Adobe OnLocation

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davbeisner

Well-known member
So I just finished reading through the sticky on focusing and noticed that y'all were talking about using DVC Rack on a Mac utilizing the Win XP install through BootCamp. Does anyone know if Adobe's OnLocation will do that? I'd like to be able to record straight to a laptop in the field using OnLocation, but then open my DVCProHD files for editing in FCS. Is this possible?

And what is the general opinion of OnLocation and the value of its components?
 
DV Rack was purchased by Adobe and is now OnLocation. I use it with a XP laptop for the monitor and scope functions, but not for recording. There has been some other discussion on the forum that the new OnLocation does not record some formats properly, but I have no personal experience with this. I also use the XP laptop with a Duel Adaptor to dump P2 in the field, but I transfer to my Mac Pro for editing.
 
One of the things some people dont like about OnLocation is that you cannot use it to monitor native 24p or over/undercranked footage. The camera treats all of these as interval recording modes and it will not let you monitor the footage in OnLocation.
 
Not entirely true though. It is true that if you put the camera in 24pN mode it won't output any data from the firewire port. But, if you're using OnLocation, you could use 720P mode instead, and OnLocation can record the files in a pN simulation mode (just like the FireStore does). You can then play back those clips in slow mo immediately, because they're recorded just like 24pN is.
 
Awesome! thanks for the info guys... Would it be best to record to a laptop using the HD composite out and an external capture device, or just to use firewire? Or does it make that much difference? And what's a good external capture device for a laptop? I'll be using the blackmagic intensity pro on my desktop for HD monitoring via HDMI out with an M-Audio ProFire 2626 for pro audio integration.
 
And what is the general opinion of OnLocation and the value of its components?
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I use OnLocation on a PC and I find it to be a fantastic program that, given your project allows you to shoot while tethered to a laptop with a firewire cable, gives you great high-end capabilities that you otherwise would have to pay a small fotune for. It gives you very nice quality waveform and vectorscope monitors along with using your high definition laptop's diplay as a calibrated field monitor for accurate focusing and framing. As Barry pointed out, you can record 24p NTSC streams through the firewire connection and OnLocation will strip out the duplicate frames and give you essentially the same end result as recording in the HVX's native mode. Also, you can utilize relatively cheap external hard drives to record to, making storage and recording of longform events practical and easy instead of impossible. I've shot a 3 hour corporate presentation in 720p to an external 320 gig WD Mybook drive with no problem.

I think OnLocation is a great reason to consider using Premiere as a first choice NLE for DVCPro HD.
 
davbeisner said:
Awesome! thanks for the info guys... Would it be best to record to a laptop using the HD composite out and an external capture device, or just to use firewire? Or does it make that much difference? And what's a good external capture device for a laptop? I'll be using the blackmagic intensity pro on my desktop for HD monitoring via HDMI out with an M-Audio ProFire 2626 for pro audio integration.
Click to expand...

Just use firewire from camcorder to laptop.

If using an external drive to capture to (external and/or laptop internal should be 7200 rpm minimum for capturing) just use USB 2.0 and you'll be fine. You should have a 2 gig core-duo processor or equivalent along with 2 gigs of ram and a decent (I've got a non-integrated 256 mb nVidia) graphic card.

All you need is a 7200 rpm external USB 2.0 harddrive and you're good to go :beer:
 
Is OnLocation the best software monitoring/recording program out there? Or is there other programs on either Mac or PC that are just as good, if not better? Also, Is there any delay when watching footage live on the software monitor?
 
Hayzen said:
Is OnLocation the best software monitoring/recording program out there? Or is there other programs on either Mac or PC that are just as good, if not better? Also, Is there any delay when watching footage live on the software monitor?
Click to expand...

I am not familiar with any other program that monitors and captures HD video with onboard vectorscope and waveform. OnLocation used to be called DVC Rack HD before Adobe bought the program from Serious Magic. As far as I know, it is the best software for what it does and for me, it has worked flawlessly and provided great benefits to shooting in controlled environments.

There is a slight delay when capturing DVCPro HD from the HVX200. It's only a fraction of a second typically, but it is something that you want to be aware of in very critical focusing and timing issues.
 
davbeisner said:
Nope, no delay. At least not with an SD camera (VX2000) running in via firewire on an old, single core AMD processor....
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There's no dealy in DV, but in HDV there's a delay of at least 1/2 second. Unavoidable due to the way HDV compression works; HDV firewire output is delayed in-camera by 1/2 second.
 
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