A problem with the Firestore FS-Pro

C

cre8tive

Well-known member
This, from a gentlemen on the Avid user list:

I know more and more prople are interested in the FireStore. We've been using it fore a few months now and for the most part it works great

however...

I'd had problems with this before, but thought it was just me, but a call to Focus Tech support confirms it.

When using the FS4Pro for longer clips, (over 2Gb) the device breaks it up into segments.
The TIME CODE IS NOT CONSISTSANT FROM ONE SEGMENT TO THE OTHER!

I have found variances from 1 to 2 seconds in TC from the 1st segment of a long clip to the next

this means when shooting to Hard Drive and tape simultaneously, the TC will only match on the first 2Gb segment of a long clip. Re-digging from tape won't work

The clips putt edit together seamlessly, but using the Timecode will be troublesome.

Focus Tech support knows about it but says it's up to management to decide to fix it or not. (or whether or not to fix it in the upcoming FS-5)

I just thought folks looking at this drive would want to know in advance


Boy, this makes the Cineporter look better and better......

Cre8tive
 
This could be a serious issue if it isn't rectified on the next version of FS. And since alot of people are looking to it as a solution for longer HVX recording times I'm surprised this issue hasn't come up before. At least not that I've already seen.
 
Yeah that's an issue. The cineporter connects to the P2 slot right, so will it record .mxf files with metadata? - and if so, that can't have timecode problems.
 
So if I understand this issue correctly, I'll only run into this problem if I shoot one, long, continous clip right? The shooting I'll be doing is lots of short clips which may add up to over 2GB, but it sounds like I should be OK, right?

Thanks.
 
:huh: Sounds like trouble if a tape runs simultaniously. And that would be the case why?
Tapeless... :huh:
 
Alex,

If you're shooting 1080 or 720 in a non native mode, a 2 gig clip is only 2 minutes. If all your shots are less than that I suppose it wouldn't be a problem for you. Seems like an awful constraint though. The whole reason to use an external device like the FS-100 or the Cineporter is to lengthen record times. Two 4 gig P2 cards would be cheaper and record at least an 8 minute clip before running out of room.
 
Man that would suck. Every two minutes somekind of drift.


That's the thing I hate about DV. WHen I shoot multi-cam concerts I will have cameras drifting and synch will always be attained through my fiddling with the editing dingus....

I think my laptop might have to do the trick for a while
 
Just out of curiosity, what is the file system on a Firestore? Is it FAT32? That has a 2Gig file size limit.

I wonder if you formatted the drive to be NTFS, if it would make a difference?
 
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