What can you record to?

[potipherswife]

I have searched all over and can't seem to get a simple response to this question. I've read about shooting with and HVX to an ipod, an external hard drive, citidisk, firestore, laptops....What is possible? Actually what are the pro's and cons of each? I would prefer posts from people that actually have the HVX and have tried some of these methods. Thanks for your help...

[pmpworks]

Citidisk ? (I don't recommend it), Firestore yes, I highly recommend, Laptop's yes. ipods? never heard of capturing direct to one. There's tons of info on this site, don't do a search, just start looking thru the threads and you'll find it. I use HVX + P2 + Firestore and have no probs. I do however recommend getting a Mac to edit with, I love mine now that I made the switch.

[THoff]

You can't record directly to an iPod or a generic hard drive. You CAN offload P2 media to an iPod, USB OTG drive, or SBP2-compatible Firewire drive, but the camera must be taken out of record mode to do that.

[SomewhereinLA]

The prefer way is recording to P2 , first the HVX was designed around the P2 technology. Od course for SD recording you can use Mini DV as well as P2, but for HD recording P2 will support all the flavors of HD and from 2 to 60 FPS. The FS 100 drive is somewhat popular as well, it doesn't support all the HVX recording options, Some poeple love it some don't like it at all... You can record to a laptop directly with a firewire cable. I think you need a Mac to do that as the firewire doesn't work well on PC's. You can't record on a stand alone drive, but you can transfer recorded video from P2 to a stand alone drive without the need of a computer. Of course the drive needs to be self powered.

[THoff]

You can record to a laptop directly with a firewire cable. I think you need a Mac to do that as the firewire doesn't work well on PC's.You really ought to experience DV Rack 2.0 HD on the PC -- it's enough to make quite a few people install Bootcamp just so they can use its monitoring and recording features that are currently unequaled on the Mac.

[potipherswife]

I swear that I read that some engineers from Panasonic had the HVX hooked up to an Ipod...recording. Hmmmm. I hooked the cam up to my G5, but couldn't get it to record "live". I have the latest FCP. I don't get it. I've also read good reveiws about Citidisk. And I like the price a lot more. Have you guys heard of the catapult?
Check out this link --- http://www.bella-usa.com/Catapult.htm--- That's proof that an Ipod should work right?

[David Saraceno]

FS-100
FCP with non controllable.
DV Rack 2.0 HD on a PC
Some other PC NLEs
Cineporter when it's released
Scopebox (anticipated)
DV Monitor 1.x (HD will be supported)

That's about it.

Don't remember seeing any "BS," whatever that is, as to what you can record to.

[THoff]

No, you cannot record directly to an iPod using the HVX. You can format the iPod as a FAT32 volume and then offload P2 card contents to it, however.

The Catapult isn't out, and there are no plans for it to support DVCProHD. I would not plan my workflow with this device in mind.

[Barry_Green]

FS-100
FCP with non controllable.
DV Rack 2.0 PC
Some other PC NLEs
Cineporter when it's released
Scopebox (anticipated)
DV Monitor 1.x (HD will be supported)
Plus a DVCPRO-HD tape deck, or DVCPRO50 tape deck, or DV or DVCPRO tape deck.

Plus P2 cards, of course. And DV tape for DV.

[Kholi]

I forgot that you can offload P2 data to an iPod.

What's the transfer times like? Anyone got the process for this? Like how you format the iPod for Fat32 and how you get it back so that you can play music?

[Sunstream]

Simply, you can record DV to tape or record other higher formats to
1) P2 card
2) external Computer (firewire) with capture capable program, NLE or DVRack type
3) external Specialized intelligent device (firewire) with processing chip and hard drive (kind of like a mini computer) such as Firestore, Citidisk, cineporter...
each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Once you have it captured then you can transfer to almost any drive, including an ipod, of course you need to edit with something that can handle the format you shoot in.
I have a Firestore and LOVE it. I also shoot to P2 run and gun and offload to an "on the go" battery powered hard drive from the P2. Works well also, but slow transfer (a little over 1min per gig) The ipod transfer is a bit slower, and space is limited. Just get a battery powered "on the go" drive if you want to go the download in the field route, as it is much more cost and time effective.

[BenB]

The FS 100 drive is somewhat popular as well, it doesn't support all the HVX recording options...

Wong, the FS-100 will record in all formats the HVX will do. In a few very short weeks (shooting for before the 1st of the year), the 3.0 version of the firmware will offer five recording modes.
P2
P2 Native
QuickTime
QuickTime Native

Not to mention the snap shot funtion and being able to do Timelapse in any of the HVX's formats at intervals from 1 frame to 24 hours. So not only does it support all the HVX recording options, but adds functions the HVX can't do alont.

[UtahDPDude]

I have a HVX-200 with no p2 cards yet. I was thinking that I could just capture any HD to my Apple Mac Book. This has never worked for me. I have older powerbook that I tried it with and got it to work only once. I can't get the macbook to even see that there is a camera conneted. The Powerbook I can get to see the camera but every time I go to capture I have all kinds of problems. It's never the same thing twice. First the audio won't sync up. Then the capture is a weird frame rate. Or the capture has weird drop out in the audio. All kinds of weird stuff. So I am wondering if this is a camera problem, should I take it back to the dealer to look at it? Is anybody else having similar problems? I also have a G5 tower that has problems connecting and when it connects it can't capture for more than 10 seconds before it cutting out with a time code break. I am really about to trow this camera out the window...

[THoff]

The Mac won't see the camera if you are using any of the PN (native) recording modes, because in those modes no data goes out the DV port. What version of FCP are you using?

[BenB]

I use a 17" Powerbook, 2.0 Dual G5, Quad Core G5, no problems capturing live. But you have to set it up right. Use Non-Controlable Device, no Native mode on the HVX, plug the camera into the Powerbook's FW400 port, hard drive into it's FW800 port. Sometimes it bogs down. Laptops are the worst for capturing live. Not to mention the short battery life and extra weight/bulk to lug around. I'm really liking my FS-100.

[Deke]

I use a 17" Powerbook, 2.0 Dual G5, Quad Core G5, no problems capturing live. But you have to set it up right. Use Non-Controlable Device, no Native mode on the HVX, plug the camera into the Powerbook's FW400 port, hard drive into it's FW800 port. Sometimes it bogs down. Laptops are the worst for capturing live. Not to mention the short battery life and extra weight/bulk to lug around. I'm really liking my FS-100.
BenB - do you shoot multicam? Can you use the Firewire to synch up a second HVX -AND- use the FS100? Also -- I'm really concerned about the issues downloading and capturing on Mac-- are these totally eliminated using a PC ? Are they overblown and rare ? Thinking about Canopus Edius broadcast and PC's vs. top-end Mac and FCP. Opinion ?

[UtahDPDude]

Ok I have some more info. I have finaly been able to get my MacBook to see the camera. I had to re-install Final Cut. Once I did a clean install of final cut it had no problem seeing the camera. Then I tried a capture. It captured fine to the internal drive but it being only 60 gigs that really wont work. So it had to be a external drive. I have two firewire/usb drives, one is a 300 gig and the other is a 120. When I connect the 300 gig drive and try to capture it works for 10 seconds and then quits. If I connect the 120 gig drive it works fine. I have the camera in the firewire and the drive in the usb 2. Both of the drives are the same RPM and manufacturer so I am a bit confuesd. I don't know if the capasity of the drive has any effect on the ability to capture.

[BenB]

USB isn't going to cut it. Not all drives are made equal. One successful work around is to get a Firewire adapter for your card slot. This seperates the data pipes so free up bandwidth inside the system.

I do shoot multicam productions, but not recroding live to a laptop, I'd never even consider it. I record to tape, or FS-100's, then do the multicam edit in FCP using it's fantasitc Multiclip Editing tools.

There's an annoying bug with P2 and OS X. Not everyone experiences it. I have no problems with my 17" Powerbook. But on my Quad Core G5 I have occational clips that FCP claims are bad. I'll use P2 Log and sometimes it'll be able to handle it. Sometimes I can re-boot and it's fine. It never happens on my Powerbook, I'll ingest stuff with that often. My media drive is a 500Gig FW800 drive, so I can move it between computers pretty easily. Edius has it's advantages, but it's not the answer to all prayers. It does have it's drawbacks. It's ability to mix media in a Sequence without rendering does exist, but it is very limited and breaks down when you start to layer tracks or add filters and such, requiring the same rendering you'd see in FCP. But, that said, the PC platform does not have the P2 bug OS X has. OS X's bug is not a deal killer, just annoying. Hoping Apple fixes this really soon.

In fact, as an FS-100 user and beta tester, Focus is working on a work around in the FS-100 for the OS X bug. Imagine that, Focus is working faster and harder on an OS X bug than Apple is!

As a point of trivia, hard drives are the opposite of cars, the larger the faster. I'm not talking about the RPM rating. I'm talking about read/write/seek times, which are totally independent of RPM speeds. Larger hard drives have faster mechanisms for the heads, and usually process data between the heads and the in/out port faster than smaller drives. And again, not all drives, even with the exact same specs, are made equal. Specs are not absolutes! Just because Firewire 400 is rated at a specific sustained data rate, you will never get that in real life. That data rate get's effected by other hardware and such both inside and outside the hard drive's case.

I bet you could have trashed your FCP preferences and gotten it to work. Download the freeware app "FCP Rescue 5" to backup and trash your prefs when FCP acts up.