Not sure if my current set up will work...

J

jazo

Member
Alright I am giving in. I have spent all night searching the forum for a deffinitive answer but I have failed. Basically all I need to know is this: can I use the HVX200 without P2 cards? Here is my current set up:

HVX200 connected by firewire to a MacBook Pro. The MBP has a 2 x 6pin firewire port expresscard installed with an external HD connected to it.

Now, is it possible for me to use the laptop and external HD to record footage? I seem to remember reading some where that this was possible, I'm just not sure how to set it up. If it is possible, are all of the frame rates and recording modes available to me or am I limited?

Thanks for the help, I really can't wait to start messing around with this thing! (have had it for a week but I haven't even been able to record anything yet :( talk about torture!)
 
Yes, you can use the HVX without P2 cards but you will lose the functionality of recording true native framerates. Firewire in this camera will only output to video 60i standard so footage shot at 24p (would have to be shot in video mode, not native film mode) would be interpolated into 60i.

As long as there is no bottleneck (such as too slow of a capture drive) in the laptop you should be able to capture streaming video directly out of the camera without any problem.
 
John Froton said:
Yes, you can use the HVX without P2 cards but you will lose the functionality of recording true native framerates. Firewire in this camera will only output to video 60i standard so footage shot at 24p (would have to be shot in video mode, not native film mode) would be interpolated into 60i.
Click to expand...
You can record any of the non-native recording modes through the DV port. You can therefore record all standard-definition and high-definition modes the HVX is capable of on a computer. In order to get 24P, you'll have to use some form of 3:2 pull-down to drop the duplicate frames, but you are most certainly not restricted to working with 60i video if you don't have a P2 card.
 
mmmmm ... my mistake. I was under the impression that 30p, 30i and 60p were all standards that were laid out on a 60i NTSC signal.

So does 24p get interpolated with any field processing when the pulldown is added or is it strctly whole frame processing?

Does it all boil down to the CCD's? Sony uses interlaced CCD's and field processes a "fake" progressive from what I gather, so in contrast, does Panasonic's progressive CCD's have to produce a "fake" interlaced for recordings done in interlaced mode?
 
The HVX always scans progressively, but the recording format may dictate that the video be stored in an interlaced format. Both 1080i and 480i are created by splitting the progressively scanned video into interlaced fields.
 
I guess I was just assuming that the NTSC signal that is generated for output onto tape or out of the firewire port was inherently interlaced and was able to embody progressive material. I assumed that it would take full frames and display them within fields - hence my thoughts that all formats, except for native,would be embodied into NTSC 60 fields (60i)

Is it an NTSC signal that comes out of the firewire port? If not then why can't we get the 24pn footage to stream out of the firewire port?
 
NTSC is a TV broadcast format. What comes out the DV port is a digital data stream that may or may not encapsulate NTSC video. The reason why no data is sent to the DV port in native recording mode is because the duplicate frames that are required to construct an NTSC broadcast format are not recorded by the camera.

If you are recording anything in 720, then you are recording full non-interlaced frames at whatever framerate you choose.
 
THoff said:
The reason why no data is sent to the DV port in native recording mode is because the duplicate frames that are required to construct an NTSC broadcast format are not recorded by the camera.
Click to expand...

Does this mean that the data stream would have to meet NTSC requirements to provide signal throughput from the DV port? If so then how is 720p handled in an NTSC signal?

My apologies ... I don't mean to be a stick in the mud :)
 
The only DV format that is commonly understood by things like tape decks, S-VHS VCRs, camcorders and some TVs is DV25 (MiniDV), which is a standard-definition format.

720p video from the camera is encoded using Panasonic's DVCProHD codec, and isn't understood by those devices. If you are talking about 720p TV programming such as that from DirectTV's HD service, that's encoded using MPEG4 AVC. Other services such as cable TV networks may / do use other encoding methods.
 
I'm sorry, I thought when you said DV port you were talking about the firewire out as well. My question about the signal having to meet NTSC requirements was really aimed at the capabilities of the firewire output rather than the DV tape drive. I was wondering if the HD stream going through the firewire jack was NTSC video. It can't be can it? It would have to be a data stream and not a video stream that could be played on a video monitor right. Because it would be NTSC video if it was playable on a monitor and that would make it a 60 fields per second signal.

I hope you don't think I'm pestering you by dragging this on like this.
 
Last edited:
I think the big thing that I was failing to see - that made this more confusing for me - is that files can be transferred over firewire as well as streaming video. I was thinking that everything had to be streamed out. My bad :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top