DV Rack video capture with the DVX100A

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djkoz

Well-known member
I want to use DV Rack in conjunction with the DVX100A to setup and monitor the video and audio. I understand that DV Rack also allows for the capture of the video directly to a laptop in addition to the tape in the camera.



Two questions:



I have a 2 year old laptop that does NOT have a firewire port. I know I can buy a PCMCIA card (Type II is what I believe I need) that will provide me with 2 firewire ports. Are there any other specifications of which I need to be aware / require for this arrangement to work optimally?



I will need to get an external device to capture the video from the laptop since my internal drive is only about 40gb and it is pretty much filled. I was considering the Maxtor 200gb, 7200rpm drive. Would this be sufficient or is there a better solution?



I’ve received a tremendous amount of good advice from this site. I very much appreciate all the help I am receiving and hope to be able to return the favor in kind in the not too distant future.



Thanks,



Dan
 
The better option, in my opinion and not knowing your situation, would be to either get a bigger HDD for the existing laptop or, better, get another laptop (big drive, built-in firewire, plenty of RAM and maybe a UXGA display) and dedicate it to recording DV. If you want to go with the PCMCIA firewire be sure that its throughput is sufficient for your needs - I think most are ok, but I don't know...
An external drive can be a burden on location shoots, but is sure handy for transferring work to the desktop if you are not on a network.
The Maxtor specs look ok, but I would opt for at least 8Mb of cache if available.
 
Keep in mind too that if you use an external HD, you'll need to go out to it via either a second FireWire PCMCIA card or a USB2 port. You can't use the same FireWire card for both video in from camera and data out to HD. Incidentally, there's been some debate as to whether USB2 is up to the task of reliably transmitting the DV stream to an external HD. I'm no authority by any stretch of the imagination, but the scales in this debate seem to tip in favor of USB2 being adequate for the job.
Going off of my admittedly limited experience in real-world shoots, I'd accept the moderate inconvenience of managing an external HD in the field in order to gain the huge advantage of not having to copy tens of gigs from the laptop to the editing suite. In fact, depending on the nature of your operation, I'd recommend having at least two externals so that you can take one in the field while the other stays home in the edit bay.
 
the_other_Mark said:
Incidentally, there's been some debate as to whether USB2 is up to the task of reliably transmitting the DV stream to an external HD. I'm no authority by any stretch of the imagination, but the scales in this debate seem to tip in favor of USB2 being adequate for the job.
Click to expand...

Theoretically, USB2 works. Theoretically. The specs say it is fast enough.

But at this point in the game, firewire is still faster in the real world. The USB2 hardware should catch up to the specs in the near future...and there are probably cards now that do it. Want to go hunting for them? :undecided Not me.

Dan
 
Neither USB2 nor firewire is in the least stressed by the transfer requirements of DV. As long as your laptop exceeds the minimum requirements of DVRack and you have one firewire connector and one USB2 connector there is no problem. Buy two external USB2 drives (save money by buying separate cases and drives and putting them together) and use the laptop battery to drive each USB2 disk drive in turn. Each 40meg 2.5" drive will give you 3+ hours of recording time. I do it now. It works. Theory be damned.
 
I have a new laptop with firewire in. It is a 3.2 ht 800 mhz fsb with a 100 gig hd and 512 ram. when capturing to laptop it drops frames sometimes. I got an external usb 2/firewire case from comp usa $39.00 and it never drops frames. I put a 300 GB seagate 7200 rpm in it and have filled it up with all my home movies. Just put in a new 120 GB for smaller projects. Never dropped a frame yet on USB2. Only on laptop hard drive. I think Laptops are 4200 rpm. This sucks and I think is a bottleneck for me. (HP zd7360us) I will upgrade as soon as they gt faster and bigger.
 
Wadro -

One of the very best ways to improve performance on a Windows (XP or whatever) machine is to ensure that all non-essential apps (including unneeded junk running in the background) are turned off. The best way I have found to do this is at this very well done website -
http://www.blackviper.com/index.html
This will cost only the time it takes to read how to do it and then do it as long as you do it as instructed.
It also can make you more secure on the web. And to that point I will also speak. Please forgive me if you are already well secured.
One of the other very best ways to make the PC run optimally is to make certain you have NO spyware, virii, worms, trojans or yada yada blah blah - Anyone running windows on an internet connected PC without a VERY good firewall and AV (I spell it this way 'Zone Alarm with Anti Virus') is, well, asking for trouble.
Along with this program I personally also run the following with outstanding results;
Mozilla Firefox (I do NOT use IE - except for windows update)
Spybot SD
Spyware Blaster
Ad-Aware SE
These four are all freebies or donorware.

the_other_Mark -
Thanks for pointing out the requirement for two separate firewire channels - I forgot about that one.
 
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