Real time video titles

[Cashel]

I am investigating whether it is feasible to do real-time video titling for our church youth group. They currently do self-produced videos etc. but want to ratchet up a little. I think that they would need a mixer like a SIMA SFX-9 to do this. Does anyone here have any ideas? I figure that you have to provide video on one channel and video titles on the other, but I don't have any experience in this area.

Thanks.

[Jason Dunn]

This is completely above my head, so I can't offer much advice here except to confirm the fact that you'd need a dedicated piece of hardware that would overlay the video title and pump it out to the final destination. I've used devices like this before and they're quite expensive, but perhaps there are some affordable options out there.

Silly question, but assuming they're making these productions on a computer already (MiniDV cam to computer), wouldn't it be easier to put the titles in post-production, but not "live"?

[Cashel]

The problem is spontaneity. They want to be showing a music video or some other thing they have recorded and put titles over it on the fly. The rendering time would put any software I have seen out of the picture. I found a small mixer in the $500 dollar range, but since I don't have any experience in this area I thought I would solicit comments from you folks to see what pops up. I hate to buy stuff like this without a feel for whether it will work for my application.

[Jason Dunn]

Ah, I see - makes sense then. $500 seems pretty reasonable, but unfortunately I have no experience with devices like that. Maybe you can review it for us. ;-)

[Cashel]

I still have to find real time titling software. We got a confirmation that a mixer is what we need. We found one for under $300 on Ebay. If we get it up and running, I'll write something up.

[Jason Dunn]

Cool! I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on it.