Suggestion on hardware to capture laptop video?

ken c wrote on 1/27/2010, 8:38 AM
Hi - my newest Vegas project will consist of editing a two-cam a/b seminar shoot, along with footage captured directly from laptop video signal outputs.

Does anyone have any suggestions re hardware that's good for capturing live laptop video output signal (and splitting it, so it can also go to a projector), to avchd 16gb memory card type of solution?

I'd really appreciate any ideas; especially if there's some way to capture laptop video using something that costs less than $500 or so. I could use camtasia, but would also like to look at some way to capture video output stream off the vga port (and split it to projector) as well... any ideas?

thanks,

ken

p.s. also thx for the suggestion a couple of years back re getting an HP laptop vs a vaio, the HP has been the best laptop I've ever had, very solid and works great, for two years now.

Comments

RalphM wrote on 1/27/2010, 8:50 AM
ken c,

Can you elaborate a bit please. What is the source of the laptop video? How did it get captured in the first place?

The video output of many laptops is less than stellar.
johnmeyer wrote on 1/27/2010, 9:34 AM
The best thing is to not use any capture hardware. Once video is on your laptop, you should use conversion software because you have more control over the results.

If you are trying to capture a presentation (PowerPoint, for instance), use Camtasia.
richard-amirault wrote on 1/27/2010, 3:31 PM
He is not trying to capture a video on a laptop. He is trying to capture the output of the laptop that would be going to an external monitor or a projector. That is not "video" in the sense that we use it here.

I would think a decent screen grab program would be the easiest, and cheapest way to go.
Former user wrote on 1/27/2010, 4:00 PM
You can use something like the Canopus ADVC110 to capture from an S Video output on your laptop or use a VGA to TV adapter.

And, you can sometimes get a pretty good capture by shooting an LCD screen with your camera.

Dave T2
johnmeyer wrote on 1/28/2010, 12:21 AM
I would think a decent screen grab program would be the easiest, and cheapest way to go.Which is exactly why I recommended Camtasia.
farss wrote on 1/28/2010, 2:53 AM
To convert the laptop output to video that can be recorded there's two choices.

1) For SD the Sony 1024 Scan Converter. I think they're no longer made and they fetch a good price second hand. This unit will connect to the standard output of a PC, and convert it to PAL or NTSC, lovely box of tricks.

2) For HD Roland make a unit much the same as the 1024 but it'll take quite a variety of inputs including HD-SDI and hi res RGB and output it over firewire as HDV which you can then record with any HDV camera / VCR. This 1 RU unit is not much under $10K though.

Bob.
ken c wrote on 1/29/2010, 1:34 PM
hi - thanks all, good ideas... camtasia's great, though I do remember once doing a seminar and the a/v tech had some kind of output capture hardware (which went to sony beta tape, 3 years ago) ... wondering if there was anything hardware/capture out there worth looking at as a backup/in addition to camtasia ... thanks for the tips - it's always a challenge doing a 2 cam seminar plus having to capture the laptop video signal as well, then editing all 3 cam video in vegas later (and color correct etc)..

hey btw how's spot? haven't heard from him/manny/much new stuff out of vasst lately; hope he's recovering well from the chuting mishap awhile ago.

-k