Hi,

First our situation, equipment, needs:

I am news oriented format, so in studio greenscreen or street interviews, no sports stuff that requires long length SDI. 2 Cams will do it most of time but maybe 3 needed other times.

Have a bias towards software over hardware and digital over analog.

For live broadcasts am limited to 854x480 at about 2.7mbps. Have Win7 i7 with 16gigs ram. And of course vMix.

Existing current camera equipment:

1. HY-DV500 highend JVC MiniDV camera with composite, component and firewire 1394 output that is about 12 years old. One advantage of this is looks like pro cam for interviews, even if not connected ;-)

2. GL-1 Canon much smaller but similar to above Panasonic in age and miniDv format.

3. Logitech c920 HD USB cam.

5. low quality but good for testing 2nd USB cam, Microsoft Lifecam USB.

6. Canon Vixia with HDMI output.

7. mostly broken Sony hi8 v701 cam with 75% or so image, but use for testing whether composite signal gets thru to PC.



In vMix have been able to setup with no PC capture boards both USB cams and one composite output from the Sony Hi8 thru a Dazzle Composite to USB cabled converter. All three cams live, no problem at all thru 3 USB ports and switching in vMix.


If I could get good quality out of the MiniDVs thru Dazzle, that would be nice, but its 720x480 max for Dazzle. Anyone getting 16x9 out of old MiniDVs? As in 854x480?


For two cam shots maybe the Logitech USB and the Vixia using HDMI out converted to USB in to PC. Has anyone done that? Currently have no HDMI in for PC.


Has anyone had success with using older miniDV cams and using composite or firewire to get it into vMix without hardware? I have another XP CoreDuo PC which does have firewire in.

Most interested in what has worked for others.

Cheers



An update, it seems 3 port 1394 firewire boards are rated highly, are dirt cheap and seem to connect to MiniDV cams http://www.amazon.com/St...RID=0BDWNWGJW6AR5JG0ZH5D

It seems too good to be true, but could 3 cams be connected to vMix with one of these boards? Anyone do it?

Ice, thanks for info!

On the Core duo issue, that is off table after finding the super cheap 3 port 1394 firewire boards for PCs and they make same to push into win laptop ports. Have not verified yet that they actually will let you see 3 Firewire cams at same time, but these cheap boards get mostly 5 star ratings on Amazon and sell like hotcakes, so am guessing they will do it. So it would be i7 Win7 with firewire boards, if do it.

On aspect ratio, its something so many are dealing with. If shooting new, your suggestion makes sense (frame work planning to cut off top and bottom. If its old 640x480 material there is no really good solution. But then there is 720x480. Am trying to figure that one out.

MiniDv and DVDs tends towards 720x480 The impressive looking DY-DV500 camera specs say it is capable of 750x500. In studying the 720x480 issue found this on dvinfo.net:


http://www.dvinfo.net/fo.../index.php/t-504163.html Note widescreen is often referred to as Anamorphic.

Anamorphic has a very specific meaning, and doesn't universally apply to widescreen.

Standard definition video is always 720x480 in NTSC, but actually displays as 640x480. So the pixels are not square -- they are slightly taller than they are wide, to make 720 fit into a 640 display. If, on the other hand, the pixels are described as much wider than they are tall ... you create an anamorphic view, and you get a widescreen result. This is typically used on a widescreen release of a DVD -- the image is encoded as 720x480, as it must be, but if viewed in a 640x480 screen (a traditional standard definition screen) you will see a 'squished' view where everyone is tall and skinny. The proper view for a 720x480 anamorphic widescreen is on a 16:9 screen -- an HD TV -- where the pixels are spread wider so the resulting display fills a widescreen and everyone looks 'correct' or perhaps there are black letterbox bars added top and bottom to a traditional 4:3 standard definition display; again, everyone looks correct.

When you are working with SD material, such as DV filmed material, you will encounter the anamorphic flag to make the display corrections cited above. You don't see the anamorphic flag in HD material, as the pixels are always square, and the display is always 16:9

Clear as mud? Cheers,GB


SO? 720x480 is possible in MiniDVs with firewires. So can I shoot in 720x480 and then air it appearing to be 854x480 (going anamorphic)? Also 720x480 would not look terrible on 16x9 screen with right and left cut off.


I have a bunch of 2000 or so era documentaries have rights to on MiniDV, so being able to import them to my i7 makes it worthwhile to try one of these cheap firewire boards people seem to love, so will get one. The concept still do not have my head around is how to deal with old and new 720x480 video. Can it be shown on normal 16x9 screens using all of the screen without distortion using rectangular pixels? If so that would be a great solution. Ice or anyone else, is that really the case? Can 720x480 be shown distortion free on 16x9 screens without throwing away pixels?

I use standard cams, but in my case, they can shoot "letterbox", so what I do, use SD, set the settings for SD 16x9, go into the input settings, and adjust the position to fill the area....did it while experimenting, and dispite the fact that there is a little grain in low light scenes, the quality is still good, and it works for me.....actually I was asked if my cameras are HD.....just because most people see HD as 16x9, not realizing that there is also SD 16x9 (letterbox) settings.....

Thanks, will remember that when set it up.

On Firewire See in vMix chart


HDV/DV Cameras Firewire Separate Firewire Card for each camera.
HDV and DV formats introduce a half second delay.


That would indicate that vMix can only see one firewire cam per card,even if the card has 3 ports. Sorta a bummer as I do not have 3 slots left, new PCs have cut way down slots. A 3 port Firewire card was looking like fantastic solution for 3 cam studio, no special cards just plug the cams in and roll. Which if had more PCI slots would be the case. In fact was thinking of translating HDMI to firewire to take advantage of firewire ease

HAS ANYONE EVER TRIED HOOKING UP MULTIPLE CAMS WITH ONE MULTIPORT FIREWIRE CARD?

It would be such an easy solution, hope it does work. With their warning that there is 1/2 sec delay, If I have another cam on say on BlackMagic card then the 3 could not be used together.

Cheers

The problem is NOT vMix, it is the card itself....most firewire cards are designed that way...even though they may see 3 different devices, they can not process the details from 3 cameras at the same time.....if they have seperate chips for each input then there is no problem, but since there are very few companies making these cards today, it will be hard to find one that is designed for 3 cameras.......There is another program similar to vMix, AVTake CutFour, that is designed around firewire cards, and they explained it that way.....

@ darp

Older cards have come down significantly in price...
Largely because it is dated technology, often PCI slot, which are not very common anymore as opposed to the newer PCIe (e for express) and analogue capture.
The other thing to consider is whether or not it is designed as a "security system".
Often, those cards are cheap and work well for security (4 or 8 cams on screen simultaneously) but have proven themselves to be useless as a capture card for vMix production purposes.

As stated earlier, if your cams are from different manufacturers, the Firewire card is likely to recognize them and will probably 'max out' trying to process more than one signal. You may be within capacity with two signals and get away with it for awhile but there is a reason why vMix does mot recommend more than one signal per card.

I agree that the Firewire output will be better than the composite signal and would be the preferred method of capture, but I would seriously consider acquiring a second and/or third card if your motherboard has room.
Still a lot cheaper than current SDI/HDMI capture cards and your cameras can plug right in, the caveat is though, that the Firewire connection is not a very secure one. It's a good way to get started, but if you are in this for the long haul, you will want to upgrade before too long.


Ice

We have used a multiport(3) 1394 PCI card in our HP desktop for a year with two Panasonic DVG15 attached. We bring our video in as 1280 x 720 NSTC 30p. The resolution is 720 x 480. We are getting outstanding quality and great performance. We do have a little extra system memory 10GB on a 4 core HP 6610f and GeForce 650 multiport graphics card. We are achieving HD and widescreen with no problems.