Direct-to-laptop capture redux/help?

[calchip]

I've been searching the forum but can't find a thread with specifics about what those of you who are capturing direct-to-laptop (PC) are doing, and what hardware specs are required. I'm talking about real time capture, not streaming from a P2 card in the HVX to the laptop.

In researching, looks like the data flow

DVX200 --> PC w/DVRack HD --> external FW or USB drive

is the biggest "bang for the buck" capture method in terms of capturing large files. If there's another direct-to-PC method that doesn't require DVRack, I'd love to know about that, too. (The nature of what and how we shoot doesn't make P2 cards practical unless we have like 6 of them, and we're going to get a CinePorter when they are available.)

I have an Athlon 64 3200 laptop with probably a gig of RAM running Win XP, and my thought was to use an external USB drive, that way I don't have to get a PCMCIA Firewire card, and can use the internal Firewire port to connect to the HVX. USB 2.0 is 480Mbit/sec, so should be plenty fast enough.

Does anyone have experience with a similar setup? Would there be a notable advantage to using a Firewire drive over USB? Could I capture 1080i / DVCPro-HD with this setup or would I be limited to 720p?

Also, would a RAID-1 (mirrored) drive, such as the G-Raid Mini be slower or faster (or the same as) than a single drive?

Also, has anyone been able to use DVRack + laptop as an adequate monitor for focusing with the HVX?

Thanks for helping this HVX newbie!

[Jason Ramsey]

I haven't really done live capture, but I am a little concerned with your laptop specs. Don't quote me. Someone else may need to verify that part for you.

Also, depending on your NLE you don't have to have dvrack. DVRack is awesome, from what I have heard from folks using it. FCP, EDIUS, and possibly AVID will do live capture via firewire.

Jason

[THoff]

Yes, Edius can also do live captures. I have Edius 4 Broadcast, but haven't used it for live captures, I use DV Rack 2.0 HD for that.

I run DV Rack on a laptop that doesn't meet Serious Magic's minimum specs, but haven't had any problems. My laptop is a P4M 1.5GHz with 68MB of RAM and a 7200 RPM internal drive (I replaced the 4200 RPM drive that came with the laptop). I have captured to both the internal drive, to an external 7200RPM USB drive, and also to an external Firewire drive by daisy-chaining the HVX200 through the Firewire drive to the laptop. All of these configurations have worked without problems.