Delay in Live Video from Firewire?

[cw4u]

Our church is thinking about using our MS computer to run IMAG through to the projectors. We originally used an Extron CrossPoint, but that didn't look very good when switching between inputs. My question is will their be a delay in the video due to the digitizing delay?

Also, we have a Pentium 4 3.2 GHz HT computer with 1 GB memory, and a 256 MB AGP 8x video card. Will the computer be able to handle it? I thought it would, but I have no experience doing this.

Thanks.

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

yeah, you'll have about a .5 second delay. I've used it on a limited basis when the pastor was using a small object as an illustration or for baptism, but other than that, MS isn't really your best option for doing IMAG.

[cw4u]

What are some options out their then that we could use? I really cheap way of doing it i guess would be to put a tv tuner in it and use the composite video or s-video feed. Will MS recognize the tuner card?

Thanks.

[camthecameraman]

As a rule any type of capture card will have a delay in a live environment, some worse than others, as said previously firewire is pretty bad, I would say almost unusable. I have seen some pretty good SDI based cards from Decklink that do alright but still not perfect.

[AlexH237]

An outside switcher switching between your PC and you camera would work better.

You will definitely have a delay -- especially using Firewire. Even my TriCaster Pro has about a 3-5 frame delay and it is made specifically for IMAG (it's a $5000+ unit). If you want to make sure it's really in sync then I agree about using an external mixer. If you are just recording then it's not a big deal. If you use it for IMAG it's going to be noticeable and really bug people.

[cw4u]

I thought about a switcher, but that would be a large unnecessary cost at the time. We'll just stick with our old CrossPoint matrix switcher.