HPX500 and Firewire

[andicam]

Hi there...

my HPX will arrive in the next week. But something I couldn't find out in advance is whether it supports firewire 800 or just FW 400?!? I know that you can host a harddisk via the camera but can it also provide bus power???
The background is that I'm working for several small production companies and after the shoot I just wanted to plug a hdd onto the cam and put the data on it and give it to the producer, so I can continue working for a different client the next day without waiting for my P2cards...

Thx for your help

-andicam-

[EditingFX]

I think it's 400, not sure about bus power.

BUT here's the thing... doing it that is WAY SLOW and you end up with a drive formatted and partitioned into card-sized volumes. Example: you offload (4) 16GB cards onto a 120GB drive - the camera creates 4 16GB paritions, each called NONAME, and the rest of the drive is not partitioned. I've tested this (thought it'd be great way to work) and forget the time it took, but remember that it was much much slower than offloading cards via a laptop & P2CMS (Pana software).

Skip the direct-offload idea. go with a laptop & an external RAID 1 array. That way you make 2 copies of your work; 1 for producer, 1 for you. I got an ezRAID... loads/unloads new drives very quickly.

[andicam]

Skip the direct-offload idea. go with a laptop & an external RAID 1 array. That way you make 2 copies of your work; 1 for producer, 1 for you. I got an ezRAID... loads/unloads new drives very quickly.

Thx for your reply. Never worked with RAID systems, how does it work on a laptop? Will the data be saved on the laptop hdd and also on the external hdd??? What kinda hardware do I need then???

-andicam-

[Noel Evans]

andi after the shoot do you have access to power?

The cam can not deliver bus power unfortunately.

[andicam]

andi after the shoot do you have access to power?

The cam can not deliver bus power unfortunately.

Good to know and that's exactly my problem then... I'm out in the field and after the shoot, the producer/director/reporter and I seperate. And I was just thinking of giving him/her the hdd and thats it... Obviously I have to rethink it a bit... :smile:

-andicam-

[Barry_Green]

It's FW400 with no bus power.

[EditingFX]

You could use a DV inverter to get 120V out in the field... laptops, drives, etc use very little amperage, so not a big load. Might want to consider a high quality inverter that outputs since wave instead of square wave AC. But I bet it's not an issue for all this gear that converts AC to DC anyway.

As for RAID workflow, here's mine:
- laptop (PC with PCMCIA slot or Mac with Dual Adapter)
- ezRAID firewire 800 to MBP FW800 or PC FW400 / USB400
- use P2CMS for transfers... handles all the needs & has a verification option. also instantly shows you all transferred clips in yellow so you can be sure if something's transferred
- RAID 1 mode (aka "mirrored"), where it appears as a single volume on the laptop, but data is copied simultaneously to both drives at same time. if either drive dies, you still have an instantly ready-to-go mirrored drive. In your case, after transfer you can hand 1 drive to producer & keep one "locally"

I find that transferring 16GB with verify takes about 20 minutes this way.

I will agree that "run, gun, shoot lots of footage in ine day, then hand off media to client immediately" workflow is NOT the strong suit of P2. In our typical workflow, that's not an issue, as we edit most everything we shoot.

Off topic, did you know it's possible to edit your video directly from the camera, on a MacBookPro, via USB? Make an edit, add effects, audio, etc, render the timeline and then EXPORT your timeline BACk to a P2 card in the camera? Then play back that edit via SDI, component, composite! With an HPX and a laptop, you are a complete solution. (Your mileage may vary, kids, don't try this at home.)

[andicam]

@Barry Green: thx for the info!