Muff's Modules & More

[xart]

I am a modular hobbyist new to the video world (one full month )and am ready to start recording and archiving my work. My main interest has been Audiovisualization and am looking for ideas on how to put together a good Audiovisualization PC. I would like to capture both audio and video at the same time / process it analog and stream it back in to record. Has anyone here done this? I am talking to a few PC builders who do media PC's but feel they don't really have experience with what I want to do. . . (when people know as much as I do...I get nervous...and I am having a difficult time finding people who know about hybrid systems)

I am am familiar with AUDIO daw's (protools / nuendo / etc) but have ZERO idea when it comes to video.

I want to capture LIVE audio AND video (at the same time AND and different times) and be able to edit and mix them.

After looking at software it seems people use ADOBE PREMIERE / APPLE FINAL CUT PRO and SONY VEGAS.

I was told the best software to use was VEGAS since I care as much about audio as video (and will be using this machine for 50% daw AND 50% video)

I know lots about AUDIO cards ( RME) BUT know NOTHING about video cards and capture cards - my questions are do I get one card for both or do I get an good audio card (RME and good video card?) or do I go for an all in one solution like black magic? (i have NO idea) And obviously know the pitfalls with DRIVERS / HARDWARE / software compatibility combinations etc.

I know from experience that firewire streaming of audio/video at the same time will get me into trouble and it will be best to go the PCI route with audio and video....but dont know about conflicts in this area (and don't want to spend a lot of money to find out )

I have people pointing me things like the Blackmagic Design - Studio2 that seems to be a video/audio hybrid ...but will this give me things like ZERO LATENCY (in video and audio) like I would expect with a RME audio card? (and ASIO - do you guys have ASIO for video? )

I know I can just get a capture card and be done with it...and do the audio b4/after....but this is not what I am interested in...I want to stream both real time....output it....fuck with it in "analog" and bring it back in.....

Any hints on where to look? Do flim people do this kind of thing?

Right now I am ust recording into my dv cam then firewire-ing it into my ibook and editing with imove....this is not the way I want to work....its zero fun and does not have the audiovisualization immediacy. (the key word immediacy...why I like working with modulars for my dopey art in the first place.)

[nickciontea]

i'll wait for some experts to chime for the real details..

what i know is that Lars and Johnny are both using these.
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo2_mini/

Im looking to pick up the thunderbolt version myself.


So far I have personally never captured audio and video simultaneously. I usually sync up audio after the fact like film work. which means. first i track my audio.. or pick a song/file. then i make the video to the audio and then mix together..

I'm with you on the "no fun" part

[LEVLHED]

Are you planning to output live video/audio from the "Audiovisualization PC" at the same time as you are recording audio/video to it? That will be difficult without insane specs.
If you are just going to capture A/V that is generated live entirely from external sources, I'd look at AJA/Blackmagic cards. I think in Vegas you can choose to take video from one device and audio from another which would let you use an RME/etc for audio.

Stay away from firewire/DV.

[xart]

[lizlarsen]

I have been working on getting a full A/V send/return type rig like this setup for a while now and have been working on a post with a flowchart showing how I currently have it running. I'll get that up at some point today. The problem is getting video in and out on the same machine. Most (all?) video I/O devices are designed to either output, or capture, but not both simultaneously.

[LEVLHED]

from a technical standpoint, yes it is possible. But when you think of video as being like 10x the bandwidth of audio you start to hit very crippling bottlenecks.

I'm not sure what the aspect of latency has to do with recording. You would just monitor before recording?

If you are into glorifying all that is analog, perhaps consider recording in realtime to good old VHS then capturing VHS after the fact for editing/etc. IME VHS actually has very acceptable sound quality. You could even look for a "pro" SVHS deck or Beta...

[barto]

dont some of the capture devices like the ADVC family have loop through options? that way you could capture and output at the same time?

[daverj]

Video/audio in and out of the same computer at the same time is going to be very difficult. You not only run into processing and memory bottlenecks, but also hard drive issues.

I use firewire connected to a DV camera for my capturing of both tape and live video/audio going directly to Adobe Premiere. I never have a problem with audio/video sync. My DV camera has audio and composite video inputs on it, so I can use it to digitize live video/audio as well as playing tapes.

But that doesn't allow for any processing and I couldn't play back video/audio elsewhere on the computer at the same time because just the capturing takes the full resources of this fast (dual Quad core) PC to do it with no issues.

At the TV Center we used a (not so cheap) composite to Firewire and Firewire to composite converter box to get video in and out of a Mac. But it also would not go both ways at the same time.

You might end up having to use two PCs. Or offload the video clips to USB drives or sticks and play them on external players like WDTV. Or alternately do the capturing separately to a DV camera.

[xart]

[lizlarsen]

I posted my system-in-progress details here:
http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=48

[Veqtor]

Man, I wish ableton live 9 will have video capabilities (capture and playback).

Otherwise someone ought to do an audiovisualizer daw....

[Arturo00]

Xart did you ever end up finding a solution? I'm in the same boat as you: well versed in audio hardware and software, but not so much with video. Also, like you I am (or after reading this thead, was) looking for a way to simultaneously output and capture video, as well as capture audio (with an RME Fireface 800).

So I learned a new term today: VIVO (video in video out). I've been looking at video cards that have this feature with CV or S-Video I/O. But from what I've been reading in this thread, the ability to output and capture video (like I do with audio almost daily) isn't possible. So how does one output a video feed into their lzx system, synthesize it and record the results? Will I need a secondary output device (like an iPhone/iPad) and only use the video card for capturing purposes? Won't this make things like syncing and lining up the original and processed videos a huge hassle?

Technically couldn't I output one of the VGA monitor outputs (into a scan converter), process that and feed it back into video card via CV?

So I'm looking for something on the cheap for now (under $250) and this one piqued my interest ATI Radeon X1950 XTX. It's old, but I don't need anything fancy...or modern.

Forgive my newbiness.

Thx

[wcfields]

[lizlarsen]

See also this thread:
http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51895