Fastest way from camera to DVD?

[Merijeek]

The title pretty much says it all, but I guess some more detail would be better.

A business client of mine has a gig where he's been invited to video some things (talent shows, competitions and the like) and then turn around and sell DVDs of the event.

The way he's done it so far is pretty crappy, resulting in some low-quality videos. Add into that the rendering time, anda ll of that, and it's more trouble than it's worth.

I've taken a look at TMPGEnc DVD Author, and that looks like the way to go for making the DVDs. Intuitive, and pretty cool. So, software taken care of.

What I'm looking for is suggestions for cameras that can offload directly to a PC/Laptop, because the typical 1.5 hour record time will frequently not be enough.

Apart from that, the only other big requirement is that it can output in a format that won't require any reencoding.

The ultimately ideal solution would involve this:

Camera straight to a capture PC
While watching the capture real-time on the PC, the ability to set chapter breaks/discrete files without actually missing video (such as you'd get by hitting STOP and then RECORD on the camera)
Toss the first 2-hours of video from the PC to a second PC over a network for importing into TMPGEnc DVD author
Continue on a new recording, preferably without missing a beat

The second PC then is used to get to work creating and then burning the master DVD for that two hours.

So...how realistic is all this?

Thanks
-Joe

[MachineMan]

You should check out those Sony Camcorders that record on MiniDVD discs and not tape.

[Merijeek]

Well, those were on my list. However, IIRC, they have a recording time of less than 2 hours.

If a camera lists a firewire port as one of its features, is it safe to assume that I can go straight from the camera to a capture PC?

-Joe

[rich_jtg]

Does it have to be a PC?

The reason I ask is that he could get a standalone HD/DVD recorder with an i-link connection... download onto harddisk, edit, and then burn off at either the same rate or fit to disk depending on make of recorder.

[Merijeek]

Does it have to be a PC?

The reason I ask is that he could get a standalone HD/DVD recorder with an i-link connection... download onto harddisk, edit, and then burn off at either the same rate or fit to disk depending on make of recorder.

Well, the reason for the PC-based preference is for the addition of menus and the like.

-Joe

[MachineMan]

If a camera lists a firewire port as one of its features, is it safe to assume that I can go straight from the camera to a capture PC?

Yes, you would need firewire for what you are trying to do.

[redwudz]

You if your laptop was fast enough, you could get a Firewire card for your laptop, input the DV into Mainconcept encoder and burn a DVD from that. If you wanted to edit in DV, though, you would need to have more HD space on the laptop. The first method would be pretty fast, close to realtime if your CPU was quick. All you would need would be the Firewire cable, card, and MC encoder, along with a laptop that had a DVD burner.