OT: SVP to capture uncompressed HDMI

[John Rofrano]

[Norman Willis] “Is there an affordable HDMI capture card that plays nice with SVP11 that is not named, “Black Magic”?”

The AJA Io Express, KONA 3x, LH, LHe, LHi, LS, or LSe SDI cards and all compatible with Vegas Pro. Whether or not they are affordable depends on your budget. You can always try and get a used one on eBay if they are not.

These cards from Blackmagic Design (HD Extreme, Intensity Pro, or HD Extreme 3D SDI) are more affordable and also support Vegas Pro.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Willis]

Thanks, John.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

Do you suppose a Core2Quad at 3.0Ghz and 8GB RAM is enough processor to capture that uncompressed stream, if one had three HDD’s in RAID 0? (Actually six HDD’s in RAID 0+1)?

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[John Rofrano]

[Norman Willis] “Do you suppose a Core2Quad at 3.0Ghz and 8GB RAM is enough processor to capture that uncompressed stream, if one had three HDD’s in RAID 0? (Actually six HDD’s in RAID 0+1)?”

I’ve never worked with uncompressed video but I don’t think that CPU power is going to be the gating factor. Disk I/O probably is. I’ve read from card manufactrer’s web sites that they recommend at least 5 disks in a RAID 0 for working with uncompressed. I don’t know how strict that is.

You should be aware that a RAID 0+1 is not as fast as a RAID 0. In other words your 3 RAID 1’s in a RAID 0 does not equal three separate drives in a RAID 0 because the RAID 1’s are slower than separate drives. So 6 HDD in RAID 0+1 does not equal 3 HDD in a RAID 0 in performance.

Also don’t forget about playback. You are worried about capture but if you plan to use more than one video file at a time your disk drives will need to serve up multiple streams of uncompressed. This is probably why the 5 drives in a RAID 0 specification (to allows for multi-stream playback) I would check with the manufacturer of the card that you buy for what they recommend.

I’m curious as you why you feel you need to capture uncompressed. Are you having problems with compression artifacts in your current workflow?

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Willis]

>> I’m curious as you why you feel you need to capture uncompressed. Are you having problems with compression artifacts in your current workflow?

John, thanks for asking. I could really use some advice/help. I have one volunteer editor, and I can generate video a lot faster than he can edit, so I am looking for ways to dramatically decrease editing time in post, hopefully using equipment on hand (budget constraints). I thought perhaps I could feed both the camera HDMI out and my laptop HDMI out (which feeds the teleprompter) to an HDMI capable switch, and toggle back and forth between those two streams as I film (using either a hand or a foot toggle). That way, when I want the viewer to see what is on the prepared PowerPoint slide, I toggle one way–and when I want him to look at me, I toggle the other way. Then in post all I have to do is apply the intro, outdo, and lower third, render, and I am done. It would be a bit like playing in a one man band, but then my editor can focus on other projects (which is where I really need him).

My existing case will hold six HDD’s. I would need a different RAID card ($200 on EBay), but then I could set up six HDD’s in RAID 0. Then whatever the AJA card costs on EBay, and I could use my existing camera, and also have a beautiful picture. Or is there a better way?

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

I called B&H. They were very helpful. They said there would likely be a “jump” when switching HDMI input streams unless I went with a mixer (Edirol/Roland). So basically $3-4k in gear would be about the cheapest (and even that is mixing consumer and pro gear). So I can pray in that direction.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[John Rofrano]

I’ve never done live switching so I can’t help you there. It sounds like it should work with the proper mixing equipment. I know when switching between two cameras, if they are not genlocked together with an external world clock source you do get glitches when switching sources because they’re not running off of the same clock sync pulse. I would listen to the guys at B&H. They are very knowledgeable.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Brad Leigh]

I am by no means an expert in this area.
I would expect to possible problems.
1) glitch on the signal when switching between sources as the hdmi resyncs.
2) when you go to power point I would expect you would loose camera audio unless you switcher can handle that.
My first thought would be this.
the HF s-10 records to memory card, just drag that file to a hard drive that has Vegas. Then I would look into Computer screen capture software or power point to movie conversion software.
Drag that file to your Vegas hard drive.
Put the camera with audio on the top track, the powerpoint movie on the lower track. and just pull the power point bits you need up over the first track.
I couldn’t see this taking more than a few minutes to do on even a complex project. It saves a lot of hassles, and expense, and you get to have continuous audio from your camera.
Just my 2 cents
Brad

i7 2600 3.4 Ghz 8Gig Ram , Win 7 Pro, Vegas Pro 12

[Norman Willis]

That makes sense. Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org