What's a great setup for shooting video and provide immediate playback?
October 13, 2023 4:42 AM Subscribe
For a class I'm teaching, I need to film teams of students doing presentations, and then immediately play the video back for the students to watch. Later, I'll need to cut and edit the filmed material. Can you tell me exactly how you would do this?
I have maybe $1000-1500, and access to some equipment as well (some tripods and lights, an old camcorder from like 2007), and a new macbook pro. I am not super comfortable with tech but once I have the gist of something I'll be fine.
Even better if I can do a two-cam set up and shoot two angles, and provide immediate playback of a quick and dirty edit.
Can you describe the precise arrangement of equipment and cables you'd use to accomplish this?
I have maybe $1000-1500, and access to some equipment as well (some tripods and lights, an old camcorder from like 2007), and a new macbook pro. I am not super comfortable with tech but once I have the gist of something I'll be fine.
Even better if I can do a two-cam set up and shoot two angles, and provide immediate playback of a quick and dirty edit.
Can you describe the precise arrangement of equipment and cables you'd use to accomplish this?
For a single camera solution, I'd suggest running OBS on the Mac with an iPhone configured via continuity camera. Any recent-ish iPhone is likely to be a nicer video camera than almost anything you could reasonably get otherwise. Configure OBS to record the footage, connect to a big TV, and there you are. You might be able to use a webcam (or a DSLR or whatever configured as a webcam) to get a second OBS camera.
posted by implied_otter at 6:11 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by implied_otter at 6:11 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]
Use phones, not the camcorder.
As implied_otter notes, any phone in the last five years will give you better video than any 2007 camcorder, and you can use OBS for streaming, and on the Mac, iMovie is free. It's not a professional tool by any means, but it's very accessible.
posted by mhoye at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
As implied_otter notes, any phone in the last five years will give you better video than any 2007 camcorder, and you can use OBS for streaming, and on the Mac, iMovie is free. It's not a professional tool by any means, but it's very accessible.
posted by mhoye at 6:26 AM on October 13, 2023 [5 favorites]
At minimum, you could use the webcam on your MacBook to record video with built-in software like Quicktime) and then immediately play the file back, presumably to a projector in the room. It's not the greatest quality, though.
As others have suggested, recording on a phone would be more versatile and probably higher quality depending on the phone, and if you have an iPhone, you can get an adapter like this to plug directly into your a/v system and mirror your phone to the projector to play back the video. That would be the simplest solution, I would think, and I would imagine something similar exists for Android phones.
Phone videos can be pretty easily imported into most video editing programs as well for later editing.
You can also get simple external microphones for phones to improve audio quality, like this.
Since you have a little budget, you could also do all of this on an iPad which would give you a little more "real estate" for viewing and manipulating video.
Oh - and if you use a phone or tablet, shoot landscape/horizontal, not portrait/vertical!
posted by Ms. Toad at 7:10 AM on October 13, 2023
As others have suggested, recording on a phone would be more versatile and probably higher quality depending on the phone, and if you have an iPhone, you can get an adapter like this to plug directly into your a/v system and mirror your phone to the projector to play back the video. That would be the simplest solution, I would think, and I would imagine something similar exists for Android phones.
Phone videos can be pretty easily imported into most video editing programs as well for later editing.
You can also get simple external microphones for phones to improve audio quality, like this.
Since you have a little budget, you could also do all of this on an iPad which would give you a little more "real estate" for viewing and manipulating video.
Oh - and if you use a phone or tablet, shoot landscape/horizontal, not portrait/vertical!
posted by Ms. Toad at 7:10 AM on October 13, 2023
Response by poster: Thanks folks! This is a class about performance for camera, hence the needs for lights and immediate playback to assess performance. I've taken/run a number such classes with the set ups I describe but usually there's a tech handling all this stuff - this is the first time I have to fly solo alas.
I suppose you could set up a live streaming environment where someone is manning the system, live switching between the two cameras, and recording the stream, but that would get pretty complicated.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant - this is a fairly typical set up for these kinds of classes but sounds like it might be beyond my capacity and budget at this time.
I'll consider whether the simplest thing is to buy a phone for this task.
posted by stray at 2:05 PM on October 14, 2023
I suppose you could set up a live streaming environment where someone is manning the system, live switching between the two cameras, and recording the stream, but that would get pretty complicated.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant - this is a fairly typical set up for these kinds of classes but sounds like it might be beyond my capacity and budget at this time.
I'll consider whether the simplest thing is to buy a phone for this task.
posted by stray at 2:05 PM on October 14, 2023
Maybe an iPad/AppleTV combo?
Shoot using the iPad’s camera, then immediately play back either on the iPad itself or via Airplay to the AppleTV hooked up to a TV.
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:50 PM on October 14, 2023
Shoot using the iPad’s camera, then immediately play back either on the iPad itself or via Airplay to the AppleTV hooked up to a TV.
posted by TangoCharlie at 8:50 PM on October 14, 2023
Response by poster: FYI we’re going with a steaming switcher console (probably something like a black magic stem mini pro) to enable the two cam set up, and record in OBS in my laptop with an external monitor for playback. That way we can get two angles on the presentation as shoot and get split screen playback.
posted by stray at 10:30 AM on December 2, 2023
posted by stray at 10:30 AM on December 2, 2023
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That's kind of a lot to ask when we don't know anything about the type of room you're in, the existing lighting conditions, what kind of camera you have or will be getting, etc. etc. etc.
If the camcorder saves onto SD cards, use that. If it doesn't, get something that does. This could be another camcorder, or a photo camera that also shoots video (which is basically everything these days). You need a lens for it, too. Without knowing the room, I'd recommend a wide angle zoom. Probably the "kit lens" that comes with many camera packages would be fine (it's usually something like an 18-55mm lens)
"Even better if I can do a two-cam set up and shoot two angles, and provide immediate playback of a quick and dirty edit."
You can't. Editing video takes time. As does loading the video into the computer to edit. I suppose you could set up a live streaming environment where someone is manning the system, live switching between the two cameras, and recording the stream, but that would get pretty complicated.
You probably don't need lights, especially if the end result is just watching the presentation.
My recommendation would be to skip the two camera idea. Without knowing exactly what you're doing, it seems like overkill to film students giving presentations with two cameras — look up some TedX videos (TedX are the local low budget ones). They're generally filmed with one camera and are fine.
Just put a camera that records to an SD card on a tripod in front of the students, zoom out so you can see whoever is involved, put the SD card into he computer, open up the video and play it.
If you need to do editing, do it after class. I wouldn't want class time wasted waiting for video to be edited (unless it was a class about video editing).
posted by jonathanhughes at 6:07 AM on October 13, 2023 [3 favorites]