I ask this question once a year or so...

I shoot a lot of long meetings that are put up on the web. I'm dreaming of a faster workflow.

Is there anything out there--camcorder to software--that will allow a "straight to web" workflow?

As of now I ingest into iMovie (FCE is buggy here), export Full Quality, then convert to Flash. With multi-hour movies each step takes a long, long time. I dream of a camcorder that shoots in mp4 at a lower bitrate...

Anything out there to improve the workflow?

--Darin

if you have to edit in between, there is no reason to use a camera that would provide a higly compressed video for the web.
if you just want a meeting recorded, simply record it directly to a laptop. the second the meeting is finished , the video will be available.
Some other camera can give you a "youtube - ready" video, but usually these devices are targeted for the low&cheap market , so quality is low&cheap too.

definitely, you would simply connect the firewire output of my DV cam to a laptop and produce the stream on the fly.

Hi Giroud,

I've experimented with recording directly to laptop and that works (at least when it doesn't!). But too complicated for my volunteers to use. Plus a little inflexible--takes up more space (important in small meeting roms) and, of course, I'm tethered to the laptop.

As far as "editing" all I do with these is break them up into shorter sections for viewer convince. No real editing of any sort.

I'm thinking of going to a CF-based cam early next year so that will speed one part of the workflow way up. Just looking to see what others have found.

--Darin