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I recomend the Domke canvas jounalist shoulder bags, http://www.saundersphoto.com/html/body_satchels.ht m available at B&H http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O= productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=16030&is= REG for around $85 to $90, a lot less than over $200 heavy duck twill canvas bags that are sold at filson.com. The Domke bags may be, at this point less mythical than Filson, but give it time - they are strong and functional, and made for the purpose of traveling a computer in a harsh enviroment. With their background in making pro level photo bags the features needed to survive over time show their value. I particularly like the non-slip shoulder straps with rubber inter-woven into the heavy cotton straps. Plus, with the canvas bags (they do make versions in ballistic nylon) with use, the bags shape and folds accomadate your style of use and your hip. With its soon aquired worn-blue-jean look it also does not scream, "HEY, Please steal the expensive laptop/camera/lenses inside me." Of course unless you know the Domke tag, and for me I have blacked that out on my bag.

Car alarms and motion-active lights are old hat. Flash strobes, on the other hand, still have some surprise value left, and tend to universally signal that a picture is being recorded in ways that even the presence of a camera itself doesn't.

As such, I'd suggest a cheap digital still camera in a security enclosure on the side of the house (possibly wired via USB to a laptop or 486 inside, but this isn't so important), in combination with some AC strobes screwed into a few floodlight fixtures around the driveway.

The picture-taking aspect is really secondary to the element of surprise; most screw-in strobes can be slaved to the firing of a 'normal' flash (like the one built into the $30 digicam), so if you can rig the cam to snap once every... oh, say, 30 seconds for five minutes after motion is detected, you'll trigger all those slave flashes with it, flood the area with smile-you're-on-candid-camera flashes of light, scare-off or surprise any would-be thieves... and maybe get a visual record if they don't rip the camera off the wall.

Obviously, clear this with the neighbors first.

What you're looking for is variously called "video mixer," "live switcher," and "video switcher."

These are hardware devices, although it can be done in software. At the bottom-end they start around $500-$1000 and work on up to however much yo' mamma's house is worth, and much more.

B+H Photo is one place to start looking.

I own a large collection of DVD, and decided recently to price some large-volume storage so I could have a digital backup of my discs. What I figured out was that a 250 GB hard drive currently costs about $200. This works out to about $0.80/GB. Your average DVD contains about 7 GB of data, so you can figure a per-disc storage cost of $5.60 per disc. Based on these numbers, you can store about 35 movies per drive, so if you happen to have a couple hundred discs, you'll need at least seven drives for a RAID5 solution. Go ahead and throw in $500 for a SATA RAID card, another $450 for a case with 7 hot swap bays. And then you have to build the rest of the machine. If you spent $300 to do so, your total cost is $2650. Divide this by the total storage capacity (233 discs), and your net storage cost is $11.30 per disc. Most movies can be acquired on eBay in perfect condition for this amount or less, and you don't have the ongoing expense of also replacing drives when the die.

Obviously, these numbers are quite variable variable, and you could certainly use cheaper parts, but there is an absolute minimum cost for everything here. My conclusion was that until there is a fundamental change in the world of mass storage, in either techology or cost, this is just going to have to wait.

It is big, but it keeps my 5-6 other remotes in the drawer.

Macros are great, when watching DVD you usually have to first turn on the DVD player, switch input on the TV, switch the TV to anamorphic 16:9, switch the surround receiver over to the DVD input and set the correct surround mode. With macros this is one button.

You can create some custom labeled buttons for each device. It is possible to mix and match from the different devices, e.g. I have the TV aspect ratio button also on the DVD panel.

It has hard buttons for the most common operations, like channel hopping, volume and arrow keys.

The IR is strong! It works from under the blanket when cuddled up in the sofa.

The girlfriend likes it :-)

About $90

The Canon XL1S has an underwater housing.

Ok, cheapest I can find the film is a little less than $600 per roll. Unless he's shooting color, which is more like $730 for a 125' roll, which would give him about 83 exposures per roll.

let's start here.....

DVD formats

dvd-R has the HIGHEST compatability in stand alone DVD players. hands down. this is an industry fact that all DVD replication houses stand by if they are going to do a short run on writeable media. long runds are always pressed media.

some people try to say otherwise, but I would trust a company making money replicating DVD's and publishing short run DVD's than some guy screwing around in his basement. also media companiesthat make commercials use DVD-R only as well as the professional Pioneer PRV-LX1 DVD burners that still cost $4000.00 are only DVD-R for video format.

for more information about formats look here

It would be really neat if you could drop in an electronic sensor to replace your film in exciting cameras.

You can.
WAAAY more expensive than a good quality digital camera, though. So how much money do you have?

I saw a documentary about Garrett Brown, and it showed his various prototype stages. The original one looked exactly like this - a length of pipe. The second one was more like a pantograph to try to keep the camera level. Then he added the seperate handle connected to the upright portion wih a gimbal. The rest of the development was on the counter-balance arm and the vest. All of this was necessary because Brown was building these for 35mm film cameras.

If you're looking to improve this design, the things I'd look at are: a gimbal, so allow the operator to hold the unit more comfortably and lightly, and avoid transferring hand motion to the camera; a sliding mount at the top, to allow the camera's balance to be shifted forward and back to tilt up or down.

The Steadycam JR Lite is a great one to look at. It was designed by the great Frogdesign studio (the NeXT cube). The camera sits on top of a slide, and right on top of the gimbal and handle. The arm is divided into two parts at a 90 degree angle, connected to the slide at 45 degrees. And the whole thing folds up. It's a wonderfully slick design - and obscenely overpriced.

Professional VCRs typically have a TBC built in; you can also get a standalone TBC. Either way, they're not particuarly cheap, but if you're going to be backing up a large VHS library, it's probably a good investment.

See the ArsTechnica Guide to Capturing, Cleaning, & Compressing Video and the sci.electronics.repair Macrovision FAQ for more info.

J&R is a good place both for new & refurb units, I'd definitely go there. The other big chains (Best Buy, CompUSA, etc) might be worth a visit, but J&R will price match any local competitors.

If you're also looking for a camera, be sure to hit B&H Photo & Video. They have the most amazing conveyor system for moving things around the store, it's worth it to stop by just to see that!

make something that is very like the Canon Rebel digital for $699.00 street price can use cheaper nikon or pentax lenses

I don't know where you get the idea that Nikon lenses are cheaper. At B&H Photo, a 50mm f/1.8 Canon lens is $70, while the same by Nikon is $100. (Can't comment on Pentax, as I'm not familiar with their products.)

the canon rebel is awesome, but it will only use high-price lenses making it pretty much out of reach for the common joe-photog wannabe.

Again, I don't know where you get that idea. Granted, the kit lens that comes with the Digital Rebel won't work on their film cameras, but the above Canon lens will work just fine on the Digital Rebel. You can find out for yourself by downloading the Digital Rebel brochure One of the main selling points of that camera is that it can use Canon's entire AF line of lenses.

whatever you use three to five years from now, it won't be one of the standard definition interlaced analog formats like PAL or NTSC or SECAM. It will probably be one of the 18 digital broadcast formats proposed over the last few years. Actually it will probably be a switchable 1080i for high definition digital video that uses MPEG4 instead of the DV codec. You will be happy although it will not edit nicely but you won't care. BTW, editing is not artsy-fartsy. It should be invisible. What you have seen is something *else*. I can't help having high standards, so sue me.
For the time being -
My advice is that you look at the camera from the front and get the one with the biggest optics. All of the microphones that come on the cameras suck big time, most of the controls on cheap cameras like you want will be the same. The light gathering ability is key to getting a decent picture in low light. I'm guessing that you are not big on light wrangling. Get a nice little short shotgun microphone to put on top. This is 50% of what you recognize as a good picture. Everybody will compliment you on your camera ability when they can hear the child's first words rather than the grownup's wretched cooing and noises from behind the camera from an open pattern microphone. If anybody mods this down, I will give you a lecture on CCDs, light, and filters. Oh, I forgot, get a circular polarizer instead of a UV filter to protect the lens. When you are outside, you will need both the neutral density filter and the polarizer. The camera you buy really doesn't matter as long as you buy one from a real camera company. Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon, Ikegami. Find someone with the Prosumer B&H catalog.
take a look at this:
DCR-PC105 Mini DV Camcorder with Additional Accessory Kit - includes: Battery Pack, UV Filter, Tripod with Bag, 4 Year Extended Warranty, Wide Angle Lens, Soft Carry Case and Lens Cleaning Kit
B&H# SODCRPC105K at 899.95
The wide angle lens is great in the living room during holidays. You are going to spend the money anyway. The camcorder should be between 4 and 5 hundred for your pusposes.

Here is the short shotgun you need it is REALLY cheap
Azden Price: $ 54.95
ECZ-990 - Super-Cardioid Shotgun Condenser Camera Mountable Microphone MFR# ECZ990 B&H# AZECZ990

If you choose to take any of this advice - this is my open source licensing agreement ---- promise that you will white balance on a white card - not a piece of copy paper or a shirt. Coated white stock works welll and is cheap.

whatever you use three to five years from now, it won't be one of the standard definition interlaced analog formats like PAL or NTSC or SECAM. It will probably be one of the 18 digital broadcast formats proposed over the last few years. Actually it will probably be a switchable 1080i for high definition digital video that uses MPEG4 instead of the DV codec. You will be happy although it will not edit nicely but you won't care. BTW, editing is not artsy-fartsy. It should be invisible. What you have seen is something *else*. I can't help having high standards, so sue me.
For the time being -
My advice is that you look at the camera from the front and get the one with the biggest optics. All of the microphones that come on the cameras suck big time, most of the controls on cheap cameras like you want will be the same. The light gathering ability is key to getting a decent picture in low light. I'm guessing that you are not big on light wrangling. Get a nice little short shotgun microphone to put on top. This is 50% of what you recognize as a good picture. Everybody will compliment you on your camera ability when they can hear the child's first words rather than the grownup's wretched cooing and noises from behind the camera from an open pattern microphone. If anybody mods this down, I will give you a lecture on CCDs, light, and filters. Oh, I forgot, get a circular polarizer instead of a UV filter to protect the lens. When you are outside, you will need both the neutral density filter and the polarizer. The camera you buy really doesn't matter as long as you buy one from a real camera company. Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Canon, Ikegami. Find someone with the Prosumer B&H catalog.
take a look at this:
DCR-PC105 Mini DV Camcorder with Additional Accessory Kit - includes: Battery Pack, UV Filter, Tripod with Bag, 4 Year Extended Warranty, Wide Angle Lens, Soft Carry Case and Lens Cleaning Kit
B&H# SODCRPC105K at 899.95
The wide angle lens is great in the living room during holidays. You are going to spend the money anyway. The camcorder should be between 4 and 5 hundred for your pusposes.

Here is the short shotgun you need it is REALLY cheap
Azden Price: $ 54.95
ECZ-990 - Super-Cardioid Shotgun Condenser Camera Mountable Microphone MFR# ECZ990 B&H# AZECZ990

If you choose to take any of this advice - this is my open source licensing agreement ---- promise that you will white balance on a white card - not a piece of copy paper or a shirt. Coated white stock works welll and is cheap.

Actually Kodak has some pretty nice digitals out there, such as the DCS series. I wonder if they mean film cameras?

buy one at B&H
they have quite a nice selection of S-VHS decks that are still used by lots os schools for serving up the daily dose of propaganda

Don't think of it as a $250 music player, but a $500 microdrive with a built-in battery, music player and a $250 rebate.

I don't really get the love affair with duct tape. It works, but a much better tape for most electronics-type tinkering is gaffer tape. It's expensive, and you won't find it at the local hardware store, but I think it's well worth it. You should be able to find it at a (professional) photo supply store.

The standard gaffer type has a matte black finish (so that it doesn't reflect light in a photo shoot) and you can easily tear it perfectly horizontally or vertically. It has a pretty good adhesive, but doesn't gum up the surface like duct tape does when you remove it.

Here's one place selling it.

I think I paid less at my local photo store for the roll I have here.

Also, on a laptop, the matte black will look a lot better than the shiny silver of duct tape.

Best. Bag. Ever. Tough as nails. Big, easy access front pouches. Adequate padding. (bhphotovideo)

I and a few other Dual G5 users are having problems with 10.3.2 and/or some other very recent updates (say, QuickTime 6.5 or XCode 1.1), and are thus unable to apply this particular security update. Grumble.

I am a big Nikon fan, I've had my F3 for over 10 years. If you are looking to get a someone started in photography, you can't go wrong with a the Nikon F55 or a Canon EOS Rebel GII
Both of these are pretty good camera bodies with good lenses.

More importantly, both allow fully automatic function, and full manual as well, when you get to be a better or more advanced photographer, you will need these functions.

Since they come with an entry level zoom lens, this is the biggest hinderance. Great to start, and for most people all you will ever need. So when you start to get serious there are a lot of great lenses out there. So buy the camera where you can get the lenses you want, at the price and quality you want. Like I said earlier, I am very fond of Nikon and their Lenses are spectacular (And as far as I know, they are still the only optic company to grind their own glass for their lenses, for better control and optic clarity.)

Most important, try them out, see which one is easier to operate, handle, and shoot with.

Film is not dead yet. Digital still can't capture all the color and the glory of the traditional film process. Plus chemicals are fun to play with. I love the smell of fixer in the morning.

I am a big Nikon fan, I've had my F3 for over 10 years. If you are looking to get a someone started in photography, you can't go wrong with a the Nikon F55 or a Canon EOS Rebel GII
Both of these are pretty good camera bodies with good lenses.

More importantly, both allow fully automatic function, and full manual as well, when you get to be a better or more advanced photographer, you will need these functions.

Since they come with an entry level zoom lens, this is the biggest hinderance. Great to start, and for most people all you will ever need. So when you start to get serious there are a lot of great lenses out there. So buy the camera where you can get the lenses you want, at the price and quality you want. Like I said earlier, I am very fond of Nikon and their Lenses are spectacular (And as far as I know, they are still the only optic company to grind their own glass for their lenses, for better control and optic clarity.)

Most important, try them out, see which one is easier to operate, handle, and shoot with.

Film is not dead yet. Digital still can't capture all the color and the glory of the traditional film process. Plus chemicals are fun to play with. I love the smell of fixer in the morning.

My suggestion is to buy an entry-level SLR of Canon or Nikon that has a full manual mode.

Both Canon and Nikon's SLR lenses can be used on their digital SLR lines and Nikon lenses can also be used on D-SLRs from Fujifilm and Kodak.

Your idea of a manual focus camera might be OK from a creative viewpoint, but when you are taking party pictures or want to take some quick shots without a lot of fuss, I've found autofocus useful and necessary in order to capture the moment. Both Nikon and Canon allow you to defeat AF and switch the lenses to manual focus when you need to.

For Canon SLRs, look at http://www.canoneos.com/index.html
For Nikon, look at http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp =6

Another important thing is to buy from a fairly reputed dealer who won't try to bait-and-switch you or saddle you down with low quality 'accessories' as part of your special purchase deal.
I recommend B & H Photo and Video or Adorama

B & H has the Canon EOS Rebel GII with a beginner's lens on sale for $199.95, and the
Nikon N55 with a slightly better lens for $229.95

If you have a little more money to spend, I'd recommend you get one of these SLR bodies with a slightly more decent lens, such as a 28-105 F3.5-4.5. In my experience I've found that my lenses are the bottleneck rather than the capabilities of the body. Invest in a decent lens or lenses up-front and you can be a lot more productive and creative from the start.

Krishna

Sounds like you're doing some fun stuff there. I work for MNN cable access in NYC. We just finished rebuilding our studio where we just got done dealing with these same issues. I understand joo.

1> Lighting. This is probably the most important part of making a show look good. I think I'd be doing you a disservice to say "get two inkies, three 5K fresnels, blah blah blah." You should really consider bringing in a good lighting designer who can not only recommend some good fixtures, but who can also put together some stock light plots that will look good for 95% of all productions. Never sleep on good lighting for a studio. It really makes all the difference.

2> Cameras. We went with the Hitachi Z3000W as our studio camera. It's digital, it has great resolution, and a wicked nice lens. They provide a lot of bang for the buck (can't remember how much we paid, tho.) Take a look at Triax cabling for connecting the cameras back to Control. It's flexible, the signa's clean, and they're a lot easier and cheaper to replace. For a teleprompter, we're just using QTV with WinCue. Works fine.

3> Audio. We had some Behringers around but they didn't stand up to the abuse we put it through. Then we found the Sony ECM-55B. It's our workhorse lav. I've had nothing but headaches with wireless so I'm not going to comment on them.

4> Decks. There are a ton of Good Broadcast Reasons to go with BetaSP but it's just so damn expensive. I love DV. Because we're public access, we have to work with civilians who can't afford $20 per tape. Let them master to DV at $4 a pop and they can go home, finish in iMovie or Premiere on their home computer and bring it back in to us all clean and digital like. Sure, it's compressed and of course it might artifact, but working with analog in post is a system bandwidth hassle. Meanwhile DV works at full-res on my mom's iMac. Until Thompson decides to make the Filmstream for $3K, I'm sticking with DV. I say go with DV if you can (DV, DVCAM, DVCPRO, whatever.) You can't beat the price.

5> I'm not a big fan of the Streaming In A Box solutions. What you get for your streaming really depends on what you want to deliver. Do you want to provide video on demand? Bring the video into a Mac or PC via FireWire, use Discreet Cleaner to convert the file to MPEG4, Real, whatever, and drop it on a streaming server with lots of storage, hordes of RAM, and some fat ass bandwidth. Just looking to simulcast your broadcast? Even easier: run the program output of your master control switcher to a video capture card on a superfast PC. Start up some live encoder software (QuickTime Broadcaster, Helix Producer, MPEG4IP) and have it send a unicast stream to a replication server attached to the net. With live streaming, you don't need any storage at all (unless you need to archive.)

6> Newsdesks. Check out uniset. They make good looking inexpensive sets and CYC panels (for doing green screen). We've been very happy with their stuff.

One last thing: check out DVLince - an all-DV server based production workflow for under $300K. Sony just bought them to rebrand it as their own gear. It might not be exactly what you need, but it's worth checking out.

The 50mm f/1.8, which is an EXCELLENT lens, and one I recommend to anyone who is starting in photography, costs $70 new. Anyone who has a Canon SLR and doesn't have one of these lenses (or a better 50mm) doesn't know what they're missing. Razor sharp, pretty bright and DAMN cheap.

I am a digital SLR convert. I waited until last year to switch from my EOS1-V to an EOS D60. I feared losing the control and feel that I had learned using the 1-V. Now I wish I had switched sooner. Some things to note about switching to digital:

1) The timing between shutter and button release. Digitals have a slight delay compared to most film SLRs. It takes some getting used to.

2) Printing. I take mine to a Ritz camera store and have them printed using the same chemical process that a C41 negative would be printed with. The prints run $0.39 for a 4x6, only take ~1 hour, and will last much longer than prints from an inkjet.

3) Buy a version of Adobe Photoshop. Nothing makes a photo look better than a quick blast of the unsharp mask. People will ask how you manage to take such sharp and clear photos. Cropping and color balancing can also work wonders.

4) Batteries! When your battery is low, your digital camera will respond much slower! Storing files will have a noticable delay. Buy a few extra recharable batteries and keep them handy.

5) A quality lens can go a long way toward attaining more professional looking photos. I'm not talking a cheap 70-210 zoom. Spend a little bit extra and get something with a GOOD APERATURE. Or better yet, make use of your new SLR abilities and get two! A handy 50mm f/1.4 and an expensive 70-200mm f/2.8.

6) Think about an external flash. Using the built in flash is okay, but you will get red-eye and more noticable shadows than if you had an external. Plus the built in flash can really drain your camera's batteries!

The bottom line? Merely switching to digital is not going to give you instant ability. It can make learning easier (instant-grat is so nice), but nothing takes the place of practice and knowing your camera. Laying out the cash for a good lens is an important step in my mind, but might be a little much for most hobbists. Join a club and borrow some lens from other members so that you can see the difference between an average and a quality lens.

- There is no sig.

I am a digital SLR convert. I waited until last year to switch from my EOS1-V to an EOS D60. I feared losing the control and feel that I had learned using the 1-V. Now I wish I had switched sooner. Some things to note about switching to digital:

1) The timing between shutter and button release. Digitals have a slight delay compared to most film SLRs. It takes some getting used to.

2) Printing. I take mine to a Ritz camera store and have them printed using the same chemical process that a C41 negative would be printed with. The prints run $0.39 for a 4x6, only take ~1 hour, and will last much longer than prints from an inkjet.

3) Buy a version of Adobe Photoshop. Nothing makes a photo look better than a quick blast of the unsharp mask. People will ask how you manage to take such sharp and clear photos. Cropping and color balancing can also work wonders.

4) Batteries! When your battery is low, your digital camera will respond much slower! Storing files will have a noticable delay. Buy a few extra recharable batteries and keep them handy.

5) A quality lens can go a long way toward attaining more professional looking photos. I'm not talking a cheap 70-210 zoom. Spend a little bit extra and get something with a GOOD APERATURE. Or better yet, make use of your new SLR abilities and get two! A handy 50mm f/1.4 and an expensive 70-200mm f/2.8.

6) Think about an external flash. Using the built in flash is okay, but you will get red-eye and more noticable shadows than if you had an external. Plus the built in flash can really drain your camera's batteries!

The bottom line? Merely switching to digital is not going to give you instant ability. It can make learning easier (instant-grat is so nice), but nothing takes the place of practice and knowing your camera. Laying out the cash for a good lens is an important step in my mind, but might be a little much for most hobbists. Join a club and borrow some lens from other members so that you can see the difference between an average and a quality lens.

- There is no sig.

If you have an MX700 you have to get some of these batteries. They last more than twice as long as the stock ones. With these you can use it for 2 or 3 full days before needing to recharge, which is awesome.

Canon's 50mm f/1.8 is such an incredible lens for the money ($70) - for a lot of photographers it is their basic lens. Actually, most amature photographers would do really well to use a 35 or 50mm lens for a year and actually learn composition, learn how to move around to take a photo. Plus, the low f-stop is a real boon to all the f/3.5-5.6 users - you can finaly take clear, tight pictures without direct sunlight/studio lights.

Anyway, if someone really wants to get into SLRs I'd recommend the 50mm with a used EOS 630, which will run you something like $270 (new lens, used body) Or if you want to go digital, you can get a D30 or D60 on ebay for $800-900. A lot of people overinvest in equipment they don't need. Learn to use what you have, then expand your toolkit instead of the other way arround.

Going by what a magazine production manager told me (ok, an ex-girlfriend, but she deals with this stuff every day), publications are asking their regular freelance and/or staff photogs to use digital, but at higher megapixel counts... 5MP and up; she mentioned that use of the Kodak SLR body that cranks out 13MP as something they'd like to see more of (other image quality factors notwithstanding, of course). Digital backs are also available for medium-format (a studio staple), and are seriously pricey, but also have higher resolution than the D2H, and would be the preferred choice in a studio setting.

Here's a list of DIGITAL CAMERA ACC-Stand Alone Data Storage devices from B&H.

You don't want firewall, most cameras do the USB 2.0 thing.

In addition to storing pictures, many of these Devices are MP3 players as well. 10,20,30 even 60 gig drives with rechargable batteries..etc.

have fun.

-malakai

Embedded Linux mag used to have micro ( smaller than mini-itx ) motherboard from ZFLinux.com, but now they sell system-on-chip thingys, so maybe that'd be a bit too much hacking...

here's one 2.7 inches by 1.6 inches, it has an IDE interface and a 486sx...

Ah HA! Gotcha!
LinuxDevices.com:Top:Hardware:Boards:Single-board computers HERE.

Right, so that takes care-of the motherboard, so to use a flash-card or micro-drive, you need either anATA-to-CF adapter,
or, if you need more than a pair of 2GB CF cards, maybe one of these flash-disks ( ATA, SCSI, PC/104? that's what the ZF boards were called! ),
or you can get an all-in-one IDE MicroFlash Card from MagicRam.com,
or dig Dan's Data's review of the VME CF-IDE adapter ( neat that it can run as either ATA-master OR ATA-slave, unlike the competition, so you could get 4GB of 'drive', or RAID-1 2GB, it's what I'd choose, if they do actually do this... ).

Then get a Lexar CF-card ( up-to 6MB/s, no motor ), up to 1GB 32x or 2GB 40x, or put a MicroDrive on it, and you'll have a VERY mini machine you can FTP to ( probably be able to stick Gentoo on it, if going for a 486-SoC ), if you have to limit everything for power, you may need to limit the amount of RAM on it, when it's in its final config...

Just ideas, I don't do this stuff day-in-day-out, so I don't know how you'd get it connected to your magnetic-instrument, but I hope this helps..

Embedded Linux mag used to have micro ( smaller than mini-itx ) motherboard from ZFLinux.com, but now they sell system-on-chip thingys, so maybe that'd be a bit too much hacking...

here's one 2.7 inches by 1.6 inches, it has an IDE interface and a 486sx...

Ah HA! Gotcha!
LinuxDevices.com:Top:Hardware:Boards:Single-board computers HERE.

Right, so that takes care-of the motherboard, so to use a flash-card or micro-drive, you need either anATA-to-CF adapter,
or, if you need more than a pair of 2GB CF cards, maybe one of these flash-disks ( ATA, SCSI, PC/104? that's what the ZF boards were called! ),
or you can get an all-in-one IDE MicroFlash Card from MagicRam.com,
or dig Dan's Data's review of the VME CF-IDE adapter ( neat that it can run as either ATA-master OR ATA-slave, unlike the competition, so you could get 4GB of 'drive', or RAID-1 2GB, it's what I'd choose, if they do actually do this... ).

Then get a Lexar CF-card ( up-to 6MB/s, no motor ), up to 1GB 32x or 2GB 40x, or put a MicroDrive on it, and you'll have a VERY mini machine you can FTP to ( probably be able to stick Gentoo on it, if going for a 486-SoC ), if you have to limit everything for power, you may need to limit the amount of RAM on it, when it's in its final config...

Just ideas, I don't do this stuff day-in-day-out, so I don't know how you'd get it connected to your magnetic-instrument, but I hope this helps..

Between the VCR and the capture card, second deck, etc, make sure you use a time base corrector. Don't trust the TBC supposedly built in to the VCR or capture card, get an external unit. Otherwise, audio sync problems will haunt you forever.

The broadcast video processor (also from b&h) is also useful for this application. I like to put it before the TBC.

Regards,
Mark
markrages@mlug.missouri.edu

Currently the company spends god knows how much money on disposable cameras.

First, find out exactly how much they are spending on camera -- they're ten bucks a pop,

Dude, surf over to my favourite camera retailer, B&H Photo.

They sell lots of disposables, the cheapest is $2.99. They also sell lots of other cameras cheap, if you buy a real camera. They're a very reputable store.

And for those of us in canuckistan, they're cheaper than any other camera store in Canada, even with the exchange rate.

there are plenty of these products on the market, check these out

plus you don't want to use a consumer card for recording multiple tracks

More Computer Audio hardware

Tascam US428

M Audio(TM) Delta 1010 Logic System

Roland® Studio Pack

Aardvark(TM) Direct Pro Q10 Studio Nerve Center

Aardvark(TM) Direct Pro 24/96 Pro Studio Package

it's really not consumer.. or pro... this stuff... "prosumer" (how i hate that word)

The foregoing has a great deal of truth to it but only goes so far in that persons cannot be compelled to buy the stuff that the 'manufacturers' are proffering. Many alternatives exist.

First of all it should really be no contest between watching (or listening to) dreary, predictable hack work and doing literally anything else; this is whether the work is emitted at 1080i or not. There simply is insufficient content compelling enough to justify any expenditure in any fire-wired appliance by any consumer.

The past 10-15 years has witnessed an ongoing content crisis. A case could be made that one reason for the collapse of the IT bubble has been the difficulty in finding compelling content equivalent to the increase in carrying capacity for same. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in optics, cables, trenches, routers, servers, 1Ghz processors, etc. etc. etc. so that we all can be subjected to monkeyzapper ads.

Aside from mowing the lawn or cleaning the bathroom; another alternative can be found HERE. Professional video and audio techs can obtain high quality recording and editing equipment without blocking hardware, as this would defeat the creative purpose of such equipment. Even the most cynical Hollywood content provider must (by now) realize that the driving creative force within any industry or field of endeavor proceeds from the bottom up. Individuals with little or no vested interests to protect are the essential driving creative force. The shortage of these individuals rather than any equipment shortcoming is the real problem.

5C controls are not a done deal unless every equiment manufacturer 'signs on'. An 'Outlaw' company would dramatically increase the capital risk to the other manufacturers as consumer acceptance of 5C is not a certainty, in fact is fairly questionable. People like to be led rather than controlled by diktat and the result could be; See trenches and routers above. If customers carefully choose either unrestricted hardware or 'none-of-the-above' the manufacturers will listen.

I don't sig and I don't give a damn

Sony (I believe..) makes a MiniDV drive with IEEE-1394 that fits into a pc drive bay. They also produce another one that is small, but dosn't fit in a drive bay. Unfortunatly I can't find a link to it, but I saw it in the latest B&H Photo Video catalog, but not on there web site. That would solve the capture to PC, while still using the camera to shoot more footage.

Sounds to me like you found your answers, but you either don't have the money or you resent having to pay more for ruggedized cases, wider operating temperature ranges, etc.

Sure, you can get plenty of 2.1 megapixel cameras for $400 or so, but you wouldn't want to take them out on a rainy day, much less swim with them. $700 for submersible sounds fair, seeing as it's the price of a lot of plastic-cased 3-megapixel models that I'd be afraid to take outdoors at all, like the Nikon 880.

Check with some of the big specialty shops like B+H Photo and see if they carry aftermarket waterproof enclosures for other models. They might.

Weatherproofing and waterproofing electronic equipment is expensive. It adds thickness and weight, and makes every switch and dial a design challenge.

Actually, you can get reasonably inexpensive dual-format hardware in the United States - you just have to know where to look. One place to look would be the New York area photography/video stores. Do not look in just any shop - you have to go to the ones the professionals use. Most of these businesses are heavily reliant on mail-order sales, so you can have one shipped likely anywhere in the country.

Expect to pay around $200-$300 US dollars (plus shipping) for a basic player unit. These stores stock a lot of equipment to support a variety of formats. Now I really do not want to plug any stores over any others, but doing a quick look, here is one company that stocks multi-format players. Do not treat this as a recommendation - I have never purchased anything from them. Look in their consumer video section. The one downside is that you really have to do some research into what you are buying - unless you are actually visiting these stores, you will not know what you have physically purchased until you get it.

Of particular intrest to me is one item. I would link to it, but they're site is dynamically generated. Do a search for the part number "Dv414" - it should be made by Pioneer. A $400 Multi-Region DVD player?