Live Video capturing in FullHD with PC???

[olson]

My understanding of it is a capture card is only needed when the recording media is capable of playback only in real-time (e.g. VHS), in essence digital recording media has made capture cards obsolete. A quick search shows that camera records AVCHD video streams to a DVD (modified form of H.264 video). You should be able to insert that disc in a computer and copy over the files. Am I missing something, why do you need a capture card? Cheers!

[scrimski]

My understanding of it is a capture card is only needed when the recording media is capable of playback only in real-time (e.g. VHS),
How much more real-time than live can it get?
in essence digital recording media has made capture cards obsolete.Well, people still us a lot of DigiBeta or other tape formats so it's not that obsolete by now.

@meleseDESIGN: You could capture with that card. Other solutions are offered by Blackmagic,Matrox or Aja.
http://www.aja.com/
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/home/

I'd check that out first in some tech rental or the like.

[meleseDESIGN]

Thanks for your inputs.

@olsen
Yes, it´s no problem to record in FullHD (1080i) to the camcorders integrated DVD-Recorder and bringing the DVD over to the PC and copy the recorded material for further editing. But that´s not what I want. I will capture FullHD material with my HDC-DX1 Cam straight away to the PC, not to the cam`s integrated recorder. What means I would like to turn my PC to an FullHD viewer/recorder.

What are the reasons to record over PC instaed with the cam`s integrated recorder? One reason is the limited DVD-space, second reason I like to stream live actions in FullHD over the InTRAnet (so people on the other side of my network can see me in FullHD quallity). Also I like to make live Potcasts and record in FullHD to the PC`s HD while streaming.
Another reason is recording close-ups for Motion Capture without to switch a medium (mini DVD in my case).


@scrimski
Thanks for the links, they look interesting too.
Now I have found another lesser professionell HD-PVR from Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html). This device has all the needed ports to capture FullHD (till 1080i) with my HDV Camcorder. What do you think, worth to check out as well?

What Software do I actually need for Direct-to-Disk-Recording?
I am thinking about Adobe Premiere and OnLocation CS4.

I´m thankfull for any further inputs. :)

[scrimski]

Now I have found another lesser professionell HD-PVR from Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html). This device has all the needed ports to capture FullHD (till 1080i) with my HDV Camcorder. What do you think, worth to check out as well?Personally I would touch anything that captures to H264. While it's a quite good storage and publishing codec, editing this can be a real PITA.

What Software do I actually need for Direct-to-Disk-Recording?
I am thinking about Adobe Premiere and OnLocation CS4.
Most cards come with some basic editing software. Unless you want to edit by yourself further on I wouldn't bother spending money. Not sure if MovieMaker or VirtualDub support HD-formats, but if they do, they are sufficient enough for capturing.

[biliousfrog]

My understanding of it is a capture card is only needed when the recording media is capable of playback only in real-time (e.g. VHS), in essence digital recording media has made capture cards obsolete. A quick search shows that camera records AVCHD video streams to a DVD (modified form of H.264 video). You should be able to insert that disc in a computer and copy over the files. Am I missing something, why do you need a capture card? Cheers!

My thoughts too. What are you streaming to?...are you hoping to stream HD footage across the web live?

There are supposedly 'HD' web cams available which would be a better bet for streaming across the web because they'll offer better compression (or the software will anyway). The problem with streaming any footage from a proper HD video camera is that you'll have to compress the hell out of it to get it to 'stream', you might as well just use SD or VGA...or record, compress, distribute in something like H.264 or flash.

[scrimski]

Capturing is just the process of getting a signal encoded in realtime and stored onto HD or SSD. It doesn't matter if it's from a prerecorded source or live.

[Tama]

Thanks for your inputs.

snip

@scrimski
Thanks for the links, they look interesting too.
Now I have found another lesser professionell HD-PVR from Hauppauge (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html). This device has all the needed ports to capture FullHD (till 1080i) with my HDV Camcorder. What do you think, worth to check out as well?

snip.

I´m thankfull for any further inputs. :)

I have the HD-PVR and it works well enough to capture 1080i from Cable TV and Blu Ray via component video inputs with 5.1 via optical digital audio in. Currently using it with Windows 7 64bit and the latest drivers that allow choice of the following video formats

.TS, which is a generic 'transport stream' compatible with many digital media players
.M2TS, which is compatible with the Sony Playstation3
.MP4, which is compatible with the XBox360
When I first purchased the unit I found it somewhat unstable under WinXP 64 bit but the latest drivers
are quite stable.

[olson]

This is an odd requirement for which the camcorder is not designed to do, which is why it has built in DVD recorder. Proper equipment for a live HD system is overkill (like a news cast crew). A capture card could probably work but what would the cost and quality be? My guess is a 720P webcam for $100 would be much easier to use, much less expensive, and more reliable than a capture card plus camcorder. Cheers!

[meleseDESIGN]

@scrimski
I thought it would be nice to have a portable HD-PVR to be able to record and stream in FullHD upon other locations. Probably I am going to upgrade in the future to more professionell equipment. But for now I want to be able doing FullHD stuff at least. Since I have the Adobe Production Suite it would be no problem tu use Premiere and OnLocation. I just never used OnLocation or Premiere for capturing in FullHD. I hope it will work.


@biliousfrog
Yes, i used HD Webcams allready, but they are useless for my needs, because the quallity is a pain in the ass. I wanted at least 3CCD and 1080i technologie for the stuff I hace planed to realize. I bought the HDC-DX1 because of it´s 3CCD and FullHD technologie and because I have read many good reviews for this Camcorder, especially the quallity of the recorded footage is amazing. Here you can see a Demo Video which is made with the HDC-DX1 in FullHD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txScR5y-7TU

Some reviews say quallity-related it´s allmost ready for broadcasting.
SD and VGA isn´t good for motion capture footage to make realistic facial animations. To capture useble green-/blue-screen footage it should be at least FullHD 1080i quallity and the cam should support at least 3CCD technologie I think.


@Tama
Thanks for the short review.


@Olson
Thanks for you suggestion.
Yes 720p is much easier but it doesn´t provide me with the quallity I want. My Webcam comes in handy for Live Messenger and Webstream, but that´s it. The 720p footage isn´t usefull for projects in FullHD quallity. Unfortunatelly! ;)

[olson]

This looks nifty, but is likely just as expensive as a good capture card.

http://gizmodo.com/5365507/worlds-first-usb-30-webcam-streams-uncompressed-1080p-video
http://www.ptgrey.com/

The system would have to be pretty fast too because that's a lot of data coming in. Cheers!

[meleseDESIGN]

Yes, this looks nice for Webstream.
But look at the color quallity of the IMX036 CMOS sensor, it´s useless for HD Projects even it´s HD resolution. It doen´t all depends on resolution, it´s the sensor of the Camera what provides a clear natural colorfull image. ;)

[meleseDESIGN]

Thanks again for all the inputs.
I decided for the Blackmagic Design Intensity Pro.
Thanks for the Link to the blackmagic site!

Hoping to get some nice results with the HDC-DX1.

[kate59588]

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate, 32 bit. I used Windows Live MovieMaker to import AVCHD Video clips from my Sony HD Camcorder. When I try and save these clips as a Movie, Movie Maker freezes "Not Responding". Works OK when I import regular "mpeg" or "wmv" files, but does not work for the High Definition AVCHD (.MTS) files.

Connect your camcorder to pc via USB.Drag footages to PC,convert mts to mpeg/wmv.
What i am using now is Pavtube HD Video Converter.The software seems to do a decent job. I've had good results converting the .mts files to HD MPEG, with the settings mpeg2, 1200, 1280*720, 25fps, aac. The files look good on my PC running WMM, edit easily.

You can download from here and have a try.
http://www.pavtube.com/hd-video-converter/

A useful info: http://camcordervideoshare.com/how-to/how-to-import-todmodmovavchd-mts-videos-to-windows-movie-maker-for-editing/

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