Firestore alternative for HVX200

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pastywhiteboy

Well-known member
Hey all,
I don't know if anyone else has brought this up or seen this, but there's a company that makes devices similar to Firestore's called Shining Technology. The website is www.shining.com and it seems pretty exciting to me because their offerings are nearly half the price of Firestore's offerings.
So as far as I've seen, only the Firestore and the Cineporter have been mentioned on these forums so far... has anobody come accross any other companies or alternatives for storage yet for the HVX?

-pastywhiteboy
 
The ball is squarely in Citidisk's court to prove that their offering is worthy of consideration. After the nightmare many experienced with the MCE QuickStream, several of us are understandably leery of the Shining products (Shining makes the QuickStream for MCE). I would love for Shining's product to turn out to be 100% reliable and also be affordable, but I'm not gonna be the guinea pig on it -- that's one product that I would wait for user reports, probably six months worth, to get a good idea of how solid and reliable this new version is, because the CitiDisk DV and QuickStream did not enjoy good user reports.
 
pastywhiteboy said:
The website is www.shining.com and it seems pretty exciting to me because their offerings are nearly half the price of Firestore's offerings.
Click to expand...

Looks attractive, but you always get what you pay for, and even more so if a 100 GB drive goes out with a few days of priceless footage on it.
 
Mr. Blonde said:
The thing about that drive is.....you still need a P2, that drive is only for dumping off your footage, it doesn't support direct recording from the HVX...might as well get a self powered enclosure and a 7200rpm hard drive.
The enclosure...
http://www.dvvideo.com/shop/storage/buyEnclosurePortable.htm
The drive....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146020
Click to expand...

That little enclosure is pretty cool that you posted the link to... looks nifty. So I guess the CinePorter looks like the best alternative so far? I wonder what the going rate for that will be. Also, the spec-comm.com site has pretty good pricing on preordering the HVX.

-pasty
 
So another question, although it'll probably sound stupid: since the PCMCIA slot is just a data bus, could you just plug in a PCMCIA card that has IDE or SATA output to your own hard drive system? Or, a long shot... a high speed wireless PCMCIA card straight to your computer? If all the slot does is push data, then would any of these be possible or does it not work that way at all?

-pasty
 
pastywhiteboy said:
So another question, although it'll probably sound stupid: since the PCMCIA slot is just a data bus, could you just plug in a PCMCIA card that has IDE or SATA output to your own hard drive system? Or, a long shot... a high speed wireless PCMCIA card straight to your computer? If all the slot does is push data, then would any of these be possible or does it not work that way at all?

-pasty
Click to expand...

Now that would be cool
Wireless transfer of DVC PRO HD...

....next year
 
Hello everyone,

The P2 card isn't a dumb device. It's actually a microcomputer taking commands from the camera and then carrying them out. It's a beautiful piece of technology. We looked into the possibility of going wireless or having a wireless option for the CinePorter but there is no inexpensive technology to do that at this time.

Best regards,

Andrew Hoffman
Senior Operations Manager
Specialized Communications Corp.
20940 Twin Springs Dr.
Smithsburg, MD 21783-1510 USA
800-359-1858
Fax: 301-790-0173
andrewh@spec-comm.com
www.spec-comm.com

************************************************************************
Now taking Pre-Orders on the Panasonic AG-HVX200 HD Camcorder.
Reserve today, and receive FREE Shipping and a FREE cleaning for your new camera.
Visit http://www.spec-comm.com/hvx200.php for details!
 
Mr. Blonde said:
The thing about that drive is.....you still need a P2, that drive is only for dumping off your footage, it doesn't support direct recording from the HVX...might as well get a self powered enclosure and a 7200rpm hard drive.


The way the brochure reads, the unit performs similarly as the Firestore FS-100. Records directly to the drive, which has capability for long-term (over 2 hours worth) of battery operation, and supports pre-recording buffer as well. And the 100gb unit costs less than $1000.

Yah, we hear the "you get what you pay for" stuff, and that is generally true about equipment that has been around a long time and is tried and true, but neither the FS-100 or this Citidisk FW1256H-100 have been around to prove anything except what they may be priced at. You can even say the same about the HVX200, saying it's only $6,000 and weigh it against the Varicam or whatever else. New prices simply garner high price tags (remember the Kodak DCS digital cameras @ $25,000? Can't buy one for $50 bucks now, and who would buy one that does what it did?)

We shall see whether the products perform.

One other nice thing is that there is also a 120gb puppy they have. The site is a tiny bit hard to navigate (some hidden stuff there), but the current units have support for only recording DV and HDV. But this new unit (CitiDSIK HD FW1256HD), which records in MXF in P2 file system, is said to be available soon. It will record in DVCPro and DVCPro HD in addition. Sounds like they are a force to possibly be reckoned with.

Oh, apparently, the Shining Technologies won a 2005 NAB Award for their product.
http://4evergroup.org/nabawards.html
Click to expand...
 
I've been talking to the Shining people for several weeks now. They aren't nearly as ready as they may lead us to believe. Their marketing person told me Friday that they "discovered" a problem with "speed" and are having to re-design whatever the problem is. I go with Barry here, they have a checkered past at best and I sure don't see them on this forum discussing with us what to make it better. I hope to get my FS100 end of next week and will sell it as soon as the CinePorter is available as I like their attitude and design. Putting a P2 like device in the slot makes a whole lot of sense to me and I do believe they'll be able to get more performance i.e. variable frame rates and hopefully native recordings in the future.

Don Wilson
AmericanaMediaInc.com
 
Mr. Blonde said:
The thing about that drive is.....you still need a P2, that drive is only for dumping off your footage, it doesn't support direct recording from the HVX...might as well get a self powered enclosure and a 7200rpm hard drive.
The enclosure...
http://www.dvvideo.com/shop/storage/buyEnclosurePortable.htm
The drive....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146020
Click to expand...


It says this device is powered either via Firewire, USB, or AUX.... I don't think HVX supports power over firewire... Is this enclosure batter powered or what? how does it get its power? How is it portable?
 
Cut2muz said:
I've been talking to the Shining people for several weeks now. They aren't nearly as ready as they may lead us to believe. Their marketing person told me Friday that they "discovered" a problem with "speed" and are having to re-design whatever the problem is.
Don Wilson
AmericanaMediaInc.com
Click to expand...

Thank you Don for this info. It probably crossed HVX200 out of my shopping list, I'm sad to say.

Actually, I have a question about the CitiDisk HD/FS-100 solution. I read somewhere that you can't use certain features (like under/overcranking and 720PN) when shooting to external HDDs, possibly with the exception of direct capturing to NLE software. Is this true?
 
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