Need to video record wife's lectures

[BarkingGhostar]

My wife works for the University of System of Georgia. She teaches science at one of the Atlanta universities (+20 years). Her classes have always been traditional, but the USofGA instituted a two-week cancellation of all classes while they force faculty to move their in-class instruction to online only. So here is my problem:

Wife wants me to video record her lectures that she'll do from the classroom as normal, and then post the videos on the university system for students to access as they do with other materials. At first this seems like an easy thing. I have a Canon 5d MkIII but I have never done video with it. Nor do I have any video-editing software. My photography, which is personal not professional, doesn't require the horsepower that video-editing needs. Also, I know devices that are not classified as video recorders are limited to recording time (I think 30 min). I know I can get my camera to save to SD/CF in MPEG form (don't know which gen), which is compressed, but I do know this should require RAW output to external storage.

And while I think I may be on one legitimate track for this 'problem', I wonder if another option is out there. The DSLR would allow me to control aperture, and thus DOF, viewing angle, etc., but maybe another equally liberating solution is out there like an action camera? I do not want to use a camcorder as those beasties do not have true manual focusing, and nothing to say about how much DOF I can get to keep podium, wife and dry-erase board in complete focus. Video just isn't my world.

BTW, I do not care about the recording length on non-camcorders because recording can be limited to individual topic-lengths in which 4-5 topics in a lecture might be the overall production for one lecture. Anyone got any ideas? Cell phones will not be considered.

 

[killster1]

why is cellphone not considered? sounds great with a tripod and blutooth remote. i make videos like that often, 4k60fps with my galaxy s10+ they look AMAZING! i guess you dont have a good cellphone? sounds like a tax write off then you are treating this like its a motion picture. auto focus should be fine, hvec encoding should be fine, cellphones do this.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

An unlocked Samsung Galaxy S10+ runs $850 on Amazon for the smallest storage capacity. Hmm.

 

[killster1]

An unlocked Samsung Galaxy S10+ runs $850 on Amazon for the smallest storage capacity. Hmm.

i got mine for 320$ with 512gb last august on ebay with a small crack on the side. who said buy new? i bought a ATT one and unlocked it for 20$ from one of the unlock.com type sites was easy and fast. still running strong and never even notice the crack. i cant wait till they have lots of ultra 20's on ebay with small crack on the back or side, ill buy one of those too for around 400 would be my price.

i just suggested cellphone because alot of people have nice ones already. a 4k action camera on a tripod would be great as well overkill im sure.

 

[UsandThem]

What about a camera like the YouTube streamers use?
https://www.pcgamer.com/best-webcams/

I'm sure there are less expensive models available, but you might need to look at what Amazon offers and read some reviews.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

O think those are designed for when the subject is in close proximity, such as at a computer monitor, no? I'm talking about being 10-15 feet or more from a classroom dry erase board with a field of view that covered the scene width from the left side of the dry erase board to the other. BTW, I am not so concerned about the cost but if I were going to spend =/>$1K then I may just buy into a whole system if my Canon doesn't work out. It is easy to talk the wife into spending $2-3K on a setup if it is for her. Got to love the psychology of it all and me vicariously living through her needs.

I was also looking at a system approach if I really wanted to try 4K60p. Something like a GH5s, but I am shocked at how expensive those lenses can be for the micro-4/3 format. At this point I probably need to test the limitations of 1080p60 and see if the detail she writes on the board can be retained and if not then 4K60p.

Off Topic Question: Instead of hosting these videos on her school's web server I brought the idea of creating a YouTube channel. But she didn't want to have videos open to be public. Is there a way make the video private so that her students can see them by yielding a password or something?

 

[killster1]

O think those are designed for when the subject is in close proximity, such as at a computer monitor, no? I'm talking about being 10-15 feet or more from a classroom dry erase board with a field of view that covered the scene width from the left side of the dry erase board to the other. BTW, I am not so concerned about the cost but if I were going to spend =/>$1K then I may just buy into a whole system if my Canon doesn't work out. It is easy to talk the wife into spending $2-3K on a setup if it is for her. Got to love the psychology of it all and me vicariously living through her needs.

I was also looking at a system approach if I really wanted to try 4K60p. Something like a GH5s, but I am shocked at how expensive those lenses can be for the micro-4/3 format. At this point I probably need to test the limitations of 1080p60 and see if the detail she writes on the board can be retained and if not then 4K60p.

Off Topic Question: Instead of hosting these videos on her school's web server I brought the idea of creating a YouTube channel. But she didn't want to have videos open to be public. Is there a way make the video private so that her students can see them by yielding a password or something?

like i said before you are thikning to much into it, youtube password channel! never heard of it. 3k for a simple video of her teaching? this seems to be such overkill action camera or youtube type cameras will work fine at 15 feet. they also are 100$-200$ at most.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The problem with most DSLR and still cameras is they have a recording limit, like 15 minutes. Webcams might be ok but you need a computer too.

Best bet is to get an actual camcorder, a standard HD one is not that expensive and the quality will be adequate for lectures. Should be able to find something locally at an electronics store I would think so no need to wait for an order to come in.

I use a Canon Vixia HF R800 for vlogging and it's ok. It was not too expensive, like $300 or something I forget. Not super crazy quality, I think it's even less good than my Nikon DSLR, but the main advantage is that you can record for a long time and it has all the features you'd expect in a camcorder like zoom and auto focus etc.

Here's a video if you want to see sample footage:

 

[BarkingGhostar]

WTO separates true video recording devices from other devices able to record video ay the 30-minute mark (29'59" actually). This is a licensing issue on class equipment. But this limit is actually OK because it was decided to record individual topics (10-15 min. each) and then list them out to students of T1/2/3 as the lecture. And my says she is OK with using her cell phone if it can do the job. So, instead of a 4'x10' dry erase board being covered by DSLR/etc., she'll be using a 16"x24" dry erase board with fine tip markers and a cell phone handing overhead. Now lets just see where her iPhone SE gets her. I dislike the Apple ecosystem as they lock it down too hard and her 'work' is on M$.

But two years ago I found my own SE would no longer download images and videos while in a Microsoft environment. If an image or video had previously downloaded it would not let you do it again as the iOS is tagging items as already haven been downloaded. I lost ~400 images by this 'mistake' on Apple's part of bad tagging when I had an accident with my SE at the beginning of the year. So I will need to research and see if the wife is having the same issues as I did.

 

[killster1]

WTO separates true video recording devices from other devices able to record video ay the 30-minute mark (29'59" actually). This is a licensing issue on class equipment. But this limit is actually OK because it was decided to record individual topics (10-15 min. each) and then list them out to students of T1/2/3 as the lecture. And my says she is OK with using her cell phone if it can do the job. So, instead of a 4'x10' dry erase board being covered by DSLR/etc., she'll be using a 16"x24" dry erase board with fine tip markers and a cell phone handing overhead. Now lets just see where her iPhone SE gets her. I dislike the Apple ecosystem as they lock it down too hard and her 'work' is on M$.

But two years ago I found my own SE would no longer download images and videos while in a Microsoft environment. If an image or video had previously downloaded it would not let you do it again as the iOS is tagging items as already haven been downloaded. I lost ~400 images by this 'mistake' on Apple's part of bad tagging when I had an accident with my SE at the beginning of the year. So I will need to research and see if the wife is having the same issues as I did.

iphone se? wow your poor wife, why didnt you buy her a nicer phone for xmas in the past 7 years? seriously if for nothing else then for better antenna / wifi, the screen is tiny unless she likes to keep it in her bra or coin pocket in the jeans or something.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

She loves the small footprint and refused the larger sized ones. Its not the original as she began to run out of space and mostly uses it for music and candid image capturing (and dressing room selfies asking my feedback) but nothing serious. She can have whatever she wants. I've never refused her anything.

 

[killster1]

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yes its bigger but is it really a issue to use a bigger phone? i guess she never uses the phone much so she thinks its a waste to purchase a new one. SMall phones are super cool to me too but they dont ever have teh same features. no photography i guess you are past going on vacations to exciting places or carry a dslr (duh you mentioned using two diff dslr) guess thats why. you could always buy her something with out her asking

 

[BarkingGhostar]

The only reason she gave up the the iPhone 5 was because wireless technology changed. We haven't had a vacation since 2014 because I cannot trust my employer. My boss and his boss don't either. But if we were to I would bring along the Canon 5D Mk3. I've often felt the 5D was too big and too heavy for her as a camera and considered the 4/3 market might make it more accessible to her

 

[killster1]

The only reason she gave up the the iPhone 5 was because wireless technology changed. We haven't had a vacation since 2014 because I cannot trust my employer. My boss and his boss don't either. But if we were to I would bring along the Canon 5D Mk3. I've often felt the 5D was too big and too heavy for her as a camera and considered the 4/3 market might make it more accessible to her

i have a waterproof pentex i like to bring with me, sorry about no vacation

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Actually, the wife's employer dropped a problem. Videos created by faculty need to include CC (Closed Captioning). This turned into a bear of a chore so we went looking online for online classes that pre-created videos (with CC could be used in lieu of her own videos. For things like General Chemistry this is readily available from MIT, UC Irvine, etc., but she also teaches a survey class and nothing available from a fellow university was found. I then looked at Khan Academy and their chem stuff is on a low-enough level that is perfect for survey classes--and best yet Khan's videos are CC.

Woohoo, let this fat man find the easy way to get the job done. BTW, I think YouTube Studio? does automatic CC, but how good they are at science lexicon would need to be experimented with. And no one seems to know if the Fed requirement for CC is also required for powerpoint, audio-only presentations.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah youtube does do CC but it's not always accurate (still surprisingly decent though). Adding the CC requirement kind of puts a huge wrench in everything as if you end up having to do it manually it would be quite a task editing that in.