several monitors

Torte wrote on 1/29/2006, 2:48 AM
hello all,
I'm from germany and in my hometown the two famous poets Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Friedrich Schiller met the first time. I was asked to help making a video about there meeting. There have been 5 persons at the meeting and they want to have 5 videomonitors and5 loudspeakers on different places each for each person. The recording will be made with 5 cameras and several microphones.
I see no problem to drive the 5 loudspeakers from 5 audio tracks in Vegas. I can do it with my 5.1 sound card or with my tascam DM 24 mixer which is connected to the computer with a fire wire interface.
So far I have not idea how I can drive 5 videomonitors from vegas. I think about using 5 videotracks but I don't know how I can connect each videotrack with separate video outputs especially because i expect them to have 5 normal TV monitors. I don't know if it helps to use video bus tracks. Are there any video card to help to solve this problem. I should mention too that we use the PAL video system and not the NTSC.
would be great if you can help

thanks a lot Matthias

Comments

farss wrote on 1/29/2006, 4:08 AM
You cannot do that and I think you're thinking about this the wrong way.
Apart from anything else you can only feed one video source into Vegas at a time.
First question, what do they expect to see on the monitors?
You could take the video out from each camera to a monitor but that'd only show that camera.

Ideally what you want is a vision switcher and feed its output to a VCR and drive the five monitors from that as well via a distribution amplifier. Basically what you're looking at is full OB setup. However you can put a tape in each camera as well to give you iso recordings so you can improve the edits later on.
Bob.
Chienworks wrote on 1/29/2006, 4:29 AM
Are the 5 monitors to be viewed in real time during the meeting? If so, Vegas isn't involved at all. Vegas is the wrong thing to be thinking about when handling live feeds.

If you are making a recording of the meeting with 5 cameras which are then to be combined into a single video then you don't need to output to 5 monitors at all. Capture each camera one at a time after the meeting is over and use any of the multicam editing techniques often discussed in this forum.

Do you need to accomplish both at the same time? You'll still need some sort of live video system to run the individual monitors. And the video will still be captured from each camera one at a time after the meeting is over.

Do you need to have the recording play back 5 separate video streams on 5 separate monitors simultaneously? If that's the case then you will produce 5 separate videos and you will need some sort of playback equipment that can sync them together. You can edit and produce the individual videos in Vegas. After that you need some hardware solution to facilitate playback.

Your question reminds me of the "three legged dog" questions my physics teacher used to put on his tests. He'd ask something like, "if a dog runs off a 300 meter cliff at 5.5 meters per second, how far from the base of the cliff will he land if he only has three legs." A large part of solving the problem included realizing that the number of legs didn't matter in the slightest. Some students would work very hard at trying to work 3/4 into the formula somewhere and would get the wrong answer. I bring this up because i'm wondering if the same thing might apply to your original question when you say "There have been 5 persons at the meeting...". I don't know what that has to do with the rest of the problem. Unless you can explain it in more detail, i suspect that you're letting this statement make you think the problem is more complex than it really is.
richard-courtney wrote on 1/29/2006, 11:56 AM
I would use the monitors for viewing taped, or computer graphics only.
Most people don't like to see themselves and can cause lost concentration as they
are disctracted by how they look on camera than the subject being discussed.

Any script they are follwing? Teleprompters?

Audio: I would hook up IFB's to moderators and play audio again from any taped
presentations or audio from audience questions.