Breaking the 30 minute video recording limit without breaking the bank by Leon Watkins (Website | Facebook):
Summary: I’ve built a portable, lightweight rig using a gaming recording device to record a clean HMDI feed straight from the camera for continuous takes of over 30 minutes.
The rig in use
The rig mounted on a tripod and in use
One of the major frustrations I’ve had over the years is people asking me “do you do videos?”; to which I generally answer “no”, and then try to give them the number of someone who can do a decent job. However, there are occasions when I do want to do video, and for me these are usually long, static viewpoint events which last over the magic 30 minutes. For me these are personal events such as school plays or sermons at my church – but I see the need for lecture recording, or presentations amongst over situations. Historically, I’ve kept a firm eye on my watch whilst still trying to enjoy these events, jumping up 5 minutes before the end of the recording period and trying to find a suitable 2-3 second window to stop and restart recording whilst trying not to distract everyone else (including the speaker). It all feels a bit mission impossible and I felt there had to be a better way. I recently did a book launch where I was doing both stills and video which was a little bit of a nightmare of clock watching over a three-hour event.
Let me be clear – I’m not a video pro. I’m not demanding raw output with exotic codecs or doing much post processing, colour grading or any of that sort of thing. There are people who are much better placed than me to make high-quality productions for commercial use – and I will happily pass then work. But for personal and community stuff, all I really want is a clean image with clean sound and I’m happy. It’s for personal use and posting on youtube community groups. So please be aware that this solution is for those needs, not high-end professional output. With all that being said, I was pretty pleased with the results I got from my cheap setup.
Cost. This was my major concern. The sharper-eyed among you will see that the camera I’m using to model this setup is a D850. So, If I’ve got a D850, why wouldn’t I spent another few hundred $/£s on an Atomos Ninja Flame Ninja (B&H link; WEX Link) with SSDs, or get the slightly more affordable new Blackmagic Design Video Assist (HD) (B&H Link; WEX Link) along with associated batteries and mounting rigs? Why not indeed? Because I thought there must be a cheaper solution. It just seemed that jumping feet first into a fully professional setup for something I didn’t do professionally would be a huge leap of both faith and personal resources. So I decided to look for something which would do the job at a consumer/enthusiast level.
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