Live Sports Events
 

Hi All

Just a quick question that I am hoping for some help with...

I film live sporting events and currently record to CF with my Z7 and then edit in score updates and titles in post before I burn to DVD.

I have worked in the past with the NewTek Tricaster and some Grass Valley vision mixers to do it all at once live to DVD.

BUT they were begged, borrowed...and hired...so now I am trying to look at doing it permanently but cheaply, I don't really want to buy a mixer...if I have too I would only be looking at things in the Edirol V-4 or V-8 range.

I have a DVD recorder (a panasonic unit that takes component, s video and composite in). But I would prefer a solution that maybe allows me to record MPEG-2 DVD formated files to my laptop so I can then put in custom menus made earlier.

Any ideas would be great!!

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

I have been taping Aussie Rules matches on my hv20 and adding titles, scores and timer in post. In the off-season I have been working on an app to capture live to a laptop in MPEG-2 format with titles, scores, clock etc overlayed in real-time. The idea is to be able to burn a dvd of a match immediately following the game.

If you are still interested (or if anyone else is too) I will post more details.

Cheers

Still Interested
 

Hi Graeme

I am definitely still interested. I had one of my mates working on an app that would feed live overlays out a VGA of a laptop to a mixer, the mixer would key the footage and the feed it into another laptop to capture.

An all in one app sounds more elegant though!!

Does you app work similar to Adobe OnLocation but with the ability to do live overlays?

Look forward to hearing more!

Cheers

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

My solution uses the Fathsoft VideoCapX multimedia ActiveX component in a VB6 application. Videocapx does most of the work, so you don't need to be an expert in programming.

My camera is attached via firewire, though you should be able to use any standard Windows video capture device. I have tested it with a USB video capture device using a composite input cable.

I use the bitmap overlay function of videocapx to provide a background to the scoreboard and the text overlay function to display the text/scores etc. The bitmap overlay function has variable levels of transparency and you can select a transparent color (eg to get rounded edges etc)

You can select the video codec you would like to use and modify compresion etc. Again, videocapx makes this pretty simple.

Enosoft also has a similar product which works with DV over firewire only.

The app as still in its early stages, but I will see if I can get a screenshot and sample video up for you in the next few days.


Cheers

A screenshot of the app:

http://www.dovetoneaglesfc.com.au/im...Screenshot.jpg

I will have a sample mpg at home somewhere...

My trial period for videocapx has expired and I am waiting for the developer to release the next version (supposedly in a week or so) before I splash out and buy it. I have been told that it will have support for multiple cameras - fingers crossed.

These screenshots are from the last post edit I did, not from my app, but they demostrate exactly what my app can produce:

http://www.dovetoneaglesfc.com.au/im...Scoreboard.jpg

http://www.dovetoneaglesfc.com.au/im...Scoreboard.jpg

(buriness is due to interlacing)

edit: images are 720x576 widescreen format, hence some players looking slimmer than they are in real life ;)