Splitting Firewire signal into two outputs

Question

Splitting Firewire signal into two outputs

Hello everyone,
I'm attempting to find a way to split a single firewire signal and output it to two sources. I need a single signal coming from my digital video mixer (sadly it only has one firewire out) to go into my G5 and simultaneously go into a DV HardDrive recorder.
Does anyone know if this is possible?
Thanks,
Jason

G5, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Sep 18, 2006 8:47 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 18, 2006 9:24 AM in response to newyorkfilmmaker

A Firewire hub will allow you to cable everything up, but getting things to work the way you expect depends on the details of what you're running on the Mac, and the other Firewire devices.

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Answer 2

Sep 18, 2006 9:31 AM in response to tele_player

Does anyone know if a firewire hub is capable of splitting/handling video output?
-Jason

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Answer 3

Sep 18, 2006 11:03 AM in response to newyorkfilmmaker

newyorkfilmmaker-

A firewire hub will not split video output. It doesn't actually "split" the firewire signal, rather makes the bus available to more devices.

There are video amplifiers/splitters that will do what you need with the video. The mitigating factors become what type of video source you are splitting and how much you want to spend.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

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Answer 4

Sep 18, 2006 11:06 AM in response to newyorkfilmmaker

You're missing a key point. Firewire is a networking technology - it doesn't really know/care about video. That's handled by the software in the various connected devices.

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Answer 5

Sep 18, 2006 11:13 AM in response to DaddyPaycheck

daddypaycheck,

do you have any specific examples of the equipment you referenced? I'm just looking for anything that will allow for simultaneous capture on a computer and a HD recorder, from a single output, without signal degrade.

Thanks
-Jason

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Answer 6

Sep 18, 2006 11:24 AM in response to newyorkfilmmaker

newyorkfilmmaker-

What are you using for equipment?

The camera generally will feed the signal to the computer as a data stream of ones and zeros. It is not a "video" signal per se. If you are doing this via firewire than the data can be sent to only one target device, which in this case is the computer.

Video in any shape or manner is a different beast all together.

What is the "signal" that you are trying to capture? If it is digital, then you can capture it on the camera's tape and the computer at one time, then transfer to the video HD later.

More info and I may be able to point you in the right direction.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

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Answer 7

Sep 18, 2006 12:04 PM in response to DaddyPaycheck

This is for weekly live webcam events. It's typically a multi-camera shoot, run through a digital video mixer (for obvious reasons) and then outputted to a G5 for web broadcasting. The hope with this splitter is to figure out a way to capture the footage (as it's being edited with the mixer) at the same time while it's being streamed to the computer. As of right now, after the webcast, the editing has to be re-done in Final Cut to match what went out live. By figuring out a way to split the Firewire out signal (if that's even possible) I can eliminate the post production process altogether and just have a ready-to-go editing production, without disrupting the live web transmission.

If you need camera specs we use 2 DVX100A's and 1 DVX100B. We shoot in standard format rather then 24p. The camera are routed via S-Video inputs to our DataVideo mixer. Then out to our G5 (and hopefully an additional recording device)

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Answer 8

Sep 18, 2006 12:57 PM in response to newyorkfilmmaker

nyfm-

Hmm.

I am guessing that if you are using the S-Video outs from the camera, then the DA conversion is done in the mixer and then outpt to the G5 via FW. Can the mixer output digital and firewire at the same time? If so, then your external recording device could be something that accepts video and records it directly from the mixer.

Can't you configure whatever software you are using to webcast the video to save a quicktime file or something? I think I see what you are trying to accomplish, but I do not know of a way to have two FW devices, other than RAIDed hard drives, to read a signal simultaneously.

I am pretty sure that you can shove your output to the web to more than one place at the same time as well. I am thinking as in to another computer sitting on the network that takes the streaming feed and converts it to something that can be saved.

Just brainstorming here for the most part. Maybe someone else will chime in.

Luck-

-DaddyPaycheck

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