I need advice on Guitar Amp DVD Project

[DaveWest]

Greetings everyone, this is my first post!


Here is what I want to do:

I want to use all of my studio equipment to record stereo tracks of an individual playing a guitar amp (West Labs Pico-Fire) I am about to put into production.

At the same time I wnt to record video of the the same event using a digital video camera.

I then want to put these two "things" on a promotional DVD that a possible customer can play.


Here is what I have:

Pretty good studio equipment

Mackie 24-8 mixing board
Good Mics
Good Mixing speakers
16 tracks of ADAT
Pro CD Recorder for Mastering


Here is what I don't have:

Digital Camera
Sound Card for Computer(?)
Software to utilize my Audio and Video tracks and place them concurrently on a DVD


Here is what I need:

Digital Camera
Advice on what Software and Sound Card(?) to use
Advice on how to hook this stuff together to achieve my goal


Any advice anyone can give me is more than welcome and will be greatly appreciated!


Dave West

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Dave,

Here's what I use for my video production work and it works like a charm for me:

Camera: Any megapixel Mini-DV camcorder with Firewire output capability will do a servicable job; picture quality in MiniDV keeps getting better every year. For best results, though - if you want something that has a more pro feel to it, rent (or buy if your really lucky) a pro DV camera - something along the lines of the famous Canon XL2.

Keep in mind that, just like with music recording, the quality of your resulting video is going to be entirely dependant upon your tracking techniques. This means setting up a decent stage setting with proper lighting. be prepared to budget for the rental or purchase of lights, bounce light products, mics, etc. Much of that can be homemade and done on the cheap, but proper lighting design is what'll seperate your DVD from some kid on YouTube.

PC Interface: This is the easy part. All you need is a PC with a Firewire input and plenty of hard drive space. If you're PC doesn't have built-in Firewire, the Adaptec Firewire PCI cards are rock-solid for this stuff.

Software: There ae a few choices, but for me this is a no-brainer; stick with the Sony software line. Period. For recording, mixing and editing the video and audio, Sony Vegas just can't be beat on the price/performance scale, IMHO. Anything and everything you'll ever need to do in multitrack A/V editing can easily be done with Vegas, and it's no-nonsense layout and interface can't be beat for efficiency and productivity.

I'd also recommend Sony's DVD Architect for actually building and burning the pre-master DVD. There's a ton of DVD menu and index building and burning software out there, and frankly 99% of it absolutely sucks for anything more than archiving Uncle Ed's home movies. DVD Architect actually works (you'd be suprised how much DVD software doesn't work right), actually lets you build DVDs the way the big boys do, and integrates nicely with Vegas. You can probably even find Vegas and DVD Architect bundled together these days.

An additional accessory to consider. It's not necessary by any means, but it sure is handy and efficient for video editing; an external jog/shuttle controller wheel. These can be bought seperately and plugged into a USB port on your PC for $50-$75, or you can even buy keyboards with the jog/shuttle wheel built into it for about a hundred bucks or so.

HTH,

G.

 

[DaveWest]

FireWire - What Cameras have it - Putting on my PC?

I haven't been able to make much headway finding out which Video Cameras have Fire-Wire and which do not. I have researched many cameras and never found any mention of Fire-wire. Do I need to start looking above a certain price range?

Does my very late model 64 Bit motherboard probably have Fire-Wire built in, or do I need to purchase a special adaptor?

I am beginning to feel I am too dumb to even contemplate this project!

Dave West

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I haven't been able to make much headway finding out which Video Cameras have Fire-Wire and which do not. I have researched many cameras and never found any mention of Fire-wire. Do I need to start looking above a certain price range?

That should be a fairly common feature these days on anything but the most basic vidcams. They may not actually call it Firewire; it may be referred to as IEEE-1394 (the actual technical specification name for basic Firewire) or possibly as "i-Link". All are basically different names for basically the same interface.

Does my very late model 64 Bit motherboard probably have Fire-Wire built in, or do I need to purchase a special adaptor?

That could go either way. If you know what a Firewire connection looks like, just look at the back of your PC . if you're not sure what's what back there, then you'll have to look up the specs for your board. if it's a recent model, specs should be readily available online. If your board does not have Firewire built in, giid quality cards from Adaptec can be gotten from Best Buy or Circuit City and the like for something like $20-$30.

I am beginning to feel I am too dumb to even contemplate this project!

Only you can answer that one, Dave. I suggest you head down to your local Borders or Barnes and Noble for a leisurely cup of coffee and a browsing of a few beginners books on video recording and editing and see if you feel like you're getting in over your head or not.

Best of luck with it!

G.