Re: Video equipment for online guitar lessons web-site

On Feb 22, 6:02 pm, "Richard Crowley" <rcrow...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Rick Stone"  wrote ...





I'm putting together some video lessons for my website and would like
some advice on decent equipment for somebody on a budget.  I got some
muslin backdrops, worked out the lighting and have been fooling around
with my son's Sony DCR HC26 running it straight into Magix Movie Edit
Pro via Firewire and the results aren't bad (for web resolution
anyway), but there's a high-pitched whine that I can't seem to get rid
of (unfortunately the HC26 doesn't have a separate audio input jack).

Because I do mainly music, I've got some very good equipment for
recording the sound (a MOTU 2408, FirePod, a couple ADATs, an Alesis
Studio 32 mixer and a pile of ribbon and condenser mics).  But the
Movie Edit Pro software doesn't allow you to choose the source for
each track when importing audio and video (at least not
simultaneously).

Ideally I'd like to be able to record direct to a hard disk with two
cameras (one wide shot and another that would be positioned to mainly
just show my hands on the guitar) with a separate multi-track audio
(I'd like to use one overhead mic for speaking, a DI for the guitar,
and a stereo track for play-a-long recordings I intend to use).

I suppose I could try running a separate program to record the audio
and then another to capture the cameras, but that's a kind of messy
solution.

I'd appreciate any suggestions about software and hardware.

Keep your life simple. Record directly on the camcorder(s)
with tape, and record your sound directly to your computer.
Then capture the video from the camcorder(s), and edit the
video track(s) to the audio track and you're done.

You've already identified a fundamental problem with not
having mic inputs on the camcorder(s).  And it may be a
problem trying to run a video capture application AND an
audio capture application concurrently on your computer.
Dunno what was the point of live capture of the video, either?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The point of doing the live capture of the video straight to disk is
time. If I record the lessons and then have to upload them to the
computer one-at-a-time it's going triple the amount of time that it
takes me to get a recording to the computer (and probably a bit more
since it will take me some time to get everything aligned after I
import it). Working with a single camera, I'm right now able to a 10
minute lesson, start to finish, in about 40 minutes (that includes
editing, adding bumpers, captions, credits, graphics (for musical
examples, chord diagrams and such). Going to tape first will probably
push that up to 80 minutes. I'd like to be able to turn out 4 or 5
new lessons a week, but I've got a ton of these to do and a lot of
other stuff going on (gotta make a living). If recording the lessons
starts taking too long to do, I know that I probably won't get to it.

I was kind of hoping there might be video software that allows you to
capture from multiple sources that you could specify yourself (like
all multi-track audio software allows you to do). Then I wouldn't
even bother to take a sound feed from the camera, I could just get it
from my MOTU 2408 or the FirePod.

I'd also like better video quality than what this little Sony DV gives
me (the resolution is something like 674k). I had another supposedly
better camera (a JVC GR-DV500u) but after using it only a handful of
times, it died and JVC wants about $250 to fix it. I've got some live
concerts that I've done with that camera, and for whatever reason, the
quality looks worse than what I got from the the cheap Sony (they were
both just put on tripods and left to run during the concert). So I
figure it's probably "new camera" time.

Rick Stone
www.rickstone.com
.

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