Studio setup advice

[washproof]

Howdy folks, this is my plan for my studio, all the stuff in red I still need to buy.

studio_setup.jpg

the idea is that pc tower 1 will capture the HD footage to be edited in post so i can have nice clean HD shows on demand, then pc tower 2 will stream the lower quality footage live to the web and maybe also record audio to give viewers the audio only option.

from what you guys can see, am I missing anything or is there a better way of going about it? I have about 1000 pounds left to spend on kit if needs be, many thanks for any tips you guys can give.

if my image fails then here is the link http://s9.postimage.org/iku5jrnlr/studio_setup.jpg

Cheers, Washy

[washproof]

Plenty of views but no opinion? hehe I guess my diagram has confused people?

I do have another question, do you think I need an audio compressor within this setup? and what would be the benefit of using one?

Cheers, Washy

[William Thomas]

Do you need all that hardware to do that simple audio processing? Only one camera? Can you not use Skype 1 and 2 in one of those towers? Jeez, just seems like to much hardware for one cam and 2 mics and skype.

I do use Vidblaster and don't really want to be a VB hawk but all that can be done on one laptop with Vidblaster.

[washproof]

Haha thats why I asked, so I'm making things far more complex than they need to be, how would you simplify it?

I don't think I could use my Inspron laptop for anything but Skype as it only really has 3x USB 3.0 inputs and won't work with any of the Blackmagic Intensity shuttles, same problem with limited connectivity on the iMac (mid 2010 model) so it just made sense to me to use those for Skype or pulling up web pages etc and take the load of the main workhorse tower.

I also have a JVC 700x cam that I may want to use as a second camera via firewire in this setup.

It is also a matter of the network, I don't want to clog up my main connection (60meg down, 6 meg up) that I will use for the live stream with Skype, I was gonna try and run the Skype from my 2nd lower speed connection.

I really wanna make use of the HV30's HDMI out and record the HD footage out to an external hard drive via firewire 800 or eSATA (not sure what the best option would be here) I guess I could try and run the fire wire footage to the live stream from the same tower but I'm not sure if that would overload the fire bus or not.

I think I really need to get my hands of the Intensity Pro and see what is gonna work before I go getting another PC/Hackintosh tower.

Cheers for your thoughts, Washy

[William Thomas]

I am no expert by any means. I am newbie so you are way over my head...I have a very simple setup with 2-3 cams (sony hd, canon gl2, canon xl1) alesis mixer, and a dell dual core 3.0 inspiron with 8gb ram. I use vidblaster home only for software. and i can do all of what you do with one dual core computer. Including skype if i want to. I use one firewire connection, and 2 usb connections with dongles. I have to start it up in order or all cams wont work but now that i have a system its fine.

Wirecast is a great system as well, i just chose the alternative.

But really anything past what i am using is way over my head. Took me forever to figure out this much but now pretty much smooth running system now. btw I stream to livestream and do my editing on the fly. Mistakes show realism.

[mcphillips]

Based on your drawing, you're running the audio through the camera. Everyone I know feeds the audio from the mixer to the recording/streaming computers. Your method should work; I'm just not aware of anyone doing it that way.

What's a 3/4 inch cable? While you have to feed mix-minus to Skype 1 and 2, you need audio (callers) from the Skype machines to the mixer.

You're a prime candidate for audio ground loops when you connect this many computers together. Not everyone has ground loops, but most people do. A lot depends on which computers you use and what is connected to the system. I'm working on a post for suggestions for solving ground loops, but it's not ready yet.