Recording a VTC

[MACC the AVCOtek]

We currently spec a VHS player for recording video conferences in most of our VTC installs. Has anybody had any luck with something a little more....digital? Maybe something like this: Panasonic DMR-E85HS (http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11251&catalogId=11005&modelNo=DMR-E85HS)

What does everybody else use?
Is recording a VTC something that is frequently done?

[Gary Miyakawa]

All the recording that I've done was using the iPower system with the digital record option. This allows the conference to be recorded in WMV format. It captures Video/Audio/High Res Graphics (Content) and typically burns about 80mb per hour. You can increase the burn rate to improve the quality, using more disk space. "From the factory" the capture rate is 128kb and is very good (surprisingly good)... I've increased to 384kb for demos and tests and the burn rate went to 3*80mb (240mb per hour) which still gives you a solid 2 hours on a CD. If you'd like to see the quality, I might be able to put a 5mb sample up somewhere for people to view. Just let me know.

This option does cost $2500 (retail) and you get to record as much as you like.

Gary Miyakawa

P.S. Only the iPower can record this way but the good news is that the other end (or ends, (MCU)) can be most anything.

[tom9933]

We typically use the Starbak VCG for recording events and classes. The biggest advantages of the VCG are the ease of use and the quality of the image (since it hasn’t been re-encoded). The files produced by the VCG are then either burned to CD/DVD or sent to the client through the network. BTW we also typically use 384k because of the 2 hour per CD issue.
We also have several codecs tied into a routing switcher which allows us to record on most of the typical formats VHS, DVD, DV, DVC-Pro and of course with a capture card in the computer.

[mazzarak]

we get a lot of people asking us to record their conferences, so we connect a codec on ourselves and wire it to a VCR.

Not very hi-tech but very cheap and very effective...

[Toney]

In our conference rooms, we connect the VC codec outputs to a PC with a cheap capture card (something like Winnov Vidium). We capture the streams in formats like ASF. We like this method because we then serve the streams from a streaming server and we're able to sync them with Powerpoint slide transition times we capture manually.

[MACC the AVCOtek]

Originally posted by tom9933@May 24 2004, 03:26 PM
We typically use the Starbak VCG for recording events and classes.
Great lead on the Starbak! Thanks for the info.

Most of the systems we do are onesey-twosies so the VCG is probably a bit overkill, but it's good to know it exists just in case we do an enterprise thing....

[MACC the AVCOtek]

Originally posted by Gary Miyakawa@May 22 2004, 01:11 AM
All the recording that I've done was using the iPower system with the digital record option.
I was not aware the iPower had this option. Learn something new every day!

Mahalo! :lol:

[Gary Miyakawa]

I'm working on getting an example (around 5mb I hope) that people can download and see what the capture/record quality looks like. I'm going to try and get one at 128kb and one at 384kb. They both should have People + Content so you can see how the content looks (High res graphics presentations) along with the video.

Will probably take a few days...

Gary Miyakawa

[Airwave1]

I have a video editing PC here that has a good quality S-Video capture card so I use it to record conferences. I just record it in as an uncompressed AVI. file then edit it and compress it to DVD-R so it can be watched on a consumer DVD player.
The draw back to this system is it can be time consuming and I do not work beisde the Video editing PC, the quality is very good though.

Has anyone ever come across a system that allows the recording of a XGA input?
Most of our conferences now utilise XGA presentations or screen shots/images of the same reolution so it would be nice to be able to record these, say onto a DVD rom which could then be played back on a PC (with an XGA monitor). Is this possible??
Im guessing that if it is its going to be waaaayyyy pricey!

I use mainly Tandberg 880's, anyone recomend a good peice of (free) software that can record its live stream?

Thanks

[tom9933]

We demoed a system a while back called media site live (check out the following link)
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/systems/mslive.asp
Basically they sell you an encoder pc with A/V and RGB (Hi-Res Content). The encoder creates a Windows Media file with integrated tags that point to natively captured JPEG images. The system produces some very nice streams but as I recall the cost for the encoder by itself was around 25K. BTW at the time of the demo they said they were working on a way to export the file/embedded player to a DVD or CD.
We tested the system by taking the A/V and RGB outputs from a VS4000 and used the system to stream/archive a live conference. The stream looked very good and the XGA capture capabilities were very impressive. I’m still looking for a way to stream the A/V and Content (H.239) directly from the conference, but this may give you a good solution for today.

[Yesterday]

Starbak (mentioned earlier in this thread) is a neat appliance and good if you want techies to do the post-production work. If you're looking for a software-based app that's end-user-friendly, take a look at ConferServ. I was recently introduced to it by IVCi (www.ivci.com). Just another option . . . .

[Crash]

I have implemented a system, which ties in an IP video server. I can use this to not only record the video, but also to stream it to my users who are unable to attend the VTC, but would like to listen.

[trapehzoid]

Great lead on the Starbak! Thanks for the info.

Most of the systems we do are onesey-twosies so the VCG is probably a bit overkill, but it's good to know it exists just in case we do an enterprise thing....

I've seen the confserv solution and I find it much much better then these simple encoder systems mainly because its a full solution.

Includes encoding, archiving, management, video on demand, live streaming, and distribution.

The solution is suprisingly easy to use has performed flawlessly every time I've seen it.

Anyone looking to archive, VoD, or do internet streaming of their VTC I highly recommend you at least give them a call.

[panzer]

How about Vbrick www.vbrick.com. They have a nice applicance based encoder MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 that is controllable via RS232. The content is stored on the internal 80 gig drive and it can configured to be scheduled to send to a server via FTP afterwards.

Panzer

[thefogf1]

The only problem with the Starbak product is that is VERY OS specific and browser version specific. We did extensive testing with this product and that seemed to be it's only downfall.

[swindman]

You may want to look into the IP VCR from Codian. Records, streams and is easy to use. If you need more information, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Thanks,
Sally