Straight to low-res web format?
 

Hello,

I'm trying to solve this problem:

I need to put together a low-budget video system to be used by local volunteers to tape public meetings.

I need to be able to get these on the web with a minimum of fuss. No editing whatsoever.

Obviously I could just have them shoot it with a handycam and convert it to a web format--but that would take such a long time. The meetings can go up to three hours in length.

Are there any sort of straight to web solutions? Especially something small enough to play well on the web?

Thanks,

--Darin

I use Sorenson Squeeze to compress for the web, it is a standard in the web-video world. 3 Hours of footage is a lot of Video/Audio to digest as it streams off a server, I assume you are gonna divide it into segments even then it is a lot of work for the users computer and bandwidth. Sorenson is nice because it encode in multiple formats (e.g. Windows, QT, Real, Flash) the video also looks great if you understand the controls.

Someone here mentioned a program called "MPEG Streamclip" for compressing. I use it for changing m2t. files to .mpg's so I don't know how well it works as a compressor, I bring it up because it was cheap or free when I got it. I haven't compressed anything with it myself, it might be worth investigating yourself if budget is an issue.

Good Luck

Chris Watson
Watson MediaWorks

I don't know about current models, but the Sony TRV-950 and PDX-10 are able to stream video over USB. The feature only works with PC software and I'm on the Mac so I never tried it on my PDX-10. But it might do what you want. You could also look into some web cam options.

You could always get some kind of box to do the compression for you if you don't need to control quality that much. On the Mac I've used products from El Gato (www.elgato.com) but there are many options out there for both PCs and Macs. It really depends on just HOW small you need to make the video files and if the camera work is good enough to shrink the resolution and such. Trying to read things like chalkboards can be tricky if there is any kind of camera movement.

If you have a laptop you could essentially do it in real time with on of these devices, otherwise you would need to play it back in real time and convert on the fly. Also, this would be using the analog outputs on a camera, so you would probably have a bit of quality loss. Camera via analog out -> EyeTV (ElGato product doing MPEG2/4 conversion) via USB/Firewire -> Computer.