how to set -- fcp shooting/capturing in realtime with HVX200

S

shAi

Well-known member
Hi there

i have to shoot a long casting session with an HVX200, and have the DVD's with the materials ready by the end of that day. so i want to shoot directly to external hard drive.

no P2 available for that matter.

i've never done this before, and just wanted to assure my setup:
HVX200 with firewire to a macbook dualcore 2GH/2GB RAM
macbook to Hard drive > USB 2.0

hard drive is 7.200 RPM

would it be possible to capture to fcp in mpeg 2, in real-time? (to save encoding DV>mpeg2 for DVD authoring) what exact capture set up should this be?

my worries - USB external hard drive for capturing with FCP (i have only one firewire onboard , which is occupied by the HVX) is it OK ?

thanks a lot in advance
shai
 
just thought -- if i decide to capture DV, what about doing it straight with quicktime-pro?

i will test everything before the gig.. just wondered if anyone has experienced this workflow
 
Hi ShAi,
I think you are going to run into a few problems - I am absolutely sure (but could be wrong) that fcp will not capture to mpeg2, it only 'encodes' to mpeg2. The FW400 slot, being occupied by the HVX means that you will need to use USB2.0 and USB will probably drop frames on capture of high def stuff. If you were to daisy chain the FW400 HDD together with the HVX, you will run into dropped frames and timecode breaks.

If it were me and I needed the DVD ready ASAP, I would hook us RCA audio and S-video from the HVX to a stand alone DVD burner and Encode the DVD on the fly. If I decided on the FCP workflow in order to do some minor editing and was under the same time constraints, I would consider shooting in DV, and using FCP's 'non-controlable device' setting to direct capture the FW-400 stream to internal HDD (do you have 13GB per hour free on the internal? I would do my basic edits and export as a Quicktime 'reference movie' and encode that right away. Avoid HD if you are down converting to SD on a time crunch - it will take LOTS of time.

hope that helps.

j
 
AwakenedFilms, thanks!

i forgot to mention, i will shoot PAL/SD. no HD.
does it change anything?

meanwhile i found out you're right, fcp wont capture mpeg2

internal hard drive is something i considered myself, but copying those 50GB to the external is also a bit of time consuming.. but i feel i go for this option.
 
I assume you are shooting HD? DVCPRO HD?

Have you considered the FS-100 from Focus Enhancements? If not, check out the unit here.

This unit attaches directly to the HVX200, and works great. I use this at the moment instead of P2 (until I can afford the 32 or 64GB cards!).

Have you tried the camera directly to the laptop already? If so, and you are able to capture with no drops then moving this to an external HDD should not be a big trouble..

However, capturing thru directly to the USB or Firewire drive might be risky!

Regards
 
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