CitiDisk HD HVX200 hard drive !!!

T

Terence Lehane

Active member
Check this out! Another hard drive solution to plug into the HVX200 via firewire. They say they can record DVCPRO HD via firewire to their "coming-soon" CitiDisk HD product.
They will have capacities of 80, 100 and 120 GB.
The price for their HDV 100 GB model is $940 or so, if they offered the 100 GB HD model for $1100 for example that would be a full $1100 savings on the Cineporter!

I've never heard of this company personally but I know they've been around for a while because they already have products for DV and HDV recording from camera. Their Panasonic DVCPRO HD product could be a low-cost alternative to the Firestone or Cineporter.

My gut reaction is that it doesn't look very solid so there might be a risk there, but still....

Here's the site

www.shining.com/products/totalsolution/citidisk_hd
 
Just my 2 cents: I have an ADS PyroDV drive. It's my understanding that this unit is essentially made by Shining Technologies, maker of the Citidisk (if someone out there knows differently, please feel free to correct me). I bought the PyroDV several months ago because it fell within my budget at the time. The unit has been fairly reliable to a point, however, it's recently required reformatting a couple of times; dropped frames and audio when capturing in the QT .mov format; and has occasionally indicated that it's capturing when it hasn't (immediately thereafter it's needed a reformatting). The only reliable video file format I've successfully captured in on a consistent basis is Raw DV - which means I have to render the audio when importing files into FCE, this takes away a fair amount of the time saving aspect. Because of these issues, I recently bought a Firestore FS-4 Pro and have been very pleased with the unit. I've experienced none of the previously mentioned problems with the new device. The FS-4 Pro setup and operation requires a few more steps to set it for capturing, but it has been far more reliable than the PyroDV. In the past week I've captured and downloaded 12 hours of footage from it, and haven't had a single problem. The FS-4's battery life is short, to be sure. But that's rarely a concern for me. If it does become a concern, I'll get the new extended life battery.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you get what you pay for - and I learned this the hard way. $1,100 may seem like a significant savings, but if you're spending (or wasting) time with reliability issues, is there really any savings in the long run? Time is money... right?
 
There has been many discussions on these products in the past. To summarize, the CitiDisk/Quickstream products have had there share of problems. Let's hope they've fixed up many of the issues for the HVX200. Firestore propbably has the best reputation for direct to disk at the moment. The Cineporter is the newcomer so we'll see what happens.
 
The CitiDisk will not allow you to capture live from the HVX. I spoke to a rep at DVexpo and he stated that it only acts as a storage not live capture device...hence its low price, meaning you still need P2's to rock n roll.
 
That's really difficult to believe when you read this on their site

"DV stream is buffered in internal memory and instantly recorded to the unit's hard drive when the REC button is pressed or REC command is selected. This function helps avoiding the loss of important scenes"

or

"CitiDISK™ HD embeds a 90-minute rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery that automatically kicks in when the 3-hour external battery runs low. This seamless battery power changeover ensures non-stop shooting capability no need to shut down the unit"

In any case, I didn't think firewire was sufficiently fast to transfer DVCPro HD (100). Anybody have any info about that?
 
Terence Lehane said:
"DV stream is buffered in internal memory and instantly recorded to the unit's hard drive when the REC button is pressed or REC command is selected. This function helps avoiding the loss of important scenes"
Click to expand...
My point exactly, it say's DV, it's not stating that DVCPRO HD will be captured, meaning that you can capture directly onto the CitiDisk if you are shooting SD, not DVCPRO HD. Just as you would be able to capture sd with a firestor and the hvx or dvx.
 
Firewire's plenty fast to transfer DVCPRO-HD. Apple's been using firewire to edit from the AJ-HD1200A deck for nearly two years now.

And the CitiDisk will stream DV; what's in question is whether it can stream anything other than DV, and Mr. Blonde's saying that he was told no it won't.
 
B&H's website shows them still available.
In fact it looks like they have come up with a solid state version.

How good is it? I can't tell you- I've never used it.

Jim
 
thanks who answer)
about DV ver (HDV) i know that Citidisk have not good reports.But if somebody buy let me know how it work?maybe Citidisk HD more better than DV or HDV ver?maybe that fixed problem?
 
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