wedding videos

[jon_hynes]

hello,

i work for a guy that does weddings videos, as well as photography,

and we are planning on upgrading to digital video, he wants to do

weddings like 4 camera shoots . . . all run to a mixing station where

ill be miixing and recording the wedding right there at the wedding.

im wondering if this mixer can handle that

http://www.adorama.com/catalog.tpl?

op=details&sid=104152658837512675&sku=VDVIDVM

 

it only has 2 firewire inputs by the looks of it, so i was wondering

if that was gonna be a problem, am i gonna lose a lot of quality

running two of the cameras on s video, or rca cables? or is there

another way to hook up all the cameras with firewire to this board?

also, i will probably need something to use with such long firewire

and s video cables to take out noise since they will be so long

right? thanks for any help you can give. have a nice day

[artie_kraemer]

A little background on me... I've been shooting weddings for approx 11 years and I work for HBO. With that said, I don't think you'll lose all that much quality running the cameras from a Svhs cable or RCA's. You can also try running BNC's from the camera's output, if you are using pro cameras, and not even bother with firewire. Run one camera (BNC) with audio (RCA) to the switcher and run the other cameras via BNC's to the switcher without audio. Video signal is video signal however you look at it. You might not have a problem with the noise, but i think you'll have to do a test shoot to see. On another note, If you guys are shooting a 4 camera shoot you might want to record to miniDV then non-linear edit after the fact using live audio off of one camera. It'll be easier for 2 reasons. One: you have guests at a wedding...alot of them, how do you plan on securing the lines to the cameras without drunk guests tripping over them. Hope you have insurance!!! Two: It is alot easier to add animation and other sources of video in a controlled environment. Also, reviewing your footage and the audio from the shoot is easier in a quiet room. I think you should rethink this idea. The B&G can wait a month or so for a better product especially if the prices you charge are going to be steep! For a 4 camera shoot I know they are... Artie

[artie_kraemer]

P.S. you can also use XLR's to transport audio signals to the switcher.

[aaron l]

Second to Artie's posting. It appears you don't have a TV studio setup, so you don't have their capability of online, active editing. Even they have tons of stuff set up before hand. Record to miniDV & edit later. Why would you want to try to do this in realtime, getting drunk uncle Joe stumbling into your gear & cables?