Need cheap, long-duration capture

T

TeamJoeDawn

Well-known member
Well, this is a do-it-yourself, as I am on a goose-egg budget.

Here is the situation. I work events, often religious ceremonies. Now, under different synagogue rules, you may video from a distance, but not TOUCH or CHANGE TAPES in your camera at any time.

Now, these events are usually in the neighborhood of 2.2-2.5 hrs long.. about an hour and a half longer than one tape can supply.

Well, any suggestions? I need it to be dependable, a "set up and forget" kind of system until I can retrieve it after the service.

My initial thought was to use my laptop (a 1.8ghz AMD, 512mb ram,40mb hd internal) and some kind of dependable capture utility that would not bog it down, and would allow capture to its HD or to an external USB HD.. power is not a problem, I have an extension cord to the site. Sound is not a problem, as I am recording to a mic, straight to Sony Minidisc... It is simply an issue to record more than an hour on the same tape.

Anybody suggest any free or shareware software apps that can dependably capture for over two hours? Preferrably breaking the vid into chunks as we go to ensure not a total loss if it crashes.. but, hey.. you guys know alot, so anyone who can help, please let me know!

Thanks in advance!!!

cheers,
Joseph
 
Hi,

Can you not use Long Play (LP) to record the event as oppose to Standard Play (SP)? You can set it to LP in your camcorder for recording. I think you can get 2 hrs dv tapes and use LP to record. That will give you 4 hours of footage. You must use main power from the wall socket or else yuor camcorder battery will run out before the service is over. Correct me if I am wrong. Anyone?
 
Final Cut Pro can definitely do this on the Mac; I'd imagine DVRack should be just what you're looking for on the PC.
 
You can Get a Bunch of Simple Free PC App's that will record from any Capture Device weather it be Analog or Firewire
 
LP is a little flaky and glitch-prone; there are no 2-hr miniDV tapes. And LP gets you only 50% more time - a 60-min DV tape will give you 90 min in LP. So for those long recordings... it's hard drive or bust for now.

If you're paranoid about backup for this... or if you can suffer the extra compression... get a DVD recorder, most of which support a 4-hour mode. Some will record from firewire; but for backup use firewire to the computer and s-video to the dvd recorder....
 
You coudl also use an external larger format deck.

A DSR-11 with a 3hour DVCAM tape will run you 4.5hours in DV mode. - or something like 7 in LP :eek: (But don't use LP, it sucks)

- Mikko
 
The DVX will record to multiple cameras. Put another camera (doesn't have to be a DVX as far as I know) there connected via firewire and set to pick up where the DVX left off.

It's in the manual, called "backup recording".

Note: I've never tried it. I'd certainly advise trying it out before the actual shoot... :)
 
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Just brainstorming here. Can you use a DV cam and connect that to a DVD recorder that has a hard drive? I see alot being sold these days. They are DVD desktop set with recording ability. It record to a hard drive and then to a DVD disk. Since the camcorder doesn't need to be disturb, you can set this up and let it reord till the end of the service. Probably a cheap option as the DVD recorder set top is roughly around USD500. Or worse comes to worse, use a VCR to record by connecting the DV cam to the VCR. I know the quality of the picture will degrade and probably sucks.
 
Alex.Flory said:
[...] use a VCR to record by connecting the DV cam to the VCR. I know the quality of the picture will degrade and probably sucks.
Click to expand...
That all depends on the VCR. If you use a DV VCR connected with FireWire, you will get the exact same quality as you would recording in camera. See my post about the DSR-11 above.

- Mikko
 
Alex has a good suggestion. We have a panasonic that cost ~$400 that has a hard drive and a DVD burner. you can record something like 24hrs on the hard drive in SP mode.
 
How about something like this, or the firestore?

http://www.mcetech.com/quickstreamdv/index.html


Are the HDs something special? Is it possible to buy the cheapest one, and replace the HD with a larger one? They must use laptop HDs or something similar..

What about that thing that I had read about, which would allow you to record directly to any USB HD <<the catapult, different thread, not ready till end of 2006, but under $300>>.. is there such a thing as a battery powered external USB HD? <<tons, I found them online.. but most don't work past an hour or two, direct access... maybe a battery pack?>>

Thanks! Im learning lots..

J
 
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Quickstreams seem pretty flaky; I certainly wouldn't use one for anything critical. Firestores in general seem to work well... but the FS-4s are limited in size (drives not replaceable). If you can find it, an FS-1 might be ideal for you - you use external FW HDs with it, and can even daisy-chain 'em! At least a few months ago, there were a lot of good deals...
 
ullanta said:
there are no 2-hr miniDV tapes.
Click to expand...

Actually there are. The problem, I've heard, is that the tape tends to stretch and give you a lot of digital artifacts. So it's not really advisable to use it in any case even if it does exist.
 
umm....No, there are not 2-hour miniDV tapes. You can record two hours on a full size DV tape with no problem, but if you're talking miniDV the longest you can get on a single tape is 80 minutes, which will stretch to 120 minutes if you record on LP. But in terms of SP recording, you can't fit 120 minutes onto a standard miniDV tape.
 
I have downloaded WinDV, a free app from Europe.. and will try some dependability tests out with my laptop. Will use an external USB (around 100gb) and see how long I can consistantly capture.

Being poor sucks..

J
 
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