HVX no native mode on Firestore?

I

icicle22

Well-known member
It appears that the native 720P frame rate feature (only records the unique frames ) will not be available for the Firestore. Check out this quote from the Japanese Site:

"In addition all codec which includes DVCPRO HD FireStore FS-100 of the FOCUS corporation which corresponds to AG-HVX200 (the next few days sale schedule) of making use (excludes native record mode) long haul record becomes possible."

If this is true then that means that when using the firestore to record 720P 24FPS you will be using the full 100mbs even though you are actually only recording 40mbs of unique data. Kinda wasteful huh? Bummer.

I guess that unless you want "slow-mo or fast effects" you might as well record in 1080 24P and at least optimize the use of the firestore.

Here are my calculations based on a 100GB Firestore (don't know what size it will be)

100 minutes of 720P 24P (over 60i)
100 minutes of 1080 24P (over 60i)
250 minutes of 720P 24P (native------not supported on firestore)

Pretty significant difference. I was planning on using the firestore and working in 720P to save space. But if this is accurate I might as well shoot 1080P and get the most "bang" for my buck.

It's still a better cost per GB than P2 however. I wonder if the variable framerates downsampled to DV will work from the firestore?
 
Tosh says: "And reliability? Their track record is tops!"

As a current FS4 Pro user (who now uses it out of choice and would not be without it) "tops" is NOT the same as "100%". Fortunately, I can always recover the very occasional clips it's failed to record from the backup tape on the occasions I need to, and still save a lot of time overall.

Would I use it as my ONLY recording medium? What do you think, Tosh?
 
"So how does one extract 24P from the stream? Is there software that automatically removes the 60% buffer frames?"


To answer my own question above.....I was browsing the panasonic site and found a download on the Varicam support page that will do framerate conversion to extrapolate the original framerates from the 60P stream. I would assume that this will also become available for the HVX200 users. The only thing that concerns me is that it is for Final Cut Pro only. Being primarily a PC guy who does ocassional work on MACs I'd like to see a PC solution too.
 
I would expect that the firewire streaming would be the full 100-megabit data rate, as that's what the AJ-HD1200A deck would be expecting to see. But, the FireStore could perhaps have a bit of intelligence in it, and may be able to parse the incoming stream and discard duplicates. It remains to be seen if they'll implement it that way, or if it's even possible, but if it is, that would give you the full capabilities for storing only the active frames.
 
From the description on the Pana website it sounds like they are saying that native mode is unavailable to the firestore. I can wish that Firestore would implement this but I am doubting it!
 
You're referring to the Japanese website, right? It's really hard to know what they're saying on that...

What I'm guessing at is that the data stream out the firewire port is 100 megabits, 60p with "active frame" flags. That would make it compatible with the deck and with FCP, etc. So the question is: can the FireStore employ intelligence and just ignore the duplicate frames? Seems to me the capability should be there, but it's up to Focus to implement it. I would certainly expect a program like Serious Magic's HD Rack would have enough capability to drop the duplicate frames, but then again... I guess we should ask 'em... "assuming" doesn't have a great track record, y'know? ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top