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Question

Camcorder/DVR setup

Sep 6, 2014 1:50PM PDT

A friend and I are going to be filming a bunch of indoor soccer league games and producing DVDs for purchase after each season is complete. We want to be able to just start and stop and the beginning and end of the day and make all edits/cuts in post. However, we're having a bit of a tough time figuring out the hardware setup.

Here's our constraints:

1. About $600 budget
2. GoPro-like FOV (170 degrees) lens or similar
3. Can write to an external hard drive directly
4. Would LIKE to have a way to start and stop recording from anywhere but NEED to be able to start recording remotely (at least 10 feet away, preferably up to 100' away)

Also, if you have any ideas regarding how we should present the videos on the DVDs, feel free to leave your input.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Wi-Fi
Sep 6, 2014 3:50PM PDT

To answer 4 first, a camera with near field communication (NFC) would do the remote bit. Example the Panasonic HC-V550.
I doubt if any NFC connection would work over 100' directly. You would need a local router.

This camera also would download to an external hard drive from the SD card. There is no advantage in this as the SD card would download directly into a PC for editing and DVD burning. I would stay with SD cards as the transfer medium.

Probably a wide angle lens attachment would answer 2. See Amazon. Another option would be a remote pan/tilt base. Panasonic supply one the VW-CTR1 which is connected to the camera via USB and is controlled by the Wi-Fi App described above. This is often sold as a package with the 550. This would be a better option than a wide angle lens, you could pan the camera to follow the play and zoom in to record detail.

To record a football match properly you would need at least three or four cameras. One covering the field, two covering the goal area and a mobile following the play. It has been suggested you approach a local video club and talk them into filming the events.

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Answer
My son does something like that
Sep 9, 2014 12:43PM PDT

But they just press record and walk away. Just a few years ago you would press stop and start to conserve storage, tape or film but today we just hit the record button and let it rip.
Bob