Live Video on Pro Presenter

[Esoteric]

Hey guys, I have a client with a Sony HDR-FX1 and a 27" iMAC. They would like to feed video from the camera into Pro Presenter on the iMAC. I have everything down, but can't figure out for the life of me how/if I can get that video signal into the iMAC.

Mike

[petereit]

Sorry, I don't think you're going to be able to pull off live video on an iMac. I tried to get it to work with a BlackMagic card on a Mac Pro, but I never could get it working (The ProPresenter guys were willing to help work it out -- I just didn't have the time.)

[Esoteric]

I didn't think so. But sometimes there are things I miss on MACs.

Mike

[sempei13]

Wait! That camera has firewire. Try firewire in. It should let you select it like the iSight.

Paul

[[Admin] osborn4]

But won't there be lag if you use firewire?

[EricE]

Originally Posted by osborn4

But won't there be lag if you use firewire?

Sure, but will it be noticeable? Depends on your setup. Works fine in our environment in a pinch, but everyone's setup is slightly different (and on a Mac Mini to boot!)

[RV Support]

Pro4's live video feature will work over FireWire for **DV** sources. If you set the FX1 to output DV (it can still record HDV), you'll be able to select it as a live video source in Preferences > Live and trigger it from the Live button in the Toolbar. Average latency will be about 6~7 frames.

Remember that the live video appears below the backgrounds layer, so if you don't see it, hit the Clear BKGs button. You can also access this or any other live video source by adding a live video object to a prop or slide for a picture-in-picture effect.

[petereit]

Also keep in mind that FireWire video is not "live" per se, since there can be as much as a 2 second delay from the in-camera video data compression.

[Esoteric]

Thanks guys. I had forgotten about Firewire. I will see if they can live with the latency.

[dilbert3000]

I have used the live video feature of Propresenter from a Canon GL2 over firewire into a Mac Mini. The video looked good but noticeably delayed against the audio. The delay maybe more pronounced because the feed goes through an Extron switcher before finally reaching the Christie projection system. I was able to bring the same firewire feed into a Mac Pro with a slightly better results.

I was able to bring Canon GL2 or Vaddio HD-18 composite video into a BlackMagic Intensity Pro card installed in a Mac Pro. The live video feature would broadcast video if video input was connected composite and the Intensity Pro setup as composite. (I have been unable to get Propresenter to broadcast live video from the Intensity if not set as composite.) Media Express will recognize and capture the Vaddio HD component video, but Propresenter will yield a black screen.

I could not get the Intensity Pro and Propresenter to work together on a Windows 7 PC. Initially, I could not get the Canon GL2 firewire connection to work on Propresenter either. After trying a number of different codecs etc., I was able to get Propresenter and other Window capture programs to recognize the Canon firewire connection for live video through a program called ManyCam.

Recently, I installed Pinnacle Studio 14 bundled with a USB capture device. Now, I can capture live video on the Windows 7 PC from the Canon firewire without ManyCam.

One final note, we noticed a marked difference between the Propresenter video output of iMac and Mac Mini systems, when compared screen by screen to the video output of a Mac Pro.