[Steve Brame]

There may be disagreement, but for our experience, if you have a relatively powerful system(whatever THAT means), native media should be fine. Any performance gained by transcoding to an ‘edit-friendly format’ would probably be offset by the time required to do this, plus, as you mentioned, the huge amount of disc space required.

I recently had some strangely sudden performance issues(stuttering timeline, frozen video w/audio, etc.) with AVCHD media, and just for kicks, I transcoded into both Cineform and DNxHD. The performance issues remained. After I, or rather Red Giant, resolved the problem, I tried the same clips again to see if there was any noticeable gain in performance between the native media, and the mezzanines – not a bit – and my system is perhaps no longer what you might consider a “relatively powerful system”.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

[Ispaxan Nixteridakis] “Lets say the A/V system is in the next room and i leave the Zoom recorder over there feeding from their system. If something goes wrong we won’t be able to see/know.”

If the ‘something going wrong’ is with the house audio system, it wont matter how you are connected to it – via a Zoom on the table, or directly to your camera. You’ll still be recording whatever problems are happening. Personally, in nearly 30 years I’ve never seen a mixer set up in another room from the presentation. Can’t even begin to imagine why that would happen, but strange things do happen. If that were the case, no way I’d depend on the ‘Zoom on the mixer table scenario’.

[Ispaxan Nixteridakis] “leaving the recorder on the podium and the battery/card runs out how would you know”

Well, I start out with fresh new batteries for every job. It’s cheap insurance. With new batteries, the Zoom H6 is rated at 20+ hours. My 8GB card will go for 12 hours at 48K WAV. So those two scenarios are unlikely. If I’m recording a straight 12 hour presentation( I wish!), there will be many, many breaks to let me check on things – changing cards and/or batteries if warranted.

Suffice to say, be paranoid and have a backup audio capture. In my scenario presented, I have two.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

IF the presenter(s) are already mic’ed by someone else, be it in-house A/V or sub-contractor, we will always try to get a feed off of their system, especially if the mics are wireless. If we can run the audio to one of our cameras, fine – that will ease post, eliminating or lessening the need to sync audio to video. But if the cable runs aren’t feasible, we’ll place a Zoom H6 somewhere on or close to the audio table and hook in there. We just start recording with it, adjust levels, making sure that limiting is set up, and let it run. I’ll also try to point the H6’s mic toward the speaker as a backup in case the house audio has any problems. We’ve been using the Y-Y mic, and I really like the audio from that mic, but I’m about to buy the shotgun mic capsule. I’ll also use a shotgun mic on our main camera and turn up it’s input level so I get a really good waveform that aids in syncing with the other audio in post – plus, if all the other audio fails you can use that audio as your main. We also always have at least one camera, usually our DSLR, to get audience shots to cover cuts. We’re very paranoid when it comes to audio. Bad video can be covered with b-roll, but lack of audio = disaster.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

Ah…well, you didn’t mention that you had a second camera!

We also use a Zoom H6 to capture audio as a backup or if the cable run from the mic or mixer is prohibitive.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
——————————————-
“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

Equipment-wise, I agree with Mad’s about Telestream’s Wirecast. We use it to produce exactly what you are describing, and we do it all with a single laptop. It will handle everything you need easily. There is a bit of a learning curve though, but probably a lot less than other solutions short of a Tricaster, and it costs MUCH less – thousands less!

Another solution might be VidBlaster, which is similar to Wirecast and the Tricaster’s software, but doesn’t mix audio – that must be handled with a seperate audio mixer. Wirecast and Tricaster have native audio mixing and routing built-in.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

[Ispaxan Nixteridakis] “besides the 30 minutes rec limitations.”

Wow! This is the main reason that we don’t record such shoots with our DSLR! For me it’s enough of a reason.

But another would be audio. With a proper video camera, your audio is already synced with the video, unless of course you have an add-on device that can input external audio into the DSLR.

[Ispaxan Nixteridakis] ” Is this going to look more professional on an EX1 or not?”

Depends on what you or you client considers ‘professional’ to be. When digital video was just emerging we had to deal with the hooplah that our newly purchased DVCPro cameras weren’t as good as our BetaSP cameras. Then we got an Canon XL1, then a Panasonic DVX100, and so on.

Personally, I’d love to be able to use a DSLR for that sort of shooting – the picture looks so much ‘prettier’ than our HMC100’s – especially in the realm of depth of field and such. Not sure if ‘prettier’ equals ‘more professional’ though. However, even with Magic Lantern’s firmware installed, with it’s auto restart feature that starts recording again after the camera reaches it’s limit, there’s still a very perceptible gap there in between clips. Easily handled if your audio is being recorded separately, but then again you’ve added the audio/video sync task.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

Hmmmm…guess Corel never built in Avid codec support.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

Is the original media still on the Avid system? And it might be a dumb question, but are you authoring the DVD’s on that same system?

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

Any program should accept QT reference files as long as you have the Avid Codecs installed. To the DVD program they should look like ordinary QT files.

Before we abandoned Avid and went with Adobe, I authored DVD’s with DVDLab. For simple DVD’s with a menu, it’s a bargain.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
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“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions

[Steve Brame]

[David Parker] “First of all do you know what Lt/Rt is?”

Nope, but apparently they do since they’re asking for it.

[David Parker] “If you want to spacialize your music into quad surround…”

I don’t necessarily, but apparently they do, since they’re asking for it.

[David Parker] “Just give them a Stereo mix”

I certainly can do this, and then they will more than likely conform to their desired specs, and then they will charge my client for that, which I feel certain that my client will pass on to me. But I’m trying to ascertain that now.

Asus P6X58D Premium * Core i7 950 * 24GB RAM * nVidia GeForce GTX 770 * Windows 7 Premium 64bit * System Drive – WD Caviar Black 500GB * 2nd Drive(Pagefile, Previews) – WD Velociraptor 10K drive 600GB * Media Drive – 2TB RAID0 (4 – WD Caviar Black 500GB drive) * Matrox MX02 Mini * Adobe CC * QuickTime 7.7.5
——————————————-
“98% of all computer issues can be solved by simply pressing ‘F1’.”
Steve Brame
creative illusions Productions