Yep that's the one. They are old but in my experience, pretty reliable. I still borrow one from a friend of mine on occasion when I need a backup on a tight budget show. All I can say is I've never had an issue. That being said....buyer beware when buying anything used.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

yes I'm always a little wary. Do you remember if the unit can do PiP? I have been reading through the manual and I cannot find a reference to PiP anywhere. IF not PiP, then split screen. I need to be able to put a camera feed from backstage as PiP or top 1/3 (etc etc) on top of a wide angle of the stage. IS that possible with the Panasonic unit?

Don't have their manuals in front of me, but as I recall almost all of the units will do a 'corner wipe' PiP sort of deal. So it's probably possible as a transition at the very least. But again, check to make sure it 'grows' in instead of 'flows' in. In other words a corner wipe that enlarges the other shot out of the corner instead of revealing the other shot from out of the corner.

I honestly don't know. I've never had need of that feature.

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

Additional Info
 

I have received confirmation that the s-video cable run needs to be around 250' to go from on stage, down the side, into a tunnel, and up the audience seating area to the AV platform in the back. The AV tech I talked to seemed to think that no boosters would be needed, but there is no way I'm buying a single 300' cable (would be useless to me for anything else). However, 3x100' cables would be useful, so now I need to test and see if that much cable causes signal problems for our on stage camera.

Anyone have experience running video 300' in any format? If so, what cable did you use? I'm not tied to S-video, but from what I can tell, s-video is cheaper to run longer distances than RGB, Coax, BNC, composite, etc. Is that correct? Picture quality really doesn't have to be great, since this would be for a PiP or split screen on a SD DVD burned live at the event (in other words, no two-pass rendering ,etc).

As stated, look into running via Cat-5 with Baluns connectors.

http://www.svideo.com/svideobalun.html

I do a fair bit of multi camera live switched stuff and have had VERY mixed results with DVD-R recorders. I've had a few outright failures in terms of being able to access the discs afterward. FYI.

I've had one with digitally garbled audio. Wish I'd run it in to a DV tape or FireStore as well as the DVD recorder. Needless to say it was the final Act of the last night of a week of performances. Any other part wouldn't have mattered so much. Next time I do double audio just to be sure. Moral: if it can happen - it will, sooner or later.

For sure Murphy will rule in any live event situation. Double redundancy is always a good idea. When we do remote, we record to the hard drive of the Tricaster, A DVD-R copy in a seperate burner, and a S-VHS tape all in the portable flypack. This is in addition to broadcasting direct to Comcast and streaming over the internet.

Expec the unexpected. Remember, if you have a loss of power, most DVD-R burners will lose your disc - you won't be able to finalize what you have on it. So its best to keep your burner on a UPS in such an emergency.

I did a dry run last night with the newly purchased Toshiba D-R410. Pretty nice. Worked with out a problem. S-video in and out (complete pass through too so if the unit is off, the input L1 just gets passed right through). It also has 1394 on the front (along with s-video, and the three RCAs). I haven't tested the 1394 yet and probably won't ever unless I am burning straight from one camera.

I burned at SP mode (2hrs on a single layer DVD-r) and then the final 30 seconds of the disc on XP mode (1hr per single side disc). Seemed to work just fine. Finalization took a minute, which is when the player creates menus for each recording session.

I'll be testing it in a realistic setup of the upcoming concert to see if it can do 8min burns and then finalize fast enough to be done in time for the next group. I will be keeping an eye on compatibility issues like you mentioned, and hopefully only using Sony DVD-R discs and only burning at the normal XP more (1hr per single layer disc) will eliminate many of those problems.

We will actually have two of these DVD recorders on hand in case finalization takes too long with one. Then we will switch to the second burner and let the first finish.

I already have a small PC UPS lined up just for the burner and should be able to power it for a minute or so. I also have a much larger UPS (1000VAmp) for the live mixer, webcaster, & backup PC that can probably last 3 minutes or so with all three attached (may be).

I use S-Video/Stereo Baluns from Black Box Canada $153Cdn per pair. I've run a 1000' of Cat5 without any loss in video quality.

S-Video/Stereo Balun - Blackbox Canada

hey, I'm totally new at this, so I'm wondering...(if someone can fill me in)

I'm trying to do something similar, only I don't need to edit right away. I just wanna run three cameras into one monitor/laptop/computer for overseeing purposes during a live event shoot.

my question is, what would be the best way to go about doing this?
I was told by one source that I would need a switcher.

I'm totally green. and most of this stuff (switchers and stuff) is a foriegn concept

If I need a switcher, what would be a good one to buy? (I would rather not spend over $1000)
How do switchers work?

sorry for asking so many stupid sounding questions, but that's how I learn things.

Thanks


BTW Jason,
This Event you are talking about wouldn't happen to be a SPEBSQSA event would it?
Just wondering.