I'm trying to figure out the best way to film/capture something for work and I wanted to see if anyone has any ideas for me.

I will have four cameras that will remain stationary for a shoot. If I ran cables from the cameras to a central location, the run would be about 600 feet per camera.

I was originally thinking of figuring out how to run a bnc cable from the cameras to tape decks in a central location and recording to tape from the dv decks. The job has some down time so I need to be able to hit record and stop throughout the day...not a continuous capture.

Is there a way, an approach, a product that would allow me to do something like this but instead of capturing to tape, capture to hard drive? I don't imagine fire wire cables can possibly run that far. Does anyone know if I can capture from the dv deck only when it's recording? Or any type of solution like that?

Thanks,

Rick

That could get expensive, and I don't know the transmission limits of signals over firewire cables. That would also depend on the cable quality. Don't know about a wireless transmitter system, maybe you can hire some gear - bridge the firewire signals over a network.

It may be more practical to have 3 or 4 people assigned to operating the (other) cameras - and communicate via radios. Get them to all start the cameras at the same time, and stop as close together as possible. Obviously you need people with a little expertise so you can trust them to do things properly.
Maybe you can't get extra people to help out, but it could prove much simpler, and less expensive. So long as you do a thorough practice run to make sure you sort out any issues. But you'd need to do that in most cases anyway.

Just a couple of ideas. Other people will probably have faced similar situations before, and probably know what gear might work.

Do some editing packages like Pinnacle Liquid Edition have a multi camera capture? I have seen something similar to this in it's capture window.

I'm sure I read somewhere on this forum someone working on remote system based on cat5e cable = maybe do a search?

I would say your only solution would be to record at the cameras but use a remote system to control the recorders...

Multi camera remote control via CAT5
http://www.grizzlypro.com/

I read about the product on another forum. I have no affiliation with the company and have not evaluated the product.