Adobe OnLocation CS3?

[chaos]

Background: Ok, ever since I first did some video work for the church, I seem to have morphed into one of the few (4 actually) people who are called upon to run camera's at events. The church has really caught on to the idea of videos/production, and recently the youth group bought a $600 Sony HandyCam (the Hardrive kind even though I suggested mini-DV). Last time I recorded a service a lady asked me if we intended to begin video taping the services so that she could give a DVD copy to her Grandmother. Unfortunately, in the past the time required to Record, Download via Firewire, Piece together chunks, and Render for DVD was too much for anyone to do on a regular basis.

Recently, I was looking into how much it would cost to get myself CS3 Production Suite, and then I noticed that under Premiere's feature list it said "Direct-To-DVD". Looking farther into this idea, I saw that this feature was part of ONLocation, and the features it offered intrigued me.

Question: Does anyone here have any experience with this software? I believe it used to be called "DV Rack", and it's basic premise is to allow me to connect a Camera to the PC and have effectively realtime editing/rendering all at the same time. Would this require a special camera, CPU, or equipment, or would it just work. Oh, and are there better solutions to what I am looking for? Basically it would be nice to have DVD's done 10-20 minutes after the service so that no-one has to take it home, and so that we can distribute it.

Thanks

Oh, and by the way, I downloaded the trial, but it said my trial expired as soon as I opened it :roll: . I never even used a CS3 trial before, so I don't know what it's thinking... oh well.

[Christina]

Now included with Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS3, Adobe OnLocation™ CS3* (Windows® only) is powerful direct-to-disk recording and monitoring software to help you produce superior-quality results from your video camera. Designed to run on a laptop or workstation, Adobe OnLocation CS3 gives you an impressive array of production tools to help you shoot better and faster while saving you time and money. The previous version of Adobe OnLocation was the award-winning DV Rack™ HD software sold by Serious Magic.


Seems like it'll do what it says it'll do. Have no experience with this software. My only recommendation is the more RAM the better.

System requirements
Intel® Pentium® 4 (2GHz processor for DV; 3.4GHz processor for HDV), Intel Centrino®, Intel Xeon® (dual 2.8GHz processors for HD), or Intel Core™ Duo (or compatible) processor; SSE2-enabled processor required for AMD systems
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional or Home Edition with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™ Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (certified for 32-bit editions)
1GB of RAM for DV; 2GB of RAM for HDV and HD
10GB of available hard-disk space (additional free space required during installation)
Dedicated 7,200 RPM hard drive for DV and HDV editing; striped disk array storage (RAID 0) for HD; SCSI disk subsystem preferred
1,280x1,024 monitor resolution with 32-bit video card; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback
Microsoft DirectX or ASIO compatible sound card
For SD/HD workflows, an Adobe certified card for capture and export to tape
DVD-ROM drive
Blu-ray burner required for Blu-ray Disc creation
DVD+-R burner required for DVD creation
OHCI compatible IEEE 1394 port for DV and HDV capture, export to tape, and transmit to DV device
QuickTime 7 software required to use QuickTime features
Internet or phone connection required for product activation
Broadband Internet connection required for Adobe Stock Photos* and other services
1,280x1,024 monitor resolution with 32-bit video card; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback (see the full compatible hardware listing)

[chaos]

I wonder if this program will work with multi-cameras. The church is looking into a multi-cam system, but as far as I know you can only be capturing from one device at any given time. I guess we could use a Firewire switch, but that doesn't sound very nice... no transitions. This will require a lot of looking into, because it will probably turn into a relatively expensive investment. One website suggested that their setup (which was similar to what we will be putting together) was $7500, and those weren't even HD Cam's. We'll be needing lot's of zoom and probably an HD camera. It's kind of funny that we will in effect wind up in the same situation as with our church's website. I come up with proposal and some figures and present it to a pastor (whoever seems most interested). They will take me up on it, and while they want me to do it, they don't trust someone my age with that kind of money... so they wait for an opportunity to propose it to the church and get a budget etc. By that time, the idea has been forgotten, and the project is dropped. All these finances are really limiting what I can look into...

[Christina]

This setup for a church is starting to sound quite complicated and expensive. Not only that, but are there enough people familiar with videography and the dvd process? It would be more cost effective and in the long run probably easier for people to just get the dvd from "last weeks" church service or event the following week. You really only can do so much especially if it's volunteer work.

Adding multiple cameras do pose an editing problem going direct to dvd. I would just shoot the entire event, cut the video up as needed, add transitions or effects, and then go to dvd. Make the necessary copies and hand them out the following week.

[chaos]

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head there. I could see that what I was talking about needing would be difficult and expensive to acquire, but in reality this is a church running off of volunteer support. We could budget for it, but we would never get a positive vote from the church. Individual editing sounds nice, except that I don't want to be stuck doing it every other week. There are only about 4 people who could/would edit videos voluntarily, and I think that after a few weeks it would get old. I was hoping to automate this and thus simplify things, but it's almost sounding too expensive/complicated. Right now I am having another plan brewing in my head :) I am thinking about having the church get Hardrive Cameras so that we don't have to download the files via Firewire realtime (it can be much faster this way). Then all I would have to do is import it, make a few cuts, and burn to DVD... so many possibilities, and yet now that I got the Music Pastor thinking about it, I think it might be hard to convince him not to take the automated route... :roll:

[Christina]

The only other idea would be to consult someone maybe at B&H Photo Video (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/) (or another place) on how to address your needs. They may have a solution? Maybe they'll throw in a discount on equipment since it's for a Church.

[chaos]

Thank you very much for the links! :) I'll let it sit for a while and if the subject comes up again, then I'll look into it more. Basically, I don't want to do too much work on this if it's not important enough to the church to remember. If they bring it up, I'll contact this B&H place, and I'll see what combination of tools I'll need and if there's any discounts. I'd like to see this done myself, because several of the local churches already have very nice video systems. Maybe not quite what we want, but in general they are very nice. Then again, the church down the street brings in millions on tithe/donations, so it's no wonder ;)

[ssdt]

i use sonic for my DVD
you should try roxio or sonic because they give you the same thing and they are less in size