Capturing multi cam footage...will this work?

1. smythie
   Member

   

   Hi all, new to this website but... i like!! Lots of good info here.

    

   Here is my situation.

    

   I am shooting footage of a local car drag race meeting with hopefully 3 cams, they are mini dv handycams.

   This is a VERY poor budget setup. This is what i plan on doing...

   1. Cam at start line which i will operate all day.

   2. cam 3/4 way down race strip facing back towards start line.

   3. Cam across finnish line for slow motion of race winner (gotta play with shutter speed here as they come out blurry, maybe this can't be done with the elcheapo equipment i am using)

   4. possible cam behind cars at start line to capture xmas tree lights (to see who won the race, in a pip in one corner of race footage)

   5. possible cam on other side of racetrack.

   6. helmet cam inside a car (this will have it's own battery/sd card so not too worried bout this one)

   NOW, the issues i have are...i will be the only operator, this is a remote location without power so i will need a petrol generator which i can buy, i could probably get high capacity batteries for these cameras so battery swapping should be eliminated, i could always mod a battery to connect a voltage regulator and high cap SLA battery, the MAIN problem is footage/storage. The other cams will be approx 300+ feet away from me. i have been thinking of the idea of connecting a 2.4ghz A/V transmitter to each cam and feeding the signal back to 3 or so HDD recorders (the ones with built in tv receiver\digital receiver) and recording footage to the hard disks in these recorders (priced an 80gig for $200 AU). Then transfer it all to my pc at home and edit like buggery. I'm not sure if the HDD recorders will let me record in AVI format or not, that will prob depend on make\model etc.

    

   Anyway, that's my idea, love to hear some comments...

    

   Gary

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. Johnboy
   Member

   

    hard drive cameras usually record to mpeg2 format which is already compressed  so when you edit the footage and then burn it to dvd, you are recompressing the footage which can end up in image quality degradation.  Best thing to use is MiniDV.  The problem you are going to have is syncronization between the cams, especially at distance.  Without some kind of timecode being pushed to the cameras, you are at the will of your own judgement on the sync of the cameras so I would say, the less cameras the better.  best of luck to you.

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. smythie
   Member

   

   Hi Johnboy, thanks for the reply, you may have misunderstood me. I AM NOT USING HDD cameras, i will be using HDD recorders (as used in a house connected to tv to record tv shows).  http://www.oo.com.au/Digital_Video_Recorder_with_80_P6847C446.cfm

    

   Feeding an RF signal from the camera to a receiver  (that is connected to the HDD receiver

   http://shop.ebay.com.au/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=av+transmitter&_sacat=See-All-Categories

    

   Having said that, i'm guessing that the HDD recorder uses Mpg2 as well, basically i will need to find out if the HDD recorders will record in AVI for easy editing.

   I will be using windows XP and Premiere Pro 1.5

    

   Thanks

    

   Gary

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. The shooter
   Member

   

   Check these great articles for your multi-cam syc

   http://www.videomaker.com/article/12970/

   http://www.videomaker.com/article/10691/

   http://www.videomaker.com/article/14244/

    

   http://www.videomaker.com/article/8331/

    

   Posted 2 years ago #

5. futball8
   Member

   

    Gary,

    

   I had to laugh when I saw your post - I just completed the same exact type of project you're looking at - a (no-budget) local drag race with multiple cameras and myself as the only operator! Here are a few of my opinions along with how I pulled it off.

    

   I don't like the idea of the wireless A/V feed. Working by yourself, it opens up a lot of potential problems - if one of your feeds goes bad (interference, etc, which most systems are prone to) then you may very well lose that cam angle completely and never know it until you go to edit. Unless, of course you have some way to monitor each feed while you run your camera position. Anyway, it sounds a little over-complicated and prone to problems.

   I chose to use three solid-state cameras recording to SDHC cards. The cameras are cheap (Canon FS100s - $300.00 or less), but do a good job. Paired with a 16GB SDHC card, they can record 5 hrs. An earlier post mentioned quality loss recording MPEG2 and having to recompress - in my experience, I've never had any complaints about image quality.

   To sync cams, I simply started recording with all of them pointed at me - clapped my hands real loud and then proceeded to reposition each cam to its correct shooting position - this is A MUST! As long as each cam never stops, you only have to sync them once in your timeline and you're good to edit through the entire event without ever having to re-sync.

   My event had one intermission that gave me time to change batteries and SDHC cards - don't know if you'll have an intermission or not.

    

   Anyway, that was my experience and it worked out quite well.

    

   Good luck!  

   Posted 2 years ago #

6. smythie
   Member

   

   Ok, thanks to  "the shooter" for the links, got some good info there, and to futball8, i always thought ss footage would be crappy but have never seen any. i might go to the local camera place and see if i can test drive some makes and models. Just wondering what you use to edit the footage with. I have adobe premiere 1.5 and cs3.

    

   Thanks

    

   Gary

   Posted 2 years ago #

7. MazdaMan
   Member

   

   It will be beneficial for the camera experts to know what kind of drag racing your filming. Is this a 1/8 or 1/4 mile track? What racing clases, street modifieds, junior dragsters, sportman class, nitro, superbikes?

   Your 1/8 mile tracks are going to be easier to film with a low end camera because the speeds are much less. If your filming at a 1/4 track up to the nitro top fuel dragster class you are going to need some expert advise because at 320 mph and the pressure waves pounding the equipment audio and video turn into a distorted mess really easy.

   Posted 2 years ago #

8. smythie
   Member

   

   Thanks Mazdaman, i didn't even think of that type of info to include. Just goes to show how much of a novice i am. It's a 1/8th mile on one of the local main roads here (small country town) and, yes, it's totally legal. The road is blocked off, ANDRA are also involved (Australian National Drag Racing Association), There are loys of street cars and modified cars (i'm not really into it that much, but no nitro's or top fuellers or anything that mad.) The main thing is i need to capture for long periods unattended. I am going to have a look at one of those SD card cams next week, i'll be taking a card or buying one, chuck it in the cam and film a bit, pull it out, put it in my laptop and check the quality and editability (like that word?!!)

    

   Thanks

    

   Gary

   Posted 2 years ago #

9. futball8
   Member

   

    I edit in PPro CS3 - .mod files from my Canon FS100 import fine - just rename the file extension from .mod to .mpg - it takes CS3 a little time to conform the audio, but no big deal.

   Posted 2 years ago #

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