titling hardware for Focus Mx-Pro
 

I teach at a small private high school. We have been producing a few shows with our Mx-Pro. I have three VX-2100s coming into the inputs and an audio board to capture sound. I send it all out to a box that converts the signal into DV and sends it to my Imac. I was wondering if there was any hardware out there that allows me to add titles to the video before it gets converted to DV. What is this hardware, how much is it, and where can I buy it? Any information you can give me would be sweet. I'm new to live production, but I'm trying to learn.

Videonics used to make a Titlemaker that ran in-line with the output and inserted text. I've used it before and was not impressed with the quality of the graphics, easy of use, or how it handled the overall picture quality. But if there's no other options it would fill in a quick and dirty title if needed.

I'm not sure who's making a quality stand alone titler at the moment.

If your MX Pro has a key input you could run your titles through that input and key them over the video. That would yield good results but the mixer would need to be feed off a computer with a video analog out signal. Check out: http://www.markertek.com/SearchProdu...ff=6&sort=prod

Creating and overlaying titles off a pc will yield the highest quality results, but the learning curve may be high and the cost of the seperate graphics pc is also something to consider.

If you just want something simple you could run a message system like this: http://www.markertek.com/SearchProdu...f=14&sort=prod

The message system won't create high quality graphic overlays, but it's fast and easy to use which may work depending on what you want done.

Check around and see what will work for your budget and needs.

Ben