I would class these in the prosumer range. Really not expensive at all when it comes to professonal video hardware!! Trust me on that one! Although I have worked for some very well known companies that have used their products. Still they were only considered suitable, and high enough quality for certain applications (eg News, not serious Drama or high end productions) along with ffmbc* (the broadcast version of ffmpeg) but that probably says more about the ffmbc encoding/conversion than it does about the capture cards. Certain editors/producers complaining about the quality when downconverting from HD to SD. As I said they considered this good enough for News (where you might need many such systems nationwide, if not worldwide, and cost is an issue and turnover rate of material is very fast) but they wouldn't even entertain it for Production. Seems the Beeb considers their cameras good enough for production these days though...** * https://code.google.com/p/ffmbc/ ** http://www.broadcastingcable.com/thewire/bbc-hit-daytime-drama-moving-shot-…

On Tue, 25 Nov 2014, Simon Wise wrote: I agree it is a bit pricey compared to what most DIY setups are. I am looking at what the SW I have tried can do and what we used in The TV station where I worked in the early 80s had in even on air, but not much different in production. We had basically two hard switchers that each had one push button for each source available in the station. At the right side was a T handle fader that faded from one switch output to the other. That fade could be verying amounts of each signal (fade to black or whatever) or could be a wipe (a moving pre-selected shaped key) or a chromakey (what it was called then). What I have seen in live stream SW has the switcher part, but not the fade or keying except being able to key in a box in a set place on the screen. The idea of a wipe, even timed so a physical fader is not needed, is not there. Maybe someone can suggest SW that has some of these things, but the only solution I saw was with HW. What SW does have, is the ability to sync unrelated video streams at the cost of added latency. We used to call it a frame storer. Unfortunately, the newer DSLRs don't seem to have a DV output to firewire as some of the old video cameras did. Maybe this is still more common than I know. However with the OPs comment about having remote students speak on the screen the cameras in question will likely be webcams of various quality (the $3 dollar store ones are surprisingly good if you add some light) then the SW switching and being able to add a second video box to the screen may be enough for what is needed. I think that any of the cameras I have (including the DSLR) video out to a video capture card are not going to look any better... though the DSLR does have a nicer zoom and can focus. Having worked in the video business, I have never been interested in family video "taping" and so do not have a video camera/recorder to play with. I have a young boy who may change that, he has already done some stop motion animation and finds it easier to tell a story that way than with words. However, for most of what he would do, recording to file(s) and then mixing/switching/fading/etc. in post production rather than real time is more likely. I meantioned the keyer on a card only in case something more than what was available in SW was wanted. I think it is still cheaper than a full HW keyer, but yes it costs more than most of us wants to pay (or can). -- Len Ovens www.ovenwerks.net

On 25/11/14 20:37, Simon Wise wrote: Was going to mention Pd and GEM. Very surprised there is no mix or wipes on the software you're using. Pretty easy to program! So did you ever release this solution you made to the public? ;-) As I've mentioned before, for the more budget oriented (who are unlikely to have cameras with full (HD)SDI output for use with a Blackmagic card anyway!) there are the Happauge capture cards, which always had some amount of Linux support and can generally be picked up for very little. Dale.