Video Capture for TV

[samchuck]

Hello Everyone,
I am somewhat new to this page and and very thankful to have found it.

I am the head of "EVERYTHING" that has anything to do with the sound,video,projections,web and or anything relating to computers.
All of this I took over and /or started in the last couple of years.Prior I had no experience with any of this.

At the beginning of July we are going to start broadcasting on a local TV station. I have been recording the service for about a year now and posting it to our site.

We have a couple of camaras(one is a Sony HXR-NX5U NXCAM the other is a older Sony) a Edirol video switch,sound mixer and a PC w/ 6 core CPU and 8 gig of Ram running WIndows 7.

My "plan" is to use the signal out of the switch into the PC and do a screen capture to record. We have a Dazzel capture device from Best Buy that I have used in this set-up but it is not great and I know there are better capture devices.

I have 2 primary questions:
What capture device would best suite my neds?
What editing software should we get?(currently are using AVS)

[Paris MkVI]

We use a Canopus ADVC110 at our church to convert analog audio/video to Firewire for ingest in the computer. We use Adobe CS5.5 Production Suite for editing and other functions.

I encourage you, if you have not already done so, to make a contact at your local TV station, perhaps in production or operations. Start inquiring about formats and standards, so you can provide them with an end product they can reliably use. The sales staff at TV stations are not always well-versed in these details.

The station may have a one-sheet handout with deliverable requirements you can request. I have attached a copy of ours, for example. Also, be sure to find out what the delivery deadline is. Some stations need your program several days in advance, not only because they may require time to quality-check and transfer for their systems, but because their broadcast logs close in advance of the actual air date.

They may require 30 seconds of color bars, an info slate with church name, program title, program number, run time, audio format and scheduled air date, and countdown before the program begins. They may be able to take a digital file. It varies from station to station.

If you are not adding closed-captioning, you will have to air after 2am and before 6am on a broadcast station, or file for a financial hardship waiver with the FCC. Filing the waiver would cover you until the FCC rules on it. If they do not rule in your favor, you would have to caption your show, move to the 2-6am window, or go off the air.

If it sounds like I have been on the TV side - I still am, and have received more last-minute botched technical nightmares from local program providers (some are churches) than I can count. Stand out from the crowd in your prep, and you will have folks inside the station who will help you.

I also encourage you to create, if it is possible, a multi-week production window. For example, the service you would shoot this Sunday would air in three weeks. A flow like this gives you time to allow for the unexpected. In addition, determine what shows can work as "evergreens". These are programs that, in the event of circumstances beyond your control, can be plugged in and run again. Coordinate that with the folks at the station so you can simply make a phone call to handle the situation.

I also encourage you to create a simple database of what you produce in Excel, perhaps. Give each program a unique alpha-numeric designation, a title (sermon title perhaps), total run time, comments, original air date and anything else you want to add. The day will come you will be SO glad you have this information to reference.

Best wishes, and let us know how things go!

[waynehoskins]

Everything he said.

We also use an ADVC 110 for ingest, and it simply works. Been using that for about 5 years, no issues.

Most important is to make life easy for the station. Find out what formats they prefer, and do what it takes to get your content to them in that format.

A unique identifier for each program is important too. It could be a sequential number with an alpha prefix to identify it as yours (LS001, LS398, "LS" for Lakeside), or it could use the original service date (LS20120520 for this past Sunday).

After all that, make your program look good. Cameras, lighting, direction, audio, etc. I'm sure we've all seen some incredibly bad church TV; do everything you can to make yours not be bad too. If your stage isn't lit well, the cameras will show off that shortcoming.

In the "gravy" category would be things like graphics, lower third supers and things of the sort. You could probably do many of them in post.

[samchuck]

Thanks Guys for the wonderful advice.

I have not spoken to the TV station personally but I do know that they want a DVD that can be mailed to them.(Monday Morning?) I have been curios about formats,frame rates and time fillers.
I figured we would make a custom intro and then have to figure out the ending each being our pastor does not stick to his time line very well when preaching.

On the idea of Firewire.... My computer does not have firewire,my switch does not have firewire and only one of my cameras do. Both cameras have composite,one have SDI and HDMI and the switch only takes SDI or composite. My understanding of Firewire is not only is it an older technology but it is a bit slower because of conversion time.

I would like to get a card to ingest the video using what I have as well as looking into the future.

Thanks again.

[waynehoskins]

On the video side, you have a couple of choices. Either you can capture the live cut in real-time, or you can iso each camera (I presume you're using camcorders with tape or tapeless backs on them) and then edit them all together in post.

Generally, at least to start out, I'd try to get it right live. It will save you time editing individual cameras back together and let you spend your post time dealing with editing for time.

I'd do a stock intro, and then make some filler pieces of various lengths you can put at the end for when you're shorter than the time requirement. Then it's a matter of ripping out what you need to in order to make it fit.

Definitely work multiple weeks ahead. It will ease the time crunch you have in the edit bay, and if something goes wrong you have time to fix it (e.g., the DVD broke in the mail).

Since you're only a month out from air, start working on your first program now. Maybe pick something good from archive that you can edit for time, etc., and figure out the process now before you're under the gun.

[samchuck]

This week for the first time I tried both cameras. One is tape and the other saves to memory card. The older camera I connected to the Dazzel USB capture device and used the screen capture in the AVS editor to record entire sermon while recording to memory on the newer camera with a wide shot. I loaded the wide shot as the primary video and put the screen capture in as a video overlay. I went frame by frame and cut out any areas in the overlay that the pastor was not in the shot. This was very time consuming and I hope I will not have to do that again.

We have a video switch but I just figured out how to make it pick up both cameras. My only concern with it is with no experience with the switch I expect bad transitions and with live capture how would I fix them????

I still think I need a better way to ingest the video. My pastor is not to happy with the idea of buying a BlackMagic card because of the name but from what I have found it is the best. What should I use?

[waynehoskins]

A good video switcher would be a good investment. There are many to choose from; one that comes to mind quickly is Panasonic's HS400 family (though they may well be outside your price range). At the inexpensive side is the Atem (now also a BMD product); the Atem Studio is around the $1K mark without control panels.

If it were me, since you're going to be inherently SD at the station if they're asking for DVD, I'd be inclined to go analog. It seems the bottom has just about fallen out of the analog composite retired-broadcast-gear market, so there are good deals to be found if you look. Beware, there are some TV engineering things you'll have to learn, most notably signal timing, and then you may have to do some maintenance on things because they're usually 20+ years old. However, even with that, you can put together a pretty good video rig for not a whole lot of money.

If your cameras can be the same, or at least the same format of output, things will be easier.

[samchuck]

We have a Edirol LVS-400 that was donated to the church. It is basic and seemingly simple to operate. I have yet to try it for a sermon but this week I am going to go for it.

My concern is with time code... I noticed last week when I dubbed the two videos together as the video went along my audio go off on one of the videos .

[samchuck]

I think I can get the two cameras to output the same. I hope

[samchuck]

The second camera is a Sony DCR VX2100.

[Borggren]

We are using EDIUS from Grass Valley, for all that we capture. It can capture live, or you can capture from tape or card. It works perfect also when importing different file formats etc.
It will cost you some money, but it will really save time and you will be able to deliver your final program in any format etc in the future.

[Brad Weber]

A bit off topic of your questions but you may have already addressed it with your current recording and the broadcaster may address the broadcast aspects but don't forget to make syre that you and/or the broadcaster are properly addressing all related intellectual property rights.