Recording to a Firewire drive?

[stanw]

1. Can you record directly to an external FireWire hard drive?

2. If not, can I connect the HVX to a Macbook Pro connected to an external
Firewire hard drive?

3. Are there any issues doing either of these?

Thanks.

[morisato]

You can not record directly to a FW drive with the HVX unless it is a specialty drive like the firestore. You can connect your HVX to a MBP with FCP and turn on the log and capture and use "capture now" to record "directly" to a FW drive, but not when recording 720p footage of any frame rate.

The issue with Firestore is that it is expensive.

The issue with the MBP solution is that you have to carry a laptop where ever you go, and you have to make sure your drive and computer is fast enough to capture the data rate.

EDIT:

If your next question is how fast of a computer and drive do you need to get it to work, then my answer is I dont know. You'll need to do some experimenting. I'm sure that the duration of your shot will make a difference too. If the shot is too long then the buffer might run out and you'll drop some frames.

EDIT #2: Oh, I thought of another issue when recording through a MBP. If you're going through FW and recording HD, that means you're recording 1080. If you record 24p, you'll have the issue of not having flagged frames, so removing duplicate frames will be tougher. If you record 1080i60 or 1080p30 then you'll be fine.

[nsoltz]

You can record 720 through Firewire, except for native modes. I do 720 59.94 all the time. As far as 720 24p, either edit in a 29.97 timeline or use Cinema Tools to remove pulldown if you want to edit in 23.98. No big deal.

Ned Soltz