

[indolikaa]

DVD Recorder. Excellent idea.

[LNielsen76]

Transfer from DV Camera to PC via Firewire.

Use Mainconcept MPEG Encoder 1.4 in capture mode to transfer interview to MPEG2.

Option:

a) Use DVD2SVCD's DVB input option to convert to CVD/DVD format, if not captured to CVD/DVD format, and let DVD2SVCD author the Mpeg2 using DVD Author. Burn image with DVD Decrypter.

b) Use TMPGEnc DVD Source Creator to cut/join/encode/demux Mpeg2 for use in DVD-Lab or TMPGEnc DVD Author. Burn folder using RecordNow Max.

Provisor: Should your end product be greater than 4.35GB, then use CloneDVD 2 or InstantCopy 8 to burn. Using the CVD resolution will save you significant space and may allow you to record all three hours to one DVD5. However, since you are recording in Digital to Camcorder, you will probably notice quality loss. It may be better to remain at DVD standard resolution.


Warning: I have never attempted to capture from DV Camera and the above method may or may not work for you.

[SaSi]

Thanks everyone - these all sound like good ideas. I'm going to look into getting a standalone DVD recorder. Does anyone know how many hours I can typically record with one of these? Is playback pretty universal?

Recording duration settings vary in terms of names between models, but typically, they all offer ranges between 2 hours and 6 hours per disk.

The standalone DVD recorder can also be used to transfer the existing tapes by playing back the tape while connected to the recorder.

Any method involving editing and re-encoding on a PC followed by authoring would simply create new customers Can't think of anything more boring and depressing than editing a psychological evaluation interview.

Additionally, direct recording on disk and secure archiving it (without any technician getting their hands on the tapes) saves you worries about secrecy and disclosure of content to other parties, which should be a concern.

[FOO]

Any method involving editing and re-encoding on a PC followed by authoring would simply create new customers

Hee Hee