Encoding video live via firewire?

thomstitt

thomstitt

Member
We need to record a 3-hour show, and it's likely we may need to do it without breaks or cuts. The final format is going to be a non-HD web video. We've got an HVX200 and a DVX100, either one will work for this.

So basically what we want to do is plug in the firewire and record directly to a laptop's hard drive. We DON'T want to record uncompressed and then run it through web compression later though... At 3 hours, it'd be pushing us past our disk limits. We'd like to do it all live as we record.

However, what we do NOT need is a live webcast. We just want to end up with an MPEG2, or a MOV, or a WMV, or really anything that can be played cross-platform, and a small file size without having to compress after the fact. We'll be posting it on a website after the thing is done.

Any advice? I appreciate it in advance!
 
You can look into Graphedit. It's a program from the Microsoft SDK that let's you hook up a video stream and convert it to pretty much any codec you have installed on your computer. I use it all the time to capture directly to a M2V and AC3 file (which is compatible with DVD Studio Pro).
 
Blackmagic Design announced a new product called Video Recorder that might be exactly what you need. There are two versions one analogue and the other SDI. They both allow you to capture direct to a bunch of different file formats.
 
on the windows side. Windows media encoder is AWESOME and works really well at exactly what you are trying to do. IT"S ALSO FREE!!! Will allow dual bitrate and you can do it as an archival file or if you ever need to as a webcast.. and that is what I do mostly. Works well and should be able to get the 3 hours down to fit on a DVD for sure or maybe even a CD depending upon the bitrate...


if you are on the Mac.. then Quicktime works very well at that.. I would encourage you to stop and save intermittantly though on that.. cheers
 
David S. said:
Why are there so many answers without knowing what platform the OP is using?
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/agree. Time is money.

Oh wait, now I've too replied. Damn you.

I'd recommend a 1TB or 750MB external enclosure rather than the internal. I assume your camera is in a fixed location. Drives are cheap. Oh yeah and what platform??
 
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about Windows Media Encoder. I would definitely use that for the Windows side.
If you are on a Mac, there is Quicktime Broadcaster that lets you encode to any format you want. It is also pretty nifty because it shows you the CPU load. (Though, I don't know how great the quality is.)
 
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OK.

Neither the Windows Media Encoder or the QT Broadcaster will record DVCProHD footage via firewire, which is what the OP asked.
 
Crap, man you guys are fast. Sorry, I've been busy lately and I'm not used to posting here. I finally have a day off so I'm back to hunting down a way to do this.

To clear up: we'll be on a Macbook Pro! Phew... Jesus, how did I forget to mention that little tidbit??

Also, we're not really gunning for super high quality here. We want to end up with a quick stream on a dinky website, and at 2.5 to 3 hours per show, that's probably not going to be much of a looker.

Unfortunately I don't have the gear with me to test anything out - I'm going to try and wrangle it up today and try quicktime. I noticed it had a tab under "Preferences" for video recording, with a handicam icon.

There isn't much there in terms of customization, but it allows you to choose MPEG-4 or H264 at "good", "better" or "best". All sizes are 640x480 and have a note saying "good for email and web sharing". So I was going to take a crack at that and see what came out, though I'd prefer to have a bit more control. Anybody have any experience there?

I'm looking at Quicktime Broadcaster on the Apple site. It sounds pretty solid, but I DON'T intend to do a live webcast, just to do a live encode. I'm assuming/hoping that Broadcaster at least has that option, to record to a hard format with which I can do whatever I please.

Anyway, I really appreciate your help guys, and for putting up with my lack of details.
I'll keep you posted with my results, for posterity's sake. (There's NOTHING worse than finding a thread that shares your problem, and the poster ends the thread by saying 'nevermind, i figured it out.")
 
Okay I'm testing Quicktime Broadcaster right now. The problem I'm running into is that it won't give me the option to NOT broadcast. I'm not interested in broadcasting. I JUST want to record the video straight to hard drive, and compress it in real time.

Anyone know if it's possible with this software?
 
So I couldn't get it to work on the day. Had all the settings set up, set it to record to desktop, but whenever I hit the broadcast button, it would give me an error message about network settings. We weren't connected online, or we were on some free local wireless network, but as I don't want to bother webcasting, I didn't fill anything in. I tried screwing a bit with the network settings in Broadcaster, but couldn't find ANYWHERE an option to NOT broadcast and go just to HDD. I made sure the "record to hard drive" box was checked as well.

We ended up using plain old Quicktime player to do it, using it's movie record function. It got the job done, but you really have very little customization options in Quicktime player.

Anyone know exactly how I disable webcasting in order to get Broadcaster to record just to hard drive?

As a by-the-way, I realize now this really doesn't belong in the HVX forum. Oopsies?
 
Hopefully you should be able to set it up as an archival record... that's what I do on windows media encoder which has worked flawlessly for 2 years. I'm a diehard mac guy, and even do the work on my macbook running windows.... but they got that windows media encoder right and it's so stable. If you got the MBP, you might want to give that a try and you can get the beta version and do some high res live encoding and you can even do a multi-res version...

I've found the quicktime version to be highly lacking and not very user friendly and that's discouraging.. Plus for webcasting, you can get a windows media server for really cheap and most corporate clients like the format over quicktime....


I personally though think that if you are going to keep it in quicktime, why not record it full res.. or maybe even DV and then just let compressor run overnight to do the conversions so you'll have a lot more control and if you need to, you can go back to the other format for post.


cheeeers
 
I personally though think that if you are going to keep it in quicktime, why not record it full res.. or maybe even DV and then just let compressor run overnight to do the conversions so you'll have a lot more control and if you need to, you can go back to the other format for post.
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I'd prefer to do it that way myself, as we could keep solid archives of our footage for future use, but the problem is storage. We shoot 2 to 3 hours every week, no vacation. Uncompressed, we're looking at around 24GB PER SHOW... And even if we weren't archiving, I don't think we have access to 24GB on our laptop (someone's probably got an external drive sitting around somewhere).

Also, the footage, whether in Windows Media or Quicktime, will eventually be run through Flash Encoder and put online as a flash video.

Unfortunately we're not on a macbook pro, just a plain old macbook. We've just taken over this job from some other guys who used a PC laptop and windows media encoder. We don't have access to that, so we're trying to figure out another solution. I agree with you, so far Quicktime's options have not been impressing me.
 
Thom.. .I use a macbook as well.. but it's worked really well. I don't think you need to go uncompressed, to get good quality. I would say that you could pick up some great external drives these days for cheap. I got a 750 gig firewire drive for 180 bucks. That should cover quite a few weeks and then just archive that and move on. Drives aren't that expensive anymore and then you'll have that piece of mind to know that you kept it all in a higher quality format... If you also don't mind the tedium, you could back up your shows to DVD.. get an intern to do it.

cheers
 
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