On Location vision mixing with 2 or more cameras?

[Patrick Grealy]

Hello All

I regularly film staged (usually musical) events with more that one camera (SONY PDX10 by two) and am considering eliminating or reducing all the time I spend in Post Production by doing a live vision mix at the venue. (Othen for a two set stage musical with two cameras and 60 minute acts, I end up spending 10-20 hours in post)

If I were to attempt to vision mix at the venue, what would I need in term of a vision mixer and cables to connect the cameras (which are often up to forth feet apart). I have a SONY DSR 11 as a VTR

What would you recommend?

Thanks

P

[Chris Hurd]

There are two FireWire-equipped DV mixers that I'm aware of. One is the Videonics MXPro DV and the other is the Datavideo SE-800. I haven't used either one, but perhaps somebody else who has will chime in here.

[Lisa Shofner]

The SE-800 site moved from the linke Chris provided. It's now at:
http://www.datavideo.us/fs/products/se800_fs.htm

I am just wondering if anyone has used the system (with the 4 monitors). I am looking at picking that up for my new project. The biggest question I have is the ease of use. It doesn't look hard to learn, but anyone have an idea on the learning curve? I've never used editing hardware before, but I've used lots of different edting software.

Thanks in advance for any info you have on this topic.

[Wade Spencer]

Edirol makes some decent, affordable video mixers too.

Where are you pulling your audio from? Does it come from the cameras? If not, you may not want to go with a cheaper firewire mixer, as your video will be delayed behind your audio and you probably won't be able to make up for it.

[Lisa Shofner]

I'll have xlr mics set up and atached to each camera. so as far as the mixer is concered, the audio will come from the camera.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

Using the audio from the camera needs to be looked at carefully
Usually in a multicamera shoot, you are looking at the same scene but having two different perspectives. If you have the camera's in different positions and you switch the audio with the camera (audio follows video) you get a change in the audio that in many cases might be distracting. USUALLY and again this is just a thought, it is better to set up the audio independently from the video so that you have a stable consistent audio track and record it that way

A lot of the vision mixers have facilities left over from linear editing were two independent tapes might be being switched.

Again, just a suggestion
Sharyn

[Glenn Chan]

If you need long cable runs and you're on a budget, you might want to go with an analog mixer like the Panasonic MX-50. Get some S-video --> 2 X co-axial adapters and use coaxial cable. You might as well use the highest grade co-axial cable (RG-6 I think).

Audio can be handled seperately with well-placed microphones, XLR cables running into an audio mixer (and then into the VTR). You can also throw a limiter/compressor in there to help avoid clipping (although this makes the audio setup more complicated).

(Othen for a two set stage musical with two cameras and 60 minute acts, I end up spending 10-20 hours in post)

Have you tried good multicamera tools?
i.e. Vegas / 3rd party scripts like the ones from VASST
latest version of FCP
etc. etc.

I remember doing things without a multicamera tool and it was very tedious. But it seems like the newer tools will speed things up quite a bit; it shouldn't take you that long to cut things together. You also have the flexibility of cutting out camera mistakes, which tends to happen.

2- As far as the analog mixers go:
Videonic MX-1: has a few-several frames of delay when you do edits. i.e. cut doesn't happen right away
Panasonic MX-50: No delay. Supposedly there is a modification to increase resolution. *I never compared these mixers on resolution.
Edirol/Roland video mixer (V-4?): Doing cuts is a really weird fingerful of buttons, since this mixer was designed for parties/video DJs and not video production. You have to hold down the cut button and push the T-bar over. If you screw this up, it will cut back to the original shot.

3- To monitor the cameras, take a composite/RCA or S-video feed from the camera into a monitor. Professional monitors allow you to loop-through signals, although you don't need this since the cameras tend to output multiple signals at once. So you could just use an extra co-axial cable (with the right adapters).

[Wade Spencer]

Don't run your audio through the camera....it will only make things more complicated.

The Edirol LVS400 is a good mixer, and much easier to use than the V-4 (the one made for clubs). I've never used the Panasonic mentioned, but I've had much better experiences with the Edirol over the Videonics. I've used and sold both in the company I work for.

I'd set up a system like this....diagram attached.

The DSR-11 isn't the greatest choice for this because it only offers an unbalanced audio connection, and has no audio meters to monitor the incoming audio levels. Just keep your levels right at the mixer and the compressor, and you should be ok.

If you more money to spend, you could buy a rackmount of three monitors...use two of them for preview monitors and the third one for a program monitor. It may be cheaper to do that anyway.

Good luck!

[Glenn Chan]

Wade, nice diagram!

I think it was the V-4 that had that annoyance that I describe in my post.

[Wade Spencer]

Yeah...the V-4 just has too many features for what most people will use. The LVS-400 is quite nice. I work for a company that sells to the church market, and I usually recommend that one to them, especially with the volunteer status of most church's video staff.

[Tim Dixon]

I recently purchased this mixer and am having trouble deciding on what to do about audio. My current setup consists of 3 GL2's, an SE800 DV mixer(with the monitors) and two FS4 80gig firestore drives. I am in the business of shooting lecturers and my events are two 9 hour days back to back. This is the reason I went tapeless and live mix. I was spending way too much time post and decided this was the best solution. I shoot one of these events a month and need to get all 18 hours back on DVD to the attendees before the next gig starts.

So my problem right now is audio. I have a wireless setup and tests so far running severals hours (my wife reading a book in camera-"are we done yet") are there is no sync problem with the audio/video signal. As you transition through camera views the SE800 does an incredible job of syncing (not to mention there is a sync + - toggle that allows you to sync live by watching the output monitor and listening with headphones) and so I am quite pleased with the results after several multi-hour long captures.

But what I need is the ability to capture audience feedback from another mic source. Does anyone have a suggestion of a pre-mixer that would allow me to use wireless handhelds mixed with the speakers wireless mic into a single audio signal before it gets to the mixer?

Any ideas and suggestions are much appreciated.

Tim

Edit: I ended up going with an Behringer Eurorack UB1202FX Mixing Board { http://www.behringer.com/UB1202FX/index.cfm?lang=ENG }.

Seems like it should do the trick. Still interested in what others might have to say on the subject.