DVX100B as a HD (hard disk) camera

T

tonya

New member
Please excuse a potentially dumb question, but if my camera's tape mech is beyond repair, is it possible to stream the output from the camera to a hard drive via the firewire port in real time, bypassing the tape system completely or is some clever modification involved?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Yes of course my request was a bit unclear, I meant HD as in Hard Disk, not High Def (title changed to reflect this)!
Is there any modification to be done or will any decent HD just bolt on?
Do you have to go via a laptop first?
Please excuse my ignorance but I'm no expert unlike you guys :-)
 
Hi, Tonya!

There are two options. One is to purchase a FireWire drive, though it requires a drive made especially for this use. Look at FireStore, though this is not an inexpensive item.

The other option is to buy a cheap DV camcorder ($300, maybe less) and connect it by FireWire to slave to the DVX. It will still record anything that the DVX can record (including 30p, 24p, 24pA).
 
Tonya:

You can't use just any hard disk. It would have to be one made specifically as a video recorder. Examples include FireStore, nNovia, Sony and CitiDisk.

Or you could pipe it directly to a computer, and use a program like Adobe OnLocation to live capture, but that isn't really all that portable.

Or you could probably use a memory card recorder like Sony's compactflash recorder; it was designed specifically to work with their HDV cameras but it might record DV from a DV camera.

The cheapest option is probably what C2V recommended, which is to slave a cheap DV camcorder to your DVX. You could probably mount it up on the flash shoe, and use the "EXT" firewire control menu, which would mean that everything would work like it always has, but you'd put the tape in the little camera instead of the DVX. A little bulky, but cheap.
 
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