HD Video Capture

[matt326]

We are currently in the process of upgrading our switcher to the new Panasonic AG-HMX100 (we already have 3 HPX-170's). So we would be running HD-SDI right to the switcher. We currently use sermon.net to stream our services with an old ati capture card, but what I am wondering is what are people using right now to record HD? I currently have a imac and a mac mini available to use, so getting an actual card is not really an option. Any thoughts?

[zactommo]

Because of the speed limitations of firewire, or USB, your limited to capturing in a compressed codec, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but just a limitation.

So this is the first (and possibly only) product that comes to mind for your needs:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/pro...der/techspecs/

[petereit]

The problem with capturing directly to H.264 is that it's a delivery codec -- not an editing codec. Perfectly fine (preferred actually) if you plan to go straight from capture to upload, but if you're planning on doing any post-capture editing of the video, H.264 can be a rather daunting format to work with. The compression works against you since your editing software has to traverse backwards through dozens of frames in order to gather enough information to "reconstruct" the current frame.

If you're planning on editing, you'll want to look for an external device that can capture to Apple ProRes. I would recommend the Matrox MXO2 mini, WITH the Matrox MAX technology for faster-than-realtime H.264 encoding. I think it gives the best of both worlds: it can capture HD video straight to Apple ProRes code for editing, then gives you a HUGE boost in H.264 encoding speed of your final product for web delivery. Believe me -- it's the time it takes for H.264 encoding that will have you pulling your hair out when it comes to web-delivery of HD content.

I would also suggest using Vimeo to host your video. Pay the $60/year for the Vimeo+ service. Hands-down it's the BEST $60 we spend in our media budget. They now have a 5GB file size limit, which is more than enough for an high-quality H.264 encoded HD video program. Until a couple of weeks ago, they had a 2GB individual file size limit, which for us was just slightly too small for full HD, so we have been scaling down to what is referred to as Widescreen-DV, or 853x480. Even scaled down I think the results are great!

And one last suggestion for shooting HD video: make sure you have PLENTY OF LIGHT!! If you visit that link above, you'll notice a lot of our footage looks a bit dark. Upgrading our lighting is definitely on our high-priority list. The main reason is that our volunteer camera operators constantly struggle to maintain a sharp focus, because the low lighting forces us to keep a wide aperture which in turn causes a shallow depth of field. With increased lighting, we can close down the aperture, greatly extend the depth of field, give our ops a break and produce a higher quality product.

[zactommo]

Agreed that the matrox is a good product, but given that it doesn't work with the computers specified by the OP, or have the i/o to work with their switcher, its probably not the best idea.

Petereit is right though, editing h.264 is not ideal, so I did some searching on the interwebs, and there are in-fact a few products that I hadn't heard of that will converter your HD-SDI signal to HDV over firewire to allow for capturing on the computers you specified above.
http://www.motu.com/video-products/v4hd/body.html
http://www.aja.com/products/io/io-hd.php
http://www.rolandsystemsgroup.com/products/100015

The roland is the cheapest out of the 3, and the other two possibly contain a lot more features that you require, but its probably best to show you the range of options.

Hope that helps!

[petereit]

Wow! Color me surprised. I was under the impression that it was specifically because of the iMacs/Mac Minis lack of PCI card slots that they created the MXO2. Guess I need to dig a bit deeper into the specs.

Thanks for clearing that up!

[matt326]

I had looked at the blackmagic h.264 pro before but my question would be, would it work with Flash Media Live Encoder? That is what we are currently using. Or am I better off still using SD composite for our web streaming and then using the blackmagic encoder for future download?

[petereit]

Oh, yes! Definitely! For live streaming, SD is the way to go. We shoot ALL our video in HD, but if we started live-streaming, I'd pull downconverted SD off my BlackMagic card and stream that.

[zactommo]

I believe both the Motu & Aja units mentioned above do HD down conversion in the unit, so you could hook them up to one of your macs for capturing, and then feed the the composite output of the unit into your current streaming setup, to avoid purchasing another converter.