Recording 2 video streams to pc + showing on TV realtime?

[Hamsternator]

I've been asked to set up an interview room at the small company I work for, but after asking around, I'm still at a loss as to what I need to make it work in accordance with my boss' demands... hope someone here can help God knows why they asked me, but they did, so here goes...

Basically I know what we want, but have very little clue as to what we need and how to set it up... everything needs to be consumer level, as we're on a budget - hopefully it can be kept under/around 10.000€

The setup:
2 video cameras in a room for capturing both sides of 10+ people 'round a table. (We have 1 cam already that needs to be used in the setup - Sony 201 w. S-video out.)
These cameras should send their feeds to a 42" screen in the next room, to be shown in split screen.
Sound needs to be clear (but not studio quality...), so all persons 'round the table can be identified and their speech transcribed.
Recording should be to pc harddisk, as sessions may be several hours long.

So... how do I go about getting 2 video cameras hooked up to a pc (or 2?) for recording, and showing on a plasma screen or the like at the same time?

What kind of hardware and software would this take, bearing in mind it needs to be consumer level?

I realise this is probably quite a large question, so if it's too much to answer, then maybe someone knows of any companies that sell these kind of solutions? That would make me very happy too

[reboot]

You need a firewire card, or dual firewire inputs to the computer, one for each cam.
Two instances of your capture software running, one for each cam.
Software to take both feeds, and create a splitscreen output to your video card, piped to the other room (this is the most difficult part! It would be easier to use two TV's and dual outputs).
You need at least one good microphone, or use one on the cam, providing it can capture what you need.

[Steve Stepoway]

Since your existing camera has S-video out (and not DV) firewire won't help you. Look at hardware MPEG encoder cards, such as the Hauppauge 250 card (I haven't used it, but lots of people here like them). It will cut the data rate, as well. Do you need to record the 2 feeds independently, or would it be OK to record the split-screen feed? Simplifies things if you only need to record 1 video stream. You probably need a video mixer to generate the split screen & drive the monitor. Several mics on the table through an audio mixer for sound (Mackie makes great little mixers; Behringer also makes a line of inexpensive mixers that would be perfectly OK for your use).

[Hamsternator]

Ok - that was actually a question I had... so it´s not a problem to record two feeds simultaneously as one, so I only get a split screen view?
Thats very cool, as I would otherwise have to splice em together after each session...

Thanks for the answers... should be doable

[Cornucopia]

What about this?...

2 cameras (1 you have + 1 other similar also w/ Svideo out)
2 Canopus ADV-100's (convert S-Video+Audio --> DV for firewire)
2 long enough firewire cables
2 PC's w/firewire cards (use freeware DVIO, DV app, VDub, etc to cap)
2 ~19" PC monitors do double duty as side-by-side displays for other room (that's where the PC's would be, too)-won't need to do split screen then (roughly same size)
Start Both digitizing at ~ same time, use Time-Of-Day to reference.

Audio...
2 Crown PZM microphones (good for table use--just make sure it's padded/isolated) go into
1 Small consumer mixer (Spirit folio, etc) with outputs to each of both audio inputs of the Canopus boxes--can track level better that way

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Why do you need them combined?
You could get a video switcher box to do split screen, or you could edit that in software, but doing it before coding means you'll have less than half of the available resolution for each cam. You could always use VDub/AVIsynth to make a double-wide clip later on.

Also, you'll need quite a heavy duty PC to be able to smoothly cap/convert 2 realtime streams, especially with resizing for splitscreen.

My way is a piece of cake for most new PC's.

Scott

[Hamsternator]

That sounds easier...

2 questions:
1) Is Time of Day on two pc's reliable enough to keep picture and sound in sync?
2) What software would you recommend for capture/processing?

Thanks for the help!

[Steve Stepoway]

I guess the basic question is "what's going to happen to the video after it's recorded?" The advantage of hardware MPEG encoders over the Canopus ADVs is that they will cut your PC disk & processing requirements a lot, at a cost of (slightly) reduced visual quality. It doesn't sound as though visual quality is a big deal here. The advantage of a video switcher to do split screen is that you don't have to muck about with it afterwards. Recording 2 streams onto 2 PCs means a little bit of work afterwards to combine them. You have to decide what's most important in this problem: quality or ease-of-use? From what you've said, I suspect that ease-of-use is. You can get both, but it will cost.

[Hamsternator]

Hmmm ok... so final questions (I hope...):

Couldn't this simply be done with splitting the cables at the cameras - one set to pc (e.g. through Hauppage card) and one set to TV? What would that do to the quality of the feeds? Remember, I'm taping interviews, not high-def rainforest vistas

Then I'd splice the feeds together afterwards... oh - what software would you recommend for that?

If the feed to the TV is not via the pc, would it be possible (power-wise) to put two capture cards in one pc and grab both streams at the same time to just the one system? I dunno... to two different harddisks to lessen the load?

So yeah, to answer your question, Steve... ease-of-use is a priority...

[Hamsternator]

Just received an offer from a company to set it up for us... check this out and gimme some feedback about what you think...

2 Cameras (CCTV w. 440.000pixels), JVC TK-C 921 w. varifocals 3,5-8mm,
w. wall mount: EUR 741,00
Cables, connectors etc. EUR 134,00
Mikes (2), cable + mixer EUR 335,65
VVW-103 digital picture splitter EUR 535,69
Recorder/editing/copying-unit JVC DR-MH50 EUR 804,88
Installation, approx. EUR 805,55
Total: EUR 3356,77

Looks good to me - not the DIY solution I originally figured would have to do, but it looks like a nice setup to me for the job... throw in a EUR 2.000 plasma TV and That'll do it, I recon...
Thoughts?

Edit: Oh and remember - these are Danish prices (*sigh*), so the cost may not be comparable...

[Cornucopia]

Where's the PC's in that equation?

Actually, a better question is, what are you going to do with this material ultimately?

Setup as quoted is fine for 2 cam into VideoEffectsSwitcher into DVD recorder, but the videos are going to have to be scaled to a standard screen--either squeezed horizontally and put side-by-side, cropped horizontally and put side-by-side, heavily cropped vertically and stacked top-and-bottom, or resized down to 1/4 screen and put side-by-side with letterboxing. Any way you look at it, resolution will be less than half and you won't be able to get that back later on.

If this is for something legal or focus-group style, the over-under might work--depends on the subject matter and movement in the scene/set. Otherwise, a dual setup still sounds better.

If you want dual streams in one box, you better get confirmation from the equipment providers that what you want to do is workable/reliable and has been successfully tested that way. You don't want to kludge something together and later find that some bottleneck makes it impossible to do smoothly. (That's why my suggestion)

Scott

[Hamsternator]

Sorry ´bout the slow reply time... have been fiddeling with the setup

The whole thing ended up as a CCTV solution with no pc attached. It entered the "make it work" phase and so the pc was cut out of the equation

It will be used solely for interview settings from single to group, so the CCTV is fine with regards to quality and framerate (normal setting is 30fps).

The system is really easy to setup and use with two good mikes going through a Behringer mixer, the CCTV cams going through a splitter, the signals collected in the HD/DVD player/recorder and sent via SCART to the TV.

Crisp picture and audio and easy editing and viewing with the recorder. I´ve seen better video, but for ease of use the CCTVs rock, and it´s certainly good enough for our purposes, even split as it is.

First time I had to set it up was in a panic, ´cause we were late for the session due to traffic jams - took 10 minutes, and we + client were happy... and that´s what it´s all about...

Thanks a lot for your input, people! I learned a lot from it, and actually feel up to the job now