Record 2 or more cameras one mac? you have to be kidding? No I'm not this might be the answer.

I came across this application whilst surfing through the Apple downloads page. I instantly thought about all the forum posts that I'd read from people wanting to record two or more cameras and then edit in Final Cut Pro. Could Capture Magic be up to doing this - I hope so!

This had my attention from when the web page loaded. Now, it is in beta at the moment so there is no free trial period like their sister application, Monitor Magic So I couldn't download the thing and give it a whirl - Dam!

The next best thing was to send an email off to their support department and fire off a few questions. I got a quick reply from Mark Allen & I'm sure he won't mind me republishing it here:-

"Both Monitor Magic and Capture Magic can work with multiple cameras at the same time. They achieve this by working directly with the Firewire hardware instead of using QuickTime for capturing. You don't need an additional board if you have more than one Firewire port on your system. An example is a MacBook Pro and a Firewire400 <-> Firewire800 convertor cable so that you can use your Firewire800 port with a camera, then you can plug both cameras into the MacBook Pro. I use an iMac as well and this comes with two Firewire 400 ports. With another Firewire board, then you can monitor or record even more. This offers great flexibility for on location or in studio work.

What limits the number of cameras? Well bandwidth on the firewire bus and the CPU getting bogged down will limit how many cameras you can plug in. So this really depends on the setup. HDV uses a lot less bandwidth on the Firewire bus than DVCProHD -- It actually uses about he same as a consumer DV camcorder. I can capture one HD source fine on my Powerbook G4 12", but I use something beefier for two cameras. The new Mac Pro 8 core machines would probably not even break a sweat!

Here is some news on the status of the Capture Magic beta. We are finalizing the export code so that is saves files that can be used directly by Final Cut Pro. The files currently saved by the beta need an additional step before HDV and DVCProHD files can be used in Final Cut Pro. Everything else works and is functional. For example, Capture Magic records m2t files for HDV and you'll currently need MpegStreamClip to convert the m2t file to Aiff and m2v for use in Final Cut"

Sounds pretty good eh? In a subsequent email, he also responded with this:-

"Interestingly, one of my Capture Magic beta testers suggested that I add the ability to select one feed from all the input feeds and save only that feed to a single file. Then switching between feeds would set which one was saved. And rather than saving, I could output the single video stream back out over firewire to a deck.

It is something that I am considering. It may not make it into version 1.0 of Capture Magic. But I could add this later on"

Can you see where this is going?? Now, as I said I haven't tried it but I'd be very interested to hear if anybody has. I can see it being ideal for local churches/groups/concerts/sports etc etc.

If you have any more info then please post a comment.

Big Mug Homepage

p.s Mark at Bigmug is a Brit too :)

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