Posted by nobody special on 11/25/05 06:17

Clarifying that last paragraph, you take a bigger quality hit using the
DVD camcorder than a DV tape camcorder. And using the DVD's as an
editing source later adds a layer of geekery and complication the
casual user will not want.

Before you can really "show" any video tape on a computer, all the
footage has to be copied over to it's hard drive, typically thru a
firewire cable, a real-time process, so if you shot an hour, it takes
at least an hour to get it into the computer, before you can do
"anything" with it. This is why I was suggesting real-time capture into
a laptop from the camera while the event is actually happening. Then,
you could immediately have precision shuttle control over viewing that
footage.

There are shortcuts to this, including shooting and recording direct to
removable hard drives attached to the camcorder, then directly
connected to the computer. These are out of your budget range by a wide
margin. The laptop, you may be able to scam/borrow from the school's
I.T. stock.

I didn't mention using time code earlier to scan thru your footage: if
you had an assistant next to the camera, they could note the student's
name and the counter/time code numbers correcponding to his/her segment
on the tape. Then you could really fast-shuttle to just that section.
I didn't suggest it because at least with the small consumer
camcorders, it's easy to break or mess up the time code system if
you're going to be constantly taping, rewinding, playing -back,
fast-forwarding, and re-recording. Exactly what you're most likely to
be doing. Much simpler and more reliable to just shoot the little
chalkboard with names for a ten-second slate, or shoot ten seconds of
one of several squares of colored paper on a piece of board, tell each
kid to remember what color you assigned his name, then fast-forward
until the screen shows that color... no high-speed reading skills
needed, easy to do.

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