How can I record 100-150 continuos hours of video and play it back later?

Computers don't do analog unless you convert it to digital video.

You need an old analog recorder and a box of tapes.

By not using a computer unless it has a hard drive with at least 2.5 Terrabyte (2500GB) free.

robert254 wrote:

How can I record that on my MAc Pro ?

You can't. How would you digitize it?

Is this legal?

robert254 wrote:

if I can store an hour or so on the computer for editing; why can't I store 100 hours?

You are talking about up to 150 hours of continuous video. DV takes up 13GB per hour, HD four times as much.

Do the maths.

does it have to be 100 hours? can it be smaller chunks? i suppose you want to reduce the number of user needed interventions?

what about EyeTV? Multiple hours are possible even in HD.

(i do believe that any and all solutions for digitally recording that much video cuts it up (internally, invisibly) into pieces anyway)

You would need a camera that would be able to remain on for 150 hours. You can live feed from many video cameras. A live feed (and be sure the camera can remain on indefinitely) that was being recorded on a Mac should be reasonably simple. If you connected your mac to 4 external drives in an enclosure, with each drive being 2TB, you would have (I think) sufficient space. Connect via esata if you can, FW800 should be fast enough too, but that's not definitive. You could shoot at NTCS broadcast. The other post pointed to the fact that you'd need a converter. I'm not sure they are easy to find these days but there's nothing illegal about using a digital/analog converter unless you are doing something illegal. That's not an issue here so first step would be to start looking around for a converter. After that it's just a matter of picking a camera that supports a live feed and connecting them, firing up something to capture the feed like FCP or whatever and connecting the storage. Do the math on the storage. I didn't.

In the original post, you said you wanted to record analog. Computers record digital, not analog. You can run the analog video through an A to D convertor and record it to disc, but you'll need a TON of disc space, as the above posts state.

You don't need a video camera, if you are taking the analog video feed from the video output of the receiver and sending it to the converter, then to the computer for saving. You'll need a program that supports video capture and that writes to the drive(s) and can manage that length of feed.

I strongly recommend you test it before the actual event you wish to capture.

Hope this helps...

RAID 0 internal drives 3 and 4 for performance in Disk Utility and in case you go over 2TB (you have 4TB with RAID 0)

Start a new recording every six-eight hours during commercials breaks. Label the recordings so you get the sequence right.

You'll have to break up the recording so you can edit it the parts later in more managable parts, software does have it's limitations.

Copy the files to the single #2 drive for backup as RAID 0 can be unstable. (do not remove the RAID 0 drives without backup of the data first)

Remove the drive #2 for portability, copy remaining files onto another drive if need be.

You can stick the internal drive in a IDE/SATA external enclosure with eSATA, Firewire 800, USB comapatability to transfer the content to another RAID 0 enabled working computer. Or if it's a Mac Pro, then just use a empty drive slot.

Problem with large storage is the slow drive speed as it gets filled up, the RAID 0 will overcome that as it splits the data path, but the data needs to be recombined on a single drive for portability and long term storage. Because the data path is split, anything happens to either drive makes you lose all the sata on both drives.

If your drives are 7,200 RPM's you shouldn't have much trouble.

Again. Do not physcially remove the two drives (3 and 4) while they are part of a RAID 0 set, until you successfully got the data off and "un-RAiD-ed" them.

robert254 wrote:

What I am looking for is what program, what software will allow me to record the 168 hours to the external hard drives?

You might try asking in the Final Cut Pro forum where there are people who actually understand pro video needs. Or on a pro video/TV forum on the Web. There must be a solution out there already, because you probably aren't the only station in the world who needs to do this, right?

On the surface it sounds like you just need a program that would capture the incoming DirecTV signal straight to disk. I don't know why the other posters are talking about cameras and such, quoting DV disk space needs which is a format and codec totally irrelevant to this discussion, and why they are misinterpreting your "broadcast analog" spec into something it's not. You need to ask people who know TV, not just Macs.

If it is a standard cable-type signal, you may be able to use a TV tuner like EyeTV, which might then be able to record it direct to disk. If it is not a standard consumer signal, one "brute force" way would be to use a video digitizer and then capture the screen using any screen capture program like iShowU, SnapzProX, etc. But that would be kind of extreme. I think you should find out what other TV stations do in the same situation, and that expertise may not exist in this forum. I sure don't know.

Too many people are overthinking this. Get a simple a/v capture box that connects to your mac via either firewire (preferred) or usb. Connect the analog output of your satellite receiver to the converter. Open up QT Pro and create a New Video Recording. It can be that simple. Of course alot of the previous advice applies: have a fast HD, don't have anything else running in the background. In QT you can specify the format that the recording will be saved as, so you have some choices there.

Good Luck.

Try the Hauppage HD PVR. http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html

You'd also need this http://www.hdpvrcapture.com/cms/?q=node/1 to be able to use it in a Mac.

You might have more options with this particular device if you boot into windows and edit or playback in Mac. It records into H.264 which is not too edit friendly. Edit-possible, just not edit-friendly.