No Firewire - bummer. What to do now?

richke

richke

Well-known member
I had my previous camcorder setup s I could connect it to my laptop to use with On Location. Well I am doing auditions today and just noticed the HMC40 does not have firewire. I see it is not possible t get a hdmi to firewire since they are two completely different protocols butwhat can I do. Is there some sore of adapter I can plug into my laptop(pcmia card) or something? I looked around and did not find anything right off.

I like to connect it to my laptop so I have a bigger screen(until I get a bigger LCD on my cam) plus I can tweak settings with On Location.

IfI cannot do it I am not hurting just enjoyed that feature.
Thansk,
Rich
 
As far as I know, no HD cameras have firewire....if they DO have firewire, it is only to output DV footage, not HD.

Matrox and Black Magic have some HDMI cards available.
 
Phil1076 said:
As far as I know, no HD cameras have firewire...
Click to expand...

Add "AVC" in front of "HD" there, Phil, and I think you've hit the nail on the head. :) HDV cameras have Firewire, and use it for HD; and it's still on at least some of Panasonic's P2 line (even the new HPX250 has it, and the brochure mentions streaming DVCPRO HD through it)... but I don't think it's part of the AVCHD standard.
 
I stand corrected, but the Firewire port always seems crippled. For example, in the HPX250, it outputs DV and DVCPRO HD....but does not output AVC-Intra, 720p, or interval recording...It honestly seems useless unless you're recording straight DVCPRO HD...and why would you record DVCPRO HD if you have AVC-Intra available to you? It seems like the only reason it's there is to output SD video.
 
And the weird thing is, they don't even need it for that. :) You can shoot SD to P2 and transfer it as a file just like you can HD, right? Who's going to want to capture in real-time if they don't have to?
 
The new Panasonic AC-130 / AC-160 / HPX-250 cameras all have FireWire SD out.

Firewire is not crippled, it's just not designed for HD video streams.
 
Because the 130 and 160 are also DV cameras and that's when the FireWire works.

And on the 250 FireWire is available when in dvcpro-hd mode. If you need streaming HD, that is part and parcel of why you would want to shoot dvcpro-hd instead of avc-Intra.
 
It is the same as on the hmc80 as far as I can tell, but they do caution that 80 may have a couple of minor issues recognizing dv clips from a 130/160.
 
I was doing it more for the capabiltiy to have it stream on my laptop screen while I shoot. bigger viewing screen since I do not have a bigger external view screen.
 
richke said:
I was doing it more for the capabiltiy to have it stream on my laptop screen while I shoot. bigger viewing screen since I do not have a bigger external view screen.
Click to expand...

HDMI or component. Won't work with your laptop, but will work with any newer TV. Color won't be too accurate, but focus can work quite well.

Grant
 
Seriously? I used a panasonic gs300 on my last shoot and connected it to my laptop via firewire for lighting and focus purposes(i do not know if I really pay attention to the color most times - probably a flaw but I figure I can fix that in post if needed) and I thought it looked great...is it because of the HD on the HMC40 that this is not a good idea because the pani gs300 was not hdmi or HD

Just curious...
 
It's not that it's "not a good idea", it's that the AVCHD format doesn't transmit down a firewire cable at all. It was never designed to. Firewire carries DV and all its variants: DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO50, and DVCPRO-HD. And it can also carry HDV. But firewire doesn't work with AVCHD, or AVC-Intra, or XDCAM-HD, or XDCAM-EX, or XDCAM-MPEG422, or any other modern codec.
 
Just to clarify, the user wants to use adobe on location. It's a great tool that allows you to not only use a laptop for monitoring the video stream for checking focus etc but also provides tools like waveform monitoring etc. Yes you could even use it to record to the laptop but it's more about getting staus info from your camcorder.

love

Freya
 
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