Shooting Video on a 550D or 5D camera.

ZENER

I know these are technically not video cameras per se but I'm hoping someone here has used one for this purpose and can answer a quick question.

I will be using one of these cameras to record short interviews (up to 90 seconds each) in the near future, in an automated booth. The software controlling the camera and providing the onscreen instruction is DSLR Remote Pro from Breeze Systems. I have a full license for the software.

My problem is that the software triggers the camera to begin recording to its internal memory card and then moves the file from there to the PCs hard disk. This means that the software cannot overlay any information on the video during the recording. But I need to have some form of identifying number displayed on the video for my customer.

According to the user manuals for the 550D I can insert time and date on the video but no mention of anything else. Has anyone found a way to insert anything other than this on either of these cameras ?

I hope that the above is clear enough ?

Thanks

Ken

Miguel_Sanchez

Do you have to give them the footage straight away or could you just stick whatever info you have onto the footage afterwards through some editing software?

ZENER

The videos will be short interviews with customers of my client. An operator will take the name and email address of each interviewee and will need some way to link that name to the recording - hence the on-screen text requirement.

The operator won't have access to the workings of the booth so there's no way they can see the filename or any info connected with it. That's why I hoped there would be a way to have a caption of some sort that could be incremented with each recording. If needs be we'll have to get the operator to record the time of each recording and then name the files afterwards but it's not an ideal situation and prone to error.

Thanks for the input.

Ken

Miguel_Sanchez

ZENER wrote: »

The videos will be short interviews with customers of my client. An operator will take the name and email address of each interviewee and will need some way to link that name to the recording - hence the on-screen text requirement.

Easiest thing to do to ensure that the right name ends up with the right person is have each interviewee state their name at the top of their interview.

ZENER

I was looking for something a bit more Hi-Tech to be honest. So I guess there's no way of changing the captions on these cameras ?

Ken

Miguel_Sanchez

ZENER wrote: »

So I guess there's no way of changing the captions on these cameras ?

Ken

I don't think there is. And to be honest, having to enter each person's name at the start of the interview seems a bit cumbersome even if it is 'high-tech'.

Simplest way is just to title each interview afterwards using whatever editing software you have.

Even if my solution isn't very high tech it's actually foolproof and will make sure that you get the correct name on the correct person. It's why people still use it.

ZENER

I wasn't intending to enter the name of the person, I was hoping there was a way to have the filename or number overlaid by the camera on the footage - without the need for user intervention - which would be incremented by the camera for each clip.

We're going to just have the time displayed on the footage instead. We have to roll this out in the next 2 weeks so I'll have to make do.

Thanks for the input !

Ken

Miguel_Sanchez

ZENER wrote: »

I wasn't intending to enter the name of the person, I was hoping there was a way to have the filename or number overlaid by the camera on the footage - without the need for user intervention - which would be incremented by the camera for each clip.

Ah I get you now. I'm not very familiar with the workings of the cameras but I imagine there wouldn't be that much demand for the filename on screen for it to be implemented as a feature.

It's a very simple process to do afterwards though.