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[Christy L Manoppo (okky)]

Hi guys, my church is planning to buy a comprehensive video editing hardware's. A good setup, for non-linear video editing suites.

My question is, what do we need? As I want to make sure that we are spending $$$$ in the right direction.

What I have been thinking is,

- A computer with an ample amount of processing power (cpu, RAM and HDD speed).
- A video interface box/card. (MOTU, Grass Valley, or Matrox)
- A DV/HDV external recorder and player (Datavideo DN-300)
- and of course, video editing software.

We might go to a PC based system, because most of us all are too familiar with a PC systems.

If we must go to a Mac based system, please tell us why.

Some of the goals are:
1. To save up some time (no more waiting to capture from the tapes).
2. Content will be shown mainly in the videostreams over internet.

Thanks guys... and GBU

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Christy L  Manoppo (okky) wrote on Thu, 21 January 2010 05:57

Hi guys, my church is planning to buy a comprehensive video editing hardware's. A good setup, for non-linear video editing suites.

What do you actually want to do?

I get the feeling that you want to capture and/or edit video that has been captured on media like tapes or DVDs. But, I'm just guessing.

I think you might be amazed what can be done with a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements ($80) and a good modern PC from the local office supply store.

I've done and I've seen done many very useful videos on that much hardware and software, or less.

But, again depending on what you want to do, the above could be like trying to canoe across the Atlantic.

[Christy L Manoppo (okky)]

well, I'm trying to cut the time when we are doing the post production work.

Main media will be mini-DV.

or, do you have any other ideas?

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Christy L  Manoppo (okky) wrote on Sat, 23 January 2010 00:03

well, I'm trying to cut the time when we are doing the post production work. Main media will be mini-DV.

Been there done that many times. Mini DV is pretty easy to capture on a computer. The key is using Firewire.

If your computer doesn't have a firewire port, the add-on cards are about $20-30 (even in office supply stores) and don't require manual driver installation if you're running XP, Vista or Win7.  

The mini FW plug goes into a jack on most mini DV cameras and you play the tape back to capture it on the computer. Downside is that this has to happen in real time.

Once you capture the video, you can work it over with the Windows Movie Maker which is on most XP, Vista or Win7 computers, or some good inexpensive software like Adobe Premiere Elements (about $80).

Elements uses DV files as its core technology, minimizing conversions from mini-DV at file load time, which is a plus.

I personally prefer to capture with a stand-alone DVD recorder, to avoid actually handling DV tapes. You can load DVDs in a fraction of real time.

[Christy L Manoppo (okky)]

Of course we must utilize firewire to capture mini-DV's my brother  
And again, the workflow that you wrote is the same like I did.

The only thing is, if the video footage is 2 hours, then we must capture for almost the same like the video footage.

Also, what did those expensive capture cards do? Like the ones from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox and Grass Valley.
The cost upwards to $$$$$.

-link-

Will they decrease post production time? Like, transcoding, encoding, decoding...

Thanks guys, as I'm completely blind in this area...

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Christy L  Manoppo (okky) wrote on Thu, 28 January 2010 05:03

Of course we must utilize firewire to capture mini-DV's my brother   And again, the workflow that you wrote is the same like I did. The only thing is, if the video footage is 2 hours, then we must capture for almost the same like the video footage.

That's one of the downsides of Mini-DV, you have to transfer the video from the camera to the editing station at real time speed.

That plus the lack of frequent reusability of DV tape is what pushed me into using a DVD recorder wherever possible. DVD-R and DVD-RW media is dirt cheap. With care in handling, DVD-RW media can be reused dozens of times. We just burn DVD-Rs and put them into our archives after transferring them to our editing station.

Also, our video operator does some mixing in real time during the service. The DVD recorder is on the output of the mixer, using the same video we feed to the nursery, the green room, the family room, etc. She mixes between a live video camera and rescaled video from the 2 computers we use during the service to do video presentations for songs, announcements, and other videos.  The audio comes from the main mixing board.

Quote:

Also, what did those expensive capture cards do? Like the ones from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox and Grass Valley. The cost upwards to $$$$$.

Our normal production involves zero capture cards. The function of the capture card is performed by the mixer and the DVD recorder.

I searched around and found an inexpensive capture card that has its own sound encoder so that the sound stays in synch over a period of hours. It is made by Diamond multimedia, and may still be available for under $150. I only use it to digitize VHS tapes and the like.

Quote:

-link- Will they decrease post production time? Like, transcoding, encoding, decoding...

You need a different kind of card to speed up post, and AFAIK most people don't go there.

A modern commodity quad core PC that you get from say Dell for under $1K will transcode video at the rate of several times faster than real time if your editing software supports multiple CPU cores, and Adobe Premiere Elements and regular Premiere do.

CPU speed helps 3 ways - it makes loading faster, editing smoother, and it speeds the transcode process at the end of job when you prepare the new media.

Loading and media preparation are the big time sinks - they are usually something you start and go get a cup of coffee, especially if you are working with 2 hour files.

I work with 80 minute files and I figure maybe 15-20 minutes to load, and another 20-30 to burn a finished DVD.

If I'm just pulling the sound out of the video, I can speed the process up quite a bit by using other software that ignores the video.

[Christy L Manoppo (okky)]

Quote:

Also, our video operator does some mixing in real time during the service. The DVD recorder is on the output of the mixer, using the same video we feed to the nursery, the green room, the family room, etc. She mixes between a live video camera and rescaled video from the 2 computers we use during the service to do video presentations for songs, announcements, and other videos. The audio comes from the main mixing board.

OK... well, what you did in your church is really the same thing like us here.

So, what did those expensive capture cards do? what are their primary function?  

sorry, as I am still puzzled.

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Christy L  Manoppo (okky) wrote on Sat, 30 January 2010 03:47

Quote: Also, our video operator does some mixing in real time during the service. The DVD recorder is on the output of the mixer, using the same video we feed to the nursery, the green room, the family room, etc. She mixes between a live video camera and rescaled video from the 2 computers we use during the service to do video presentations for songs, announcements, and other videos. The audio comes from the main mixing board. OK... well, what you did in your church is really the same thing like us here. So, what did those expensive capture cards do? what are their primary function?   sorry, as I am still puzzled.

The simple answer is that we don't have any video capture cards in our sunday morning worship technology, expensive or otherwise. We do both our audio and video capture with stand-alone optical disc recorders.

[Tim Urner]

Okky,

The video capture card "digitizes" the video signal so it can be saved as a data file on a computer. When you are hooking up your Mini DV camera via firewire the camera is the "capture device"

One of our customers uses the MOTU V4HD to capture HD video direct from their switcher to an iMac (Final Cut) The MOTU is a little overkill for simple capture but it is an upconvert box and a down convert box for almost any video media you can think of.

http://www.motu.com/video-products/v4hd/

Tim
PS how are your new monitors?

[Christy L Manoppo (okky)]

Thx Tim.

One of our problems is the quality of the recorded video we are having. I think, some part of it is because of the amateur grade switcher we have using (sima sfx-9). And also because the quality degradation of using Live Video feed from the easyworship software).  
Also, because we record directly to DVD, and after that, the same DVD got some post-production work. So, more decoding and transcoding, so the final video quality suffers.

I've trying to figure out how to improve flow, time and quality, but I also discovered that, to achieve that... it's not cheap.

For the new monitors... they are fabolous! Thanks steeplesound!

[ProSoundWeb Community]