Location Shooting questions

[Craig T]

Hello, I'm shooting a 20min short film at an outdoor location in three weeks. I was going to use my DVX100A, but one of my crew guys just bought himself an AG- HVX200p. He has one 4GB P2 Card and one battery for the camera and one for the top mounted monitor. My questions are these:
1. Battery - Will the 4hr batteries that I use with my DVX100A work on the HVX?
2. Will the HVX record directly to an external hard drive? (I don't own a lap top)
3. If the only way is from the P2 card, what's the right external drive to buy (I'm not sure if External drives use Firewire and is USB fast enough?)
Thanks for any help - Craig

[cinemakinoeye]

[...] Will the 4hr batteries that I use with my DVX100A work on the HVX? [...] Yes, they are the same, handy, huh?


[...] Will the HVX record directly to an external hard drive? [...]
No, the HVX records HD and SD formats to P2 cards or SD formats to miniDV. It can also record the non-Native formats to an external hard drive recording device like the FireStore FS-100. In other words, if you want to record 720/24pN, you have to record to P2 cards. You can, however, mount the camera as a FireWire device on your computer via FireWire and transfer files from the P2 card to your computer.


[...] If the only way is from the P2 card, what's the right external drive to buy (I'm not sure if External drives use Firewire and is USB fast enough?) [...] An external FireWire 400, FireWire 800, or USB 2.0 drive will do for storing the files (as long as you have a compatible interface on your computer). If you're paranoid like me, you'll make sure your media is always in no fewer than two places at any time. Keeping a backup is critical when you don't have tapes to fall back on as your archive media.

[Craig T]

Thanks for the quick reply. I can sleep better tonight. On the batteries, great! That was a big one!
- On tranfer from P2 card to external drive. I edit on a PC with Windows XP.
Is Firewire faster than USB? I'm the kind of shooter that likes to move right along through my script. Craig

[cinemakinoeye]

[...] On tranfer from P2 card to external drive. I edit on a PC with Windows XP. Is Firewire faster than USB? I'm the kind of shooter that likes to move right along through my script. Craig
If you're talking about FireWire vs. USB 2.0 for simply trasferring files from the card to the hard drive, you're not going to see a huge difference between the two. USB 1.0 on the other hand... zzz.

[Craig T]

Thanks I appreciate the help! Craig