A1 recording to external drive... How to?

[Jay Rodriguez]

I'm sitting here with the A1 & the FS (Firestore) trying to record to the FS. I have the FS set up as tapeless and tring to set the A1 to record to the external drive but can't find it anywhere in the manual.

Any suggestions?

[OldCorpse]

Aaah, yes, I'm interested in this question too... my plan is to buy the A1 and record to an FS (wish they were cheaper) in 24F.

Q: which FS? It is my understanding that not all models have the same specs and capabilities (i.e. not just size of hdd).

[Juan Diaz]

Which Model Firestore do you have?

I'm not in from of the A1 or the Firestore right now so I'll have to check tomorrow, but there's a setting you have to enable on the camera to have it send deck control over firewire.

[Jay Rodriguez]

it's the 60GB if that's what you're asking.

[Juan Diaz]

Hi Coffee, I was actually wondering if you had an FS-C or one of the FS-4s. But in either case I don't think it makes a difference.

I found the setting on the A1 that I was refering to. In the menus, go to SYSTEM SETUP-->DV CONTROL. By default the setting is set to OFF, but you want to turn it ON.

When it's on the Canon sends its record/stop commands out over firewire, so this setting has to be on so that the firestore can receive record commands while in tapeless mode.

Hope that helps!

[Jay Rodriguez]

Oh sorry Juan, I was awake for maybe 5 minutes before I logged on and responded to you.

I have the FS-4. What's the difference between the FS-4 and the FS-C?

Also, thanks for the tip! I couldn't find that anywhere in the A1 manual. I'll set up the camera in a couple hrs to see how it works out for me.

Thanks buddy! :)

[Juan Diaz]

No worries. The info for DV control is on page 74 of the A1 manual.

Supposedly there's no difference between the FS-C and the FS-4 so that's why I said that it probably didn't make any difference, but I figured it would be good to know anyway just in case. Good luck.

[Jay Rodriguez]

I think there's something wrong with my unit.

When I set the A1 DV CONTROL to ON and then set the FS to sync it just flashed the screen purple and blue. It doesn't do anything beyond that until I stop it.

Juan, have any ideas on this?

[Jay Rodriguez]

UPDATE:
So I changed the rocord type from Quicktime to M2t files and now it works. I thought this thing could record to QT files....

Also, whn I connect to my mac nothing happens. The manual says that I just have to connect via a 6 - 6 pin firewire cable and a mounted drive should show up. I'm about to call some friends to see if they have a wire, maybe mine is shot....

[manglerBMX]

when you connect the fs4 to your computer(make sure to put the cable in the computer i/o port), power up the unit and then hit right two times to navigate to the HDD mode, scroll down to the DD Drive option and press right again. then select enable. it will then mount like a hard drive. the fs4 pro hd needs an updater that you have to install to be able to record hdv in quicktime native files. its not free tho. you can check the focus enhancements website for it.

[Jay Rodriguez]

AHHHHH! That worked! lol

Strange, pg. 42 n the manual (Mounting the FS-4 HD Mac) doesn't say anything about that.

Thakns man