FOCUS Enhancements and Panasonic Partner to Expand FireStore to DVCPRO HD Format

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luke43

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http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=94941

As a Panasonic P2 Partner, FOCUS Enhancements Is Proceeding With the Development of a Portable Video Acquisition Solution Specifically Optimized for the Panasonic AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 Handheld Camera-Recorder
CAMPBELL, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 09/09/2005 -- FOCUS Enhancements Inc. (NASDAQ: FCSE), a worldwide leader in video production and conversion technology, today announced that its strategic alliance with Panasonic has advanced to a hardware development partnership that will focus on supporting DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD.

FOCUS Enhancements is developing an optimized version of its industry-leading portable Direct to Edit™ (DTE) FireStore recorders for Panasonic's DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD handheld camera-recorders. The portable FireStore recorders streamline the production process enabling professional videographers to record SD and HD video streams via FireWire while in the field and then connect directly to a Mac/PC notebook or desktop to edit content directly from the FireStore.

"We believe that our AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 handheld camera-recorder will be the most versatile solution for everything from high-level production of episodic television to commercials, video-based cinema and movies, as well as News gathering," said John Baisley, president of Panasonic Broadcast of U.S. "We have selected the FOCUS FireStore Direct To Edit™ solution as a way of offering economical long-duration DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, or DVCPRO HD recording to the event production market. The FireStore solution, like our P2 Card Solid-State Memory solution, speeds up the production workflow by eliminating time wasted digitizing footage."

"It is exciting to further expand our partnership with Panasonic and to extend our FireStore DTE platform to include a portable DVCPRO HD variant capable of 100 Mbps video bit rate," said David O'Kelly, vice president of business development of FOCUS Enhancements. "Working closely with Panasonic, we plan to offer significant media cost savings to DVCPRO HD customers requiring long-duration HD acquisition."

FOCUS Enhancements joined Panasonic as a P2 Partner in March 2005 after developing a version of its industry leading file conversion software, FireStore DV File Converter Pro, exclusively for Panasonic Broadcast to support quick and easy MXF file format exchange with popular DV editing applications.

The FireStore DTE recorder for HVX200 is expected to be available in March 2006 and price will be less than $2,000. For more information on FOCUS Enhancements and its products, please visit www.focusinfo.com.
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less than 2000$ is good news!

EDIT: IT´s great news! and march 2006 is better cos it was the time i expected to buy! Well done Luke43!
 
here's picture from panasonic presentation

here's picture from panasonic presentation

DSC_4365.JPG
 
*popping champagne* YES! Under 2000$!! March though :( I was hoping to buy this in january, maybe I'll just shoot MiniDV until then...
 
This is excellent news! Looks like this will really help with those that find the P2 prices a little too step.
 
mcgeedigital said:
wOOt!

I'll start saving now.

I'll bet that they will have to do some kind of RAID to keep up with the HD bandwidth.
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I doubt it, since DVCPRO HD works on a regular single Hard Drive.
 
but isn't it easier and cheaper just to go from the hvx direct to a laptop? or is it unclear if that's possible...
 
cheaper but heavier

cheaper but heavier

brianluce said:
but isn't it easier and cheaper just to go from the hvx direct to a laptop? or is it unclear if that's possible...
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you can dump live to a laptop but you must maintain a sustained data rate so as not to drop any frames. and do all this while a noisy, heavy laptop is running and not crashing for a change.

you can also dump to the laptop after you cut. in that case you don't have to worry about data rates and dropped frames but you are wasting time dumping when you could be setting up for the next shot.

the firestore is designed for reliability and portability, something that laptops do not excel in depending on who you talk to.
 
I'm sorry if I missed this, but there was an HD upgrade for existing Firestores that Focus had talked about. Does there have to be an entirely new model for the HVX or can an existing one be modified? I thought it was a software thing, but now it sounds like a hardware issue which I'm assuming would not make mine upgradeable.

sorry again if this has been covered before.
 
Focus had previously announced a program to upgrade Firestore 4000 users to HDV functionality with the JVC 100. This is the first formal announcement of HVX200 compatability, even though it was heavily hinted at as far back as NAB. This is also the very first mention of price.
 
insanityfw said:
Does there have to be an entirely new model for the HVX or can an existing one be modified?
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Yes there needs to be a new model. The existing FireStore FS-4 is limited to about 40 megabits per second maximum transfer rate. That's enough for DV and HDV, but not DVCPRO-HD.

Also, we don't know anything about what type of device the HVX firestore will be; keep in mind that Focus makes four totally differnt types of FireStores (the FS-1, FS-2, FS-3, and FS-4). I'm hoping the HVX version will be more along the lines of the FS-3, with user-interchangeable notebook-sized hard disks. That would rock.
 
Thanks Barry. I guess I'll have to keep saving my pennies. At least I can still use the FS-4 with my DVX and get great images for a long time to come. I see the future and it's almost here. :)

Tapeless forever !!! :)
 
Still don't understand why the march release date, almost 4 months after the camera's release... I smell some sort of agreement in order to get some p2 cards sold... I don't believe there are "development issues"still to sort out after the camera's release...

In my case, I would definatly buy the camera without cards but with the firestore- that would be aprox $8000 for 90 minutes recording of dvcprohd vs $9950 16 min recording of dvcprohd.

But I need HD this year. So bummer...
 
100MB, wow that's tiny! ;)

I to hope it has interchangeable drives, because with the HVX workflow it seems you might be flicking those drives off to a client, and of course you don't want to have to have 1 complete firestore per client!

Aaron
 
from the reports coming in it sounds like it doesnt have an interchangeable drive system at all.. which is poop. even at the proposed 100 GB capacity. you cant as was said just hand it over to a client. youve got to take the time to swap the data to another external drive.. and you dont always have a ton of time to do that sort of thing after a shoot. sometimes the client is ready to go the second after "cut" is called on the last take. but oh well having cake and eating it too will just have to still be a dream for now. its still a very nice product , and a great P2 alternative for long shooting times.
 
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