Realtime Recording to a Jump Drive

June 23, 2011 8:52 AM

What software will allow me to record from a FireWire source directly to a compressed format that I can deliver to workshop attendees?

We will be hosting a Radio/TV workshop participants will be doing exercises at different stations where they will generate both audio and video content. They will rotate through these stations quickly. Each participant will have a jump drive that they will give to the administrator of each session. Their session will be "recorded" to the jump drive and then they will take the drive with them to the next session...Rinse Repeat..

I'm OK with the audio sessions recording directly to MP3 but what is the best software to use for the video session? The video files will end up being 2 - 5 minutes long.

The easiest workflow that I can think of that will generate a widely compatible compressed file is to use Windows Media Encoder Its easy to setup a recording profile and easy to record the compressed video directly to a file in real time.

I'm not sure this is the best way so if any one has other workflow recommendations I would appreciate hearing them

posted by jmsta to computers & internet (8 answers total)

Is this Windows-only?
posted by unixrat at 8:59 AM on June 23, 2011

I have access to windows or osx at the recording locations. The files that are generated need to be cross platform compatible.
posted by jmsta at 10:11 AM on June 23, 2011

FireWire cameras (SD or HD) will generate files that are approx 5 min to the gig without additional compression in the DV format.

iMovie will do this and then can "Share" (takes several minutes) to create an h.264 which works everywhere...more or less.

The problem is that they have to be cross platform compatible. WMV doesn't cut it. Neither does QuickTime; true mpeg4 h.264 will cut it - but iMovie (nor Windows Movie maker) will create it.
posted by filmgeek at 4:47 PM on June 23, 2011

VLC is free, cross-platform, can transcode pretty much any format to any other, and can get video from real-time capture as well as from disk files. I'd be very, very surprised if it was not capable of doing what you want.
posted by flabdablet at 6:27 PM on June 23, 2011

I tried VLC on the MAC and it would work with a FireWire source. It worked ok on a PC but its lots of steps for an operator who likely wont be familiar with the software. I will check out iMovie and see how long it takes on a 2 min clip.
posted by jmsta at 7:00 PM on June 23, 2011

That should say "would not work"
posted by jmsta at 7:01 PM on June 23, 2011

VLC has a pretty extensive set of command line options; it should be possible to make a specialized launcher shortcut for it that starts it up in the exact mode you want with just a double-click. If you also need to do clever things to find the jump drive's letter etc. you might also consider starting VLC from a .cmd script.
posted by flabdablet at 11:17 PM on June 23, 2011

For those interested. I ended up using Microsoft Expression encoder. It easily created compressed WMV files from the live FireWire source. With little setup or breakdown time between each recording it went very smoothly the 1.5Mb/s file looked pretty good. The only down side was that it was a WMV file.
posted by jmsta at 7:30 AM on August 6, 2011