I own an investigation firm that provides clients with multiple copies of unedited surveillance tapes on a regular basis. The footage is shot on miniDV. And is used for legal purposes. We are in the middle of an intense research project trying to figure out the best way to provide these tapes in dvd and/or cd format. Currently we provide these on VHS tapes.

(I have a degree in video but from to long ago to even mention. :) However I am quite proficient with computers and keep our 5 pc network going. And have familiarized myself with various editing softwares.)

What is the easiest/fastest way to burn cd's and/or dvd's from miniDV tapes with the following concerns in mind?

1) Date/Time Stamp must be displayed.
2) Each disk needs a few second - company name, address, phone - title.
3) A multiple disk burner that can burn at least 3 disks at once. (Could be a duplicator or a stack of dvd record decks or ?)
4) A format such as WMV (for the cd's) that can be played on clients typically old low tech office pc cd players.
5) Again, the fastest and simplest method. As these are simple unedited tape dupes. With the exception of the title.

We have the title page generated using Studio 10 as an avi.

Windows Movie Maker works just fine and is very easy to use (meaning easy for my employees). But does not burn date/time stamp via firewire - nor is it fast. Neither does Studio 10 to my knowledge (burn the datestamp).

Although Studio 10 does include a direct to dvd software that allows you to burn directly to dvd as you play the video into your pc from the camcorder. We're not sure if it displays timecode or if you can add titles - as it crashed and we've spent an inexcusable amount of time trying to fix it with Pinnacles sorry tech support.

We currently use a standalone dvd recording deck that burns directly from tape played via camcorder. But you lose the ability to add a company logo title intro. And it obviously does not make mulitple copies.

Multiple dvd/cd record drives in a standalone pc type set up (a duplicator?) seem to be the only multiple disk recorders. But you still have to go thru the download, then render, then burn process(?). Maybe I'm wrong about that though - perhaps you can plug a camcorder directly in and make direct to cd or dvd copies on a duplicator? But the question then is can we add a short intro clip?

We have found one software by Exsate that burns via firewire AND includes the date/time stamp. And allows you to add a small intro. But in testing it it seems to take a long time to get thru the download and rendering process. This is using windows codecs which I don't understand - meaning we may have selected a way higher quality than we needed - thus the long time. But it is automatic in that you set up your project and click a button and it downloads, renders and I believe burns it to either your hard drive or dvd/cd drive. Although we havene't tested it that far yet.

*****I guess what we're looking for is a process that will burn multiple disks from a miniDV tape - with a simple logo title and date/time stamp - immediately while playing the source tape. Just like you would playing tapes into a stack of vhs decks.*****

Just thought I'd throw this out there before we spend another 80 hours further researching this. Thanks in advance to anyone that's figured such a system out.


Sincerely,

Patrick Brown

PS - Is there another forum i may want to post this query to?

If you are capturing the video to the computer in the proper format, editing software should not have to render anything and if it does, should do it quickly.
I think the best option would be to invest in a higher end editing program that will be flexible and allow you to accomplish what you wish. From there, you can create a template and use it for each of your videos to save time. Any of the popular programs people around here use will be able to add titles as well as the timecode to the video and it shouldn't take very long to render. From there, you can export to any format you require as well as burn to DVD.
For duplicating, a regular standalone duplicator will work fine.

Hope this helps

"We currently use a standalone dvd recording deck that burns directly from tape played via camcorder. But you lose the ability to add a company logo title intro. And it obviously does not make mulitple copies."

You could continue to use this method, but for the Company Logo, you could play that first to DVD from your video camera or still camera chip via a/v output. There is nothing about DVD recorders that requires you to capture everything in one capture. Then copy video to the dvd video recorder as you normally would. When you fill the particular disk, finalize it, and then duplicate it, either with a single drawer computer, or get a multi drawer one. I have one that has a hard drive to store disk image and 5 drawers to burn to simultaneously. Cost of about $750 shipped. There are cheaper ones on the net.

Of course, I would want to test a final closed DVD to determine if can be duplicated in that manner, but I would think it could be done.

Of course, DVDs won't play in "old" cd files, so if you are going to convert to wma, then you are going to have to capture the intial footage via composite video imput so you can be showing the timecode on the screen, convert to .wmv video files and then transfer that cd. Certainly a lot more time consuming.

So how long should it take to create a project stored to the hard drive that is made up of 30 minutes of raw surveillance footage that includes a 10 second title? CD quality and DVD quality?

All of the programs we've used - Studio 10, Windows Movie Maker, Exsate, - all take at least twice if not three times the amount of tape length in minutes to create a project to the hard drive. Then you have to burn the cd or dvd. Not to mention the labels, envelopes etc.

Also I think your talking about "timecode" and I am referring to "date/time stamp" which I believe are two seperate things.

But it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong! lol. :) I look forward to your response.

Patrick



If you are capturing the video to the computer in the proper format, editing software should not have to render anything and if it does, should do it quickly.
I think the best option would be to invest in a higher end editing program that will be flexible and allow you to accomplish what you wish. From there, you can create a template and use it for each of your videos to save time. Any of the popular programs people around here use will be able to add titles as well as the timecode to the video and it shouldn't take very long to render. From there, you can export to any format you require as well as burn to DVD.
For duplicating, a regular standalone duplicator will work fine.

Hope this helps