Shooting to WME 9.0: switch multi LIVE sources?
 

Can WME 9.0 support switching between more than one live source while recording to disk?

I see it can switch between live and pre-recorded (files) sources, but haven't seen anything about switching between two live cameras.

I have two firewire cards in a PC -- if we can use WME as a get-by-for-now switcher, it'd be a Godsend!

I have an XP box with two FW cards, plus an ATI TV Wonder Pro -- in the past, we fed the ATi an svideo feed from a switcher--- 'switching' inside of WME would make for a much clearer picture!

Can this be done? Anyone used it like this? Computer has plenty of CPU power, RAM and a fast HD...

Probably yes, but i do not really see the use. Either you switch out of WME several sources ( a small videonics mixer will be great) and use the encoder for what it is made for, or you can use it the way you say, but remember, it is streaming, so there is a several second delay between input and output, so as mixer it is pretty useless. And pushing the WME to its limit usually crash the machine, so i would not recommend this.

Yes, it can be done
 

It can be done, but there are a couple of things you need to know.

First, for Windows to recognize more than one firewire camera is a hit and miss. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it won't; a reboot might help... or it may not. There is a piece of software from one of our members here at DVinfo (but I can't find it right now) that takes care of this and more - you can even record two SD streams simultaneously with it.

The second caveat is: there will be a short glitch when switching between the two cameras. I've done this for about a year for live transmissions from my church, until we bought the Datavideo switcher.