DVX direct to OMF on a laptop

[Erdnase]

Hi Avid users. First post on the forum and hopefully someone has had the same idea or tried this out in the field.

Scenario:
Spend a number of days interviewing the same person. At least 10 hours of material.

I'd like to record directly to my laptop, so each evening I can review the material without having to import. I'd use a 320GB Lacie Big Disk Extreme (7200rpm) attached to my laptop and capture through Xpress Pro.

Naturally, I'd still be recording to tape as a back-up.

Any users have thumbs-ups, concerns or horror stories?
Sync problems, artifacts, dropped fields? I dread to think what other demons I'm forgetting.

I work professionally on Symphony and have successfully captured for long stretches (over 40 minutes) direct from a Beta deck or a line feed. Theoretically, I don't foresee any problems using the DVX as my source, but...

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Many thanks,
Richard.

[oigflabble]

I heard DV Rack addresses the error issues you mentioned.
No personal experience with it though.

[MichaelP]

You can capture directly into the NLE as well giving you the benefit of logging after each capture, subclip and or locators on tly while capturing as well.

Michael

[Erdnase]

Oigflabble,thanks for the note. DV Rack looks like a great product, but it is creating .avi files, not Avid native omfs. I'm looking for the ability to review my shots, via the Avid timeline, as soon as I stop recording.

As Michael kindly wrote, I should be able to start Avid, create a bin, launch the digitize tool and I'd get instant OMF files on my external drive. With no problems.

My nervous concern is the Xpress Pro and having to add on an external drive to a laptop. I've only used a Composer or Symphony & hope someone on the forum has used Xpress to digitize directly from the DVX. If anyone can give me an all clear to my method, I can breath a sigh of relief.

I'm sure others have pondered this possibility.

Richard.