Firestore?

[nametaken]

I am starting a wedding videography business for the summer season on Mackinac Island, Mi and have a few questions...

I am using one 16gig P2 card right now on an HVX but am interested in buying a firestore for longer takes in High Def (mostly 720pn.) I hear some skeptical things about the Firestore though. I hear you can stream right to a laptop but that might be impossible roaming around outside a church. This, for the time being, is gonna be a one camera operation.

Here is my list of tools for business:

HVX200 w/16gb P2
Bogen Tripod
Shotgun Microphone
Lavalier System
Nikon UV Filter
Handheld Stabilizer
Macbook Pro/FCS 2
(considering) Indislider Pro
(considering) Firestore

Anything more to consider?
Thanks.

[Rob]

How are you set on power ?

[nametaken]

3 5600 batteries.
I suppose I should have included those.

[Kit Hannah]

I would purchase the Nnovia QC HD Deck. It does not have native support for DVCPRO HD ....yet.... but they're much more robust and should have full support by NAB in April. It has removeable hard drive media packs which are very reasonably priced (like $299 for 120Gb or something). You can just record SD to it for now until they release the codec.

The firestores are just to clunky and overpriced for the build quality. We owned 3 of them and sold them within a few months. If Focus was smart, they would debut a new design at NAB and get the hell away from the FS-4 crap. They're built cheap and lots of people have problems with them. We sent 2 of ours in for repair and it took over a month to get them back. Save your money.

[MDKfilms]

I don't think you have a choice about it. Having done some weddings you are not going to have time to use P2 and as for a deck, how is it powered? Not even a laptop is an option unless you can hold the cam in one hand and the laptop in the other or strap it to your back. This is what the firestore was made for, long takes and it attaches to the camera, but this is just my opinion and my experience.

[Cinemandrew]

I am starting a wedding videography business for the summer season on Mackinac Island, Mi and have a few questions...

I am using one 16gig P2 card right now on an HVX but am interested in buying a firestore for longer takes in High Def (mostly 720pn.) I hear some skeptical things about the Firestore though. I hear you can stream right to a laptop but that might be impossible roaming around outside a church. This, for the time being, is gonna be a one camera operation.

Here is my list of tools for business:

HVX200 w/16gb P2
Bogen Tripod
Shotgun Microphone
Lavalier System
Nikon UV Filter
Handheld Stabilizer
Macbook Pro/FCS 2
(considering) Indislider Pro
(considering) Firestore

Anything more to consider?
Thanks.

For what you're doing, the firestore certainly looks like a good option. I personally wouldn't recommend it though, since I've run into situations with it losing parts of clips, or even losing all the footage on the damn thing. The worst example being from the last music video I worked on. The DP i was working with had actually rented a firestore for the shoot because his was being repaired after losing all his footage from a previous shoot, and wouldn't you know it, this one almost crapped out on us too. Luckily we rebooted it and we got it working properly. It's just not worth the risk for me personally. Get more than one P2 card. I don't know how you plan on shooting the weddings, but unless you want to be rolling the whole day without stopping, you should be good with 2 or 3 of em, especially if you're gonna be shooting native (which you can't shoot with the firestore btw, it will only allow you to shoot 60i).

[dave edgar]

You CAN shoot native with the Firestore, as long as you have the latest software installed.