Recording raw event video: what to use?

[tomreedtoon]

I am occasionally involved with events that have pro video and audio for presentation. I would like to know what equipment or kind of device to use in the "home" or "prosumer" category you guys would recommend. The video is mixed and switched professionally, with good quality audio. I'm trying to avoid the purchase or rental of a pro video machine like a digital Betacam recorder or something similar, which would run $8000 or more.

Here's the criterion:

1) It should have manual audio recording levels. Recording on a home digital camcorder is not possible, since the AGC would "pump" the audio volume. A camcorder with manual controls and limiter is prohibitively expensive.

2) The video should be saved in a non-volatile format like DVD disk or digital tape that can be used in DV editing later, so preferably NOT anything like MPEG compression. I don't care if it's recorded on hard drive and saved to DVD later, but I want the protection of being able to save it later.

3) The unit should be "luggable." In other words, as transportable as a modest suitcase, and able to travel. This rules out using a desktop PC for recording (and they don't record live video well anyway, in my experience).

If possible, I'd like to have two of these running, either as backup or for recording of an "iso feed" for use in editing later.

Anyone with any ideas, or preferably experience along these lines, I'd appreciate knowing.

[daamon]

Hi tomreedtoon,

I may have mis-read your question, but I think you're asking about "prosumer cameras".

I've done a little research myself recently on exactly this and have come across the Canon XM2 or the XL1S. I think they might fit the bill for what you want.

Hope that helps.

[DanaT]

I have usually rented the camera, because I only do a few concerts a year and have been unwilling to have the money tied up in a camera that quickly becomes obsolete.

But the thing that you may want to consider is using an external IEEE-1394 disk. It buys you several things:

1. You are no longer limited to 60-minute shoots

2. You don't have to wait to transfer the video from the camera tape to the computer hard disk -- it's already there.

There are several options. One is to purchase (or rent) a unit that has nice controls that are similar to tape decks -- record, pause, rewind, etc. They're very convenient but expensive. I opted for the second option, which is to use a standard external IEEE-1394 (FireWire) disk and a laptop. The upside is the laptop screen is a huge viewfinder, which allows me to see clearly how well the camera is focused. Another nice feature is 120GB external FireWire drives are available for $120 -- that's nearly 9 hours of continuous recording! The downside is you don't have the simple buttons to push -- instead you are mouse-clicking like crazy to start things up. Even so, I find it very productive.

[DanaT]

Oops, I left out something -- the video is recorded on the hard drive in exactly the same format as it would be on DV tape -- it's as close as you can get to RAW with DV-based cameras. So it is eminently editable.

[DanaT]

One more thing -- there are several miniDV cameras that have manual audio controls, the Canon GL-2 being one of them. It's somewhat noisy in low-level light (even though it is a three-chipper), but it can be rented for a mere pittance. Sorry, you'll have to go from balanced XLRs to a silly little unbalanced mini phone jack on this camera. If that's too low-grade for you, there are other miniDV cameras with decent XLR connections that rent for less than $200/day (Samys considers a whole weekend one day!).

With an external hard drive, the fact that a miniDV tape only holds an hour of recording is no longer an issue.

[tomreedtoon]

Gents, you misunderstand. I do NOT want to rent a camera. The event has its own pro cameras. I get a feed of video and a stereo audio feed.

(Incidentally, the event for which I'm proposing this is a fairly large science fiction con, with the largest costume contest in the Southeast. They videotape the event on VHS and play it back on the hotel TV's. I'm trying to get them to make this a presentation they can record, edit and sell to people afterwards. They won't pay for pro video recording, thus I'm trying to foot this out of my own shallow pocket.)

A mini DV camera won't do the job. It records 60 minutes, period. Ditto the Digital-8 camera that I currently own. I do not have the money to rent a pro camera, EVEN IF it could record video and audio feeds. However, if I could buy a device that could record that video feed, which I could use for editing later on, that might be an expense I could swallow.

Frankly, I was hoping one of you would tell me that I could take a PC with an actual, working, non-crap capture card, a huge empty hard drive and a DVD burner, plug it into their video switcher and audio board, and record the stuff as AVI. This makes the device "non-luggable" - it's certainly nothing I could carry on a plane without making the air marshalls suspicious - but it's affordable. And I could use the computer for other stuff later.

And in this case, I was hoping you could tell me you HAVE used such a thing, it works, and there is a capture card made on Earth that will actually capture video without turning it into crap.

Either that, or I was hoping you could tell me that one of the new generation of stand-alone DVD recorders, or the DVD/hard drive combos, could take the place of a video recorder. (I'm talking about something that would provide the quality of a Betacam recorder like the Sony BVW-70, the decks my TV station uses, except not requiring me to import cocaine to pay for it.)

Either way, I'd like someone who has actual experience with this.

[daamon]

I was hoping one of you would tell me that I could take a PC with an actual, working, non-crap capture card, a huge empty hard drive and a DVD burner, plug it into their video switcher and audio board, and record the stuff as AVI.

As long as you've got a decent capture card and the feeds are acceptable to that capture card - I can't see why not. Capturing to compressed AVI (say, using a DV codec) would be better (in term of disc space) over uncompressed, and probably negligible quality loss.

Of course, you'll need a large and fast HDD too - DV AVI is approx 13.5Gb per hour.

You may want to look into the Canopus ADVC range (50, 55 or 100) instead of a capture card.

I've no experience of this personally, but (in principle) it shouldn't be difficult - as long as the feeds are acceptable then the PC doesn't mind where they're from.

Hope that helps...

[DanaT]

I guess what threw me off was your criteria, spcifically

1) It should have manual audio recording levels. Recording on a home digital camcorder is not possible, since the AGC would "pump" the audio volume. A camcorder with manual controls and limiter is prohibitively expensive.

So my question is, do you want manual volume controls, and do you want a limiter? If you need manual volume controls, a small Mackie is handy but is probably overkill. If you need a limiter, things get more "interesting", because you either have to accept the pumping or have good controls that allow you to tune its response to match the kind of audio you're getting.

Once we get the audio figured out I'll feel more comfortable about making a recommendation.

[tomreedtoon]

DanaT said:

So my question is, do you want manual volume controls, and do you want a limiter? If you need manual volume controls, a small Mackie is handy but is probably overkill. If you need a limiter, things get more "interesting", because you either have to accept the pumping or have good controls that allow you to tune its response to match the kind of audio you're getting.

By a "Mackie," I presume you mean a small audio mixer with VU meters that I could plug into the capture device. I could do that...I have just such a little mixer. But what I mean is a VU meter (say, on the computer on-screen) that shows whether I'm distorting the audio recording or not. I've seen these on audio recording programs like Goldwave, but the only ones I've seen on video capture programs aren't all that informative.

And I do mean a "limiter," not a "compressor" for the audio. While doing this, I'm not going to be sitting behind the audio board next to the audio guy, riding the volume controls on the recording device to make sure some really loud sound isn't distorting the audio. I'm going to be out with a camcorder recording handheld footage of the performance to be edited in later as a "b roll."

By a limiter, I don't mean something that will bring up the level of quiet sounds. I mean something that will reduce sudden loud sounds to keep the recording from distorting. I don't want an "automatic level control" like the ones on home equipment. If absolutely necessary, there's probably an audio black box I could buy or built as a limiter, that I could insert before the conversion to DV AVI.

At this point, the hardware I'm considering for this "pseudo pro quality DVR" is:

• A hopefully-small desktop computer with 1 gHz processsor speed or better, a Firewire port, a 250 gig hard drive specifically for capture, and a DVD writer for hard storage.
  
  A capture device like the Canopus ADVC-100 that converts video to DV AVI on a Firewire port. (I've heard the ADVC-50, the one that plugs into a PCI port, is deficient and flaky and should not be trusted; the stand-alone 100 is better.)
  
  Some kind of freeware or cheap-ware program to do the capture to raw AVI, like VirtualDub, but preferably with a readable, sensible onscreen VU meter. Not user friendly, but as I've learned, NOTHING in the world of digital video is user friendly.
  
  Maybe a video player program that will play the captured video for the sake of checking.

Has anyone out there built or done such a device? I know I could hack together just such a device, but anyone with practical experience along these lines might pass along some good ideas.