Real-Time Video Mixing

[Bruce Pelley]

Ken,

The MCE Quickstream device was very interesting & more affordable.Isn't the day coming when minidv camcorders will have these or the equivalent onboard which will save head wear,eliminate transfer/capture time and the minidv tape itself goes the way of "8 track" audio tape of the 70's?How far away would that possibly be?

Let's take this one step futher please.Current scenario... indoor,synchronized,2-3 camera shoot.Imported into a PC.Have about zero video editing knowledge.To add experience and perspective..previously,my background,until a few months ago,was to switch between multiple cameras live with a Panasonic digital mixing board and capture the master output/mix to a Mac,S-VHS & other tape medium including minidv.The parameters,however,has changed dramtically. New church location,brand new ballgame,a lot less to work with & I'm wondering what the best approach & solution would be factoring in the above.

To your knowledge,is there a PC application or one that is combined with a card or other hardware that would do the following?On the Apple side,I have an older,slower G4,but it would require major upgrades to bring it relatively current.

Imported two,1 hour minidv tapes.My goal is to use the computer to watch these 2 video files(1 from each camera)simultaneously,live and in REAL TIME be able to switch between those streaming files and capture/create a 3rd master,i.e mixed file which will be undergo further processing and enhancement.

Is this even remotely feasible or are there other options that will achieve the same thing outside of tedious,time consuming editing?

Any ideas or reccomendations?

To summarize,on the computer i want to mix digitally from 2 source files/feeds in real time,saving the resulting file to hard drive for further work latter,such as adding titles or special effects.

Many thanks for you continued input.

Bruce

[Ken Tanaka]

[i]This was split from a thread in the Long Black Line forum.[i]