Is it possible to record on DV tapes while outputing to notebook ?

A

AAC

Member
My typical video shooting pattern is deploying the DVX100B with tripod at the back row of a lecture theatre, taping the lecturer's presentation and 90% of the shooting don't need to move around.
Since I need to transfer 10+ DV tapes to computer for editing after each event, can I use the firewire or RCA plug to output the video to my notebook computer simultaneously (saved as WMV or AVI) while recorfding to DV tapes, to save my transfer time after the event ?
I mean to save the video recording to DV tapes and notebook computer (or stand alone DVD recorder) at the same time, is it possible ? The video quality recorded to computer remain the same as on tapes ?
 
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Sounds like you're a candidate for DV Rack, now OnLocation. It allows you to record clips to an HD with your tape as a backup. I use DV Monitor Pro on a Mac and can just let it run without worrying about clip size. I haven't had a tape in my camera for at least a year. I think PC limits the size to about 4.3 GB or so because of the way the drives are formatted. That's roughly 19 minutes.
 
If I have a long shoot, since I use FCP, I just set it to non-controllable device, plug my cam into my macbook, and then just hit record now, and let it sit.

Records straight to hard drive, no tape involved.
 
The only restriction I can think of for something along the size of 4.3 gigs is if it were a FAT 32 formatted drive. Most drives these days aren't formatted as such anymore. This is a good question however though.

I want to start recording directly to my laptop, as I'll be getting a new tower shortly. I have a Macbook Pro. What's the benefit of using DV Monitor Pro, as opposed to just directly recording to FCP?

Thanks,

Kegan
 
I have used and tried many different ways of doing this. I have used the "non-controllable device" option in fcp where you open the log and capture window and set your capture setting to "non-controllable device" and then capture now. This makes your camera act like a web cam almost where it records whatever feed is coming from the firewire port. This will record to the computer whether you are recording to tape or not, so you are free to record to tape as well as to the computer. The main problem with capturing this way is that you will probably not be able to do anything else on the computer while capturing without dropping frames and/or having your system slow to a crawl, especially on a laptop.

Personally, I have found the program made by Big Mug Software, Capture Magic (http://www.bigmugsoftware.com/) to be the best program for direct to disk recording. They make an SD and an HD version and it gives you the ability to record with many options for monitoring, etc. Check out their site. This kind of a program also allows you to record to tape at the same time.

If you dont want to spend the money for a program like this (there are many different programs that do this like DV monitor pro by red lightning software (http://www.redlightningsoftware.com/Home.html), Scopebox (http://www.scopebox.com/index.html), etc.) and you wont be using other programs while recording then I would suggest using the "non-controllable device" capturing in fcp.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that the signal recorded to the computer through firewire is virtually the exact same thing that is recorded to tape.
 
AAC said:
My typical video shooting pattern is deploying the DVX100B with tripod at the back row of a lecture theatre, taping the lecturer's presentation and 90% of the shooting don't need to move around.
Since I need to transfer 10+ DV tapes to computer for editing after each event, can I use the firewire or RCA plug to output the video to my notebook computer simultaneously (saved as WMV or AVI) while recorfding to DV tapes, to save my transfer time after the event ?
I mean to save the video recording to DV tapes and notebook computer (or stand alone DVD recorder) at the same time, is it possible ? The video quality recorded to computer remain the same as on tapes ?
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DV RACK software with laptop is my vote. This lets you go direct to video with tape backup. You can even daisy chain an external hard drive with the laptop via firewire (formatted for NTFS for big files).

If you need more portable option of the same, look at: the FS-4 PRo recorder for Video (NTSC and PAL versions), and Roland R-09 for audio. FS-4 will do audio as well, but I've heard there are issues with whine noise- I'd run dual system sound to a separate audio device any way, just for safety.

I'm also checking out the COWON A3 as an on camera monitor, but doesn't look as though it captures with high enough res (looks like AV input is via composite RCA only, although device offers HD out).
 
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