hpx170 storage...

S

siraj

Active member
Hi guys.

I have an HPX170 and am starting to get professional work with it; the only problem is I only have the 16gb P2 card. I want to be able to store more footage. Is there some sort of hard drive I can get or something? If so, may I have the proper name for it so I can search it up?

Secondly, if there isn't anything, I was thinking of selling the HPX for the HVX... will it be a downgrade from the HPX??? In terms of quality...

Thanks everyone.

Siraj.
 
you can get a firestore. but the company that makes them (focus enhancements) recently filed bankruptcy.

changing from an hpx to an hvx wont buy you any more storage. just the ability to shoot to tape. but the camera does NOT shott HD to tape - just SD.

an hvx200 IS a quality drop from an hpx170. but in theory the hvx200a is the same camera as the hpx170
 
do not go backwards. there are so many upgrades in the hpx over the hvx . wait till you absolutly need more cards and look here on market place. cost of storage is always coming down. i had 4 cards and now i get by with just 1 32gb card. find some close the also has a p2 set up and make arangements to borrow or rent when you have to. tape sucks / sd images are ok. just the 5 year warrentty is worth keeping the hpx. one year on the hvx .
 
Siraj,

Currently, I have 2 16Gb P2 cards for my HPX-170. I shot an instructional drum
video in March with these 2 cards. The shoot was for 2 days, 4-5 hours per day.

I have an HP Laptop with a 250Gb drive. When I filled up on 16Gb card I dumped
it to a named/numbered folder on my laptop and continuted shooting. At the end
of the day, I had almost 125Gb of HD footage.

When I got home I transferred the footage from my laptop to an external 2TB
hard drive which you can now buy for around $200.00. Then I transferred the
footage to my audio suite's hard drive for editing.

Then after verifying the footage was on both drives, I was assured I could delete
the footage on my laptop and free up more space for the next day's shoot.

This all sounds a bit time consuming but it really isn't. I use my laptop for running
Adobe's On Locattion and editing with Premiere Pro CS4 or Vegas Pro 8/9.

Just a few suggestions to contemplate.

Good luck.

Mark Dalzell / Sin City Productions
Las Vegas, NV
 
I think this subject has been covered alot, but it all comes down to the kind of work you are doing.

For all the following when I say cards I mean 16g ones.

If you need to do a constant documentation of a subject for the majority of a day and never move the camera, then you use onlocation and a number of large external drives.

If you need to do a constant documentation of a subject for the majority of a day and move the camera alot you need a few cards, something like a firestore, and an assitant to dump cards/firestore to a laptop and a number of large external drives.

If you do sporadic documentation(roll on interesting bits that may last quite awhile) of a subject for the majority of the day you need the same as above.

If you are documenting a subject for short periods with long breaks, then you need a 2-3 cards, and a laptop with a decently large drive.

If you are documenting a subject for longish periods with long breaks, then you need a 2-3 cards, a laptop, and a number of large external drives.

If this is narrative with setup times, then you need a couple cards and a laptop with a decently large drive

If this is narrative with short setup times, like extremely low-budget stuff where you roll quite often, for many takes, and move quick to do another of the same...then you may want 4 cards or a firestore and a couple cards, and a laptop with a large drive, and a large external drive.

There are so many varieties of setups, and you simply cannot be prepared for them all if you are just starting out. I suggest finding a good rental house and keeping all the above in mind, and renting stuff when you need it...and slowly building your own stock of equipment as you can afford it.

This said I'll say what I have:
3 5400mah batteries
a multitude of other batteries both off the shelf and long lastin rechargables
charger
inverter for car so that I can charge anywhere
2 600gig external drives
laptop
2 16gig cards

If the occasion comes up that I need more stuff I either borrow, or rent.

The minimum when starting out?
2 16g cards
2 5400mah batteries
charger
laptop
large external drive

there are of course a multitude of other things you should have, but I'm just thinking power and footage length.

trading in your camera?

Never do this...I mean never ever ever...unless you are working with a VHS camcorder, I never suggest someone change cameras. This should never be a knee jerk reaction, but a well thought out decision based on the amount of funds you have brought in, the ability to improve your actual images, ability to easily manipulate them(manual controls and such), and comfort. Learn to work with your camera, it's pitfalls, it's beauty, and it's ability to be manipulated into doing things it wasn't designed to do...the more you learn, improvise, and experiment, the more you'll be educated in decisions on a new camera, and the better your work will become.

I myself started on VHS, and it took me a year and a half to buy a Canon Optura Xi, which I still love as a camera for standard def....after that it took me three years before I had finally decided that my next camera would be an HVX-200, then it took another year before I finally took the plunge and purchased one....my next upgrade will probably not be for another 3-4 years, unless the amount of funds I bring in is so great that I just can't live without upgrading to a Red.
 
I just got a 500GB Firewire External Hard Drive from the store for $80 and put the camera into the 1394 Host mode and it dumps the footage right off the card onto the drive then keep shooting.
 
this has probably been answered a million times...

let me get this straight:
with 2 16gb p2's, when one is filled and you unload it to a laptop at 5400rpm while shooting to the 2nd p2, you will have time to put the first one back in time before the second runs out and theoretically shoot footage indefinitely based on how much laptop storage you have?
 
Yes, depending on your hardware, you can do exactly that.

A 16GB card will offload in less than 9 minutes on a modern laptop. If you're shooting 720/60p or 1080 ode, it might make for a bit of fingernail-biting to get the card out, offloaded, formatted and back in the camera in time, but it's do-able.

If you're shooting 720/24pN mode, you'll have gobs of time, 42 minutes of recording time vs. 9 minutes of offload time.
 
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