Firewire, USB, HDMI - Windows Media Encoder camera

iarann

Hi,

I have a DV JVC camera that we use to stream live presentations with copy to tape, it worked fine as it has a Mic input (must have in our situation) and a Firewire port to link to Laptop running Windows Media Encoder to stream live.

The camera has packed in & I am looking around for a replacement but none of the cameras seem to have a Firewire port unless I go up to serious money. All have USB ports but they seem to be for file transfer rather than live video but all have HDMI output. I dont want to output in analogue & then capture.

So my options seem to be to go for a prosumer camera to get the firewire & mic input but this is too expensive, OR
Get a consumer type Camcorder & Look for a HDMI capture card that will work with Media Encoder, ideally one for a laptop rather than lugging a full PC around.

So my questions are:
o) Any reccomendations for a camcorder less than 700 that has firewire & Mic.
o) Is there another way around this or any reccomendations
o) Anybody got experience capturing HDMI & streaming it?

J

Rew

If your going the HDMI route you should get one of these

http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/intensity/

HDMI capture is much the same as firewire you see the video source in software, you encode and output it. If you try capture and stream something like a blueray it will fail.

Keep in mid the overhead of capturing HD but streaming SD. The encode can cream your CPU and if it hits 90%+ you will drop frames or lose audio sync.

Tactical

iarann wrote: »

All have USB ports but they seem to be for file transfer rather than live video but all have HDMI output. I dont want to output in analogue & then capture.

Would a webcam be a consideration or would the quality not be good enough?

iarann

Thanks for comming back to me.

Rew,
Have you used this yourself? It looks like a serious bit of kit. I could get a usb3 adaptor easy enough so that makes it a neat solution.

i take your point on the quality and performance load, can it downscale as an option? during broadcast the quality can't be too high or it will overload the distribution network.

Tactical,
I was looking at webcams as an emergency option but the optics are not great and to get a reasonable screen view of speaker and to track movement in room during session would be limiting, I usually record to tape for processing after session for archive etc and having it all on tape/sd is great backup when things go horribly wong. I will look again for ones with optical zoom but that seems limited selection.

Rew

iarann wrote: »

Thanks for comming back to me.

Rew,
Have you used this yourself? It looks like a serious bit of kit. I could get a usb3 adaptor easy enough so that makes it a neat solution.

i take your point on the quality and performance load, can it downscale as an option? during broadcast the quality can't be too high or it will overload the distribution network.

I've done a lot of live streaming. I mainly use a desktop with a Blackmagic Decklink Studio HD card and bring everything in over HD-SDI. I've used various bits of Blackmagic kit and they have all been excellent but not that particular USB device. I've done plenty with firewire as well, mainly coming off a deck the the cameras are connected to though but off a camera direct works fine as well.

If you were streaming in flash or HTTP id suggest a quad core Mac Mini with that that USB device would be a nice little portable setup.

I have no idea if that will do hardware down scaling for you you would have to go though the specs, I doubt it though.