urgent advice for conference video recording

Ive just been asked how to record a emergency conference for my hospital which could last upto 10 hours with 4-6 presentations.
most of our video cameras are old and have dv tapes with a max recording of upto 90 minutes.
problem is the camera will be set up and left to record without an operator so no one to change tapes.

question
is there a way of setting the camera up by either usb or firewire and burn direct onto the hard drive and if so what sort of software do we need. all the hospital laptops are running XP but we have one with windows 7 32bit on it.

as ive never had to do this before the only thing i can think of at short notice is fraps

any advice would be greatly appreciated

 

If I recall Windows does have software called movie maker but I think you need to have the hardware attachments to make it work that is the other portion that is missing here for computer recording you need the hardware attachments to get it connected to use the computer as a storage video live recording device. You might want to see what kinda computers the Windows 7 is and find what hardware at in UK has that will work for it to do live video recording on the computer at your local electronics retailer there they would best be able to help you with this urgent problem.

 

thanks for that StormJumper. i will pass that info onto the boss.
mucho appreciated.

 

Don't forget Video recording on computer with Audio will take alot space if you want quality recording for playback and a SSD unless sufficient might not have the capacity which means you will have to get larger HDD something like 3tb if affordable to make as a storage and playback device for the video.

 

sorted.
just had a test with cheap webcam and the inbuilt movie maker and it worked.
i think as its such short notice they will have a break every 90 minutes and someone will have to save the file to an external drive.
the boss, his boss, and the bosses boss including 3 other bosses said tank you very much for the advice.

+repety rep.

 

No Problem, yes the Webcam does wonders in these tech days...and if your laptop has webcam that will also double as a recording device it's the Hard space that will constrain how long and how much recording you will be able to do. And some desktop LCD has webcam built in and some has like what you did Webcam external attached so dont' forget those small options come in pretty handy.

 

Won't the copy from tape to hard drive also take 90 minutes?

 

it would but then someone will have to transfer it via fire wire which will take twice as long when using movie maker will be direct on the drive and ready to play back immediately.
and im for sure not doing it