I'm a little confused as to how I can record for 1 hour

[slohd]

I need to be able to record continiously for 1 hour. What is the best way to do this with the HVX 200?

I have read a lot of comments about offloading video from the P2 card to a firewire drive but it seems that would be useless since the camera has to be in play mode to write from the card to the drive.

Also I have read about using 2 cards and keep swapping them. This seems impractical because you would shake the camera trying to get the card out every few minutes.

I am confused on the ability to write to an attached laptop via the firewire. Can I do this with no P2 cards installed. Is there a risk of a buffer overrun and data dropouts? My laptop is an AMD 64 bit processor with a 60 Gb 7200 rpm drive. What is the downside of writing video only to a directly connected laptop and what is the procedure?

Kinda off topic but here is an idea for a smart electronics/ computer person out there. We have seen PCMCIA cards with small drives in them. Now make one that can act as a host like the Firestore. Then make it with a 1394 connector sticking out the back. Then plug this into the P2 slot and on the drives PCMCIA connector only take power from the camera. Connect the 1394 cable and voila an installed hardrive setup. This would act like a firestore as far as the camera is concerned, but with the added conveniece of power for the drive coming from the camera. I know the drives aren't 100 gb but they are 5 Gb and about $150. And if your really smart put one in each slot and connect them to each other in a raid setup to increase the Mb/sec if necessary, or have 10 Gb available.

 

[dregenthal]

http://www.spec-comm.com/cineporter.php

 

[Barry_Green]

I am confused on the ability to write to an attached laptop via the firewire. Can I do this with no P2 cards installed.

Yes.

Is there a risk of a buffer overrun and data dropouts?

If your system is properly configured, no. If you're trying to run a dozen other applications and capture to the internal drive, sure. Capture to a freshly-formatted external firewire drive and you should have no hiccups whatsoever.

My laptop is an AMD 64 bit processor with a 60 Gb 7200 rpm drive. What is the downside of writing video only to a directly connected laptop and what is the procedure?

Use your capture application (like Avid Express Pro HD or Canopus Edius Broadcast) and tell it to capture a stream. It should just work.

Then plug this into the P2 slot and on the drives PCMCIA connector only take power from the camera. Connect the 1394 cable and voila an installed hardrive setup.

Dozens of people have brought this up, certainly many are already working on something.

I know the drives aren't 100 gb but they are 5 Gb and about $150. And if your really smart put one in each slot and connect them to each other in a raid setup to increase the Mb/sec if necessary, or have 10 Gb available.

Way way way way way too slow. Excruciatingly too slow. The problem with recording direct to a hard disk is most hard disks don't have the minimum sustained transfer rates necessary. No 1" drive does, I don't think any 1.8" drives do, and not all that many 2.5" drives do. 3.5" drives, yes, all day long -- but 3.5" drives are power hungry and not portable, they're designed for desktop/stable installations.

It is an idea that sounds very simple, but that doesn't work well at all in the real world.

 

[slohd]

Dregenthal - Thanks, looks interesting. I'm a little concerned about the fact that it looks like vaporware at the moment. Also for the same money I can get a laptop with 2 100Gb - 7200 rpm SATA 150 drives from www.powernotebooks.com

Barry - Thank you for the info. I see the current drive technology is inadequate. I'm looking forward to what the industry will offer as a option to a $650 4 Gb card.