Mac Mini for DV Capture?

[winjer2k]

I'm interested in the possiblity of using a Mac Mini to capture video of our church services and other projects. It would be nice to have something headless and compact that will sit nicely on our A/V rack. We probably wouldn't use it for video editing, but more as a video capture device.

My question is, is the Mac Mini adequate for recording digital video straight from something like a Canon XL1? I've seen a few tutorials on setting up the Mini as a PVR using external firewire video capture devices, but they have their own processors that compress the video before sending it to the computer.

Can the Mini's laptop drive handle DV? If not, is there enough bandwidth available to plug in a camera and an external firewire drive on the same firewire bus?

Would it be more feasible to hook up the camera via firewire and an external HD via USB 2.0?

It would be nice to just be able to plug in an external drive, record the video in real time, then take the drive over to another computer for editing/burning.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[evil_santa]

If I understand you right, you don't want to have a display on the Mini. If this is the case you will have a hard time controlling the recording software. You would be better having a Domestic DVd recorder as a cheap option or a Dedicated hardware video capture device possible something like this. http://www.sonerik.com/sondvr.asp

 

[LethalWolfe]

If you were going to use the Mac Mini (or any normal computer) in that fashion you would still need to operate video capture software on the computer (requiring a monitor, keyboard, and mouse).

Something like this might suite you better. Link


Lethal


EDIT: To answer your Q though directly, the Mac mini should capture DV fine to it's internal HDD.

 

[winjer2k]

Thanks for your suggestions. Right after I posted, I realized I might as well use some sort of direct-to-disk device.

My plan, however, was to use VNC or Remote Desktop or just a KVM switch to get the capture started and to be able to stop/eject the disk when done.