capturing multiple sources real-time

[snek_one]

a couple of friends and i started a company a little while ago, and we are now in need of recording from multiple DV camera's straight to a computer.. preferably in a format which can be used later on, on cd or dvd..

our problem is we want to be able to author the cd/dvd as fast as possible.. if everything would be possible within an HOUR it would be great!

here comes our dilema, is it possible to record & encode to MPEG1/2 from lets say 4 camera's to ONE computer in REALTIME?

it would be even better if we get two versions of each recording:
- a lossless version for backup
- an encoded version which can be authored right away

the lossless version could be stored on a seperate computer i guess, this would probably be necessary..

another question: does anybody know of WIRELESS camera systems? you don't want to be carrying a KM of cable with you ;)

lets just say money is not an issue at this time,
budget goes somewhere up to 10,000 euro's..
so professional broadcasting hardware is an option!

[hendrix]

wow..four streams at the same time is very taxing for a computer...first of all you'll need a SCSI RAID (RAID 5) dual or even a quad processor computer to handle the load - it may be more trouble than it's worth, me personally i would setup a network and build a render farm - each computer can capture separately.

as for mpeg2 - why not just first capture to DV (archive) then you can use CCE to encode to mpeg2 - it's faster than realtime. you can always get the CCE Pro, it comes with a hardware card so you can capture directly to mpeg2 (but you'll have to capture the footage again to a DV stream for archive purposes)

well DV is lossy (4:1:1), but you can always export to an uncompressed .avi or .mov (4:2:2) then use that version for further tweeking (color correction or whatnot)

what formats are you going to accept, DVCAM, DVCPro, HD, DigiBeta - for a business i would get an Avid Adrenaline - it handles all formats, i use it at work and love it, if you're only going to be working with DV then Avid Xpress Pro is fine

what about audio mixing? i personally use Vegas 5 and Pro Tools - these are excellent DAW solutions, Vegas is great for it's price

what about broadcast monitors...me personally i would get any monitor that gives you blue only so you know that they're calibrated since they tend to drift as time goes by

don't go wireless, even with mics, you can run into interference, there's nothing wrong with wires

[snek_one]

well so far this project has been put on a low,
the biggest concern right now is finnishing the backend
to store all the video, and we'll be looking into some
camera's first... the capturing part will be the last thing
i guess, especially since we're gonna need some mega bucks
to order a pc which can handle it...

it might be an option to get 2 seperate pc's and capture
2 streams realtime on each.. we're gonna have to do some
stress testing on some machines i currently maintain..

[stephanV]

if you have 10,000 euros, why not buy 4 computers?

[eb]

May be I am OT but small cheap example only.
My computer Athlon2200+ (at2000MHz),hard discs 60GB-5400, 120GB-5400,
SS2 DVB card /less than 100$/.
There is no problem to record 4 complete sattv packages (video+audios+subtitles+TTX)in each simultaniously, or complete data from transponder together with HDTV channel, all this can be recorded as .ts stream at processor power below 20%.
Conclusion: think and spend money for good multiplexer/compressor system (but again it could be computer).

eb