Unattended, scheduled 24/7 capture in HD

[hdezela]

We currently have a manual capture system using a mixture of cards and systems for video capture that goes into two workflows, Final Cut for editing and rendering; automated ffmpeg for direct publishing to the web. These two separate systems have to be combined and everyone is looking at me.

I have a medium sized budget for this and am planning to use Decklink Quads which we already have for this system. What I'm looking for that I can't seem to find (outside of high-end stuff like Avid) is some ingest scheduling software that will allow me to set and forget the video capture system. Storage isn't an issue, we have a NAS with 400TB available for this.

I've looked at Aurora Ingest from Grass Valley but have no idea if I can just use that or if I need to convert my workflow to the whole Aurora Suite. Something which is looking promising is Metus Ingest, but I can't find any information other than what is on their website. Anyone have any experience with these two solutions (or others...) that could give me a bit more info as to how they work.

Our need is basically something that takes in video from the Black Magic Decklinks and captures it in DVC 1080p or high-bitrate MPEG2 (or even full frame h.264) and dumps it out to our NAS for editing with a varied workflow. The system needs to work 24/7 and have some kind of metadata available so that we can input a programming schedule and read out the captured video based on that schedule.

[Cornucopia]

You should try talking to reps from GV and Metus Ingest. Explain your setup and ask if/how their solution will fit into YOUR workflow (not the other way around). If they can't give you clear, step-by-step instructions & examples, don't use them.

Don't totally rule out the AVIDs, either. They (or an authorized integrator/distributor) will often work with you, and maybe it's not as high $ as you think (though most of those would expect MC as the preferred edit system).

I'd also look at Sony, Panasonic & JVC "broadcast" divisions. Nothing comes to mind immediately, but you never know until you check them out...

Scott