Barry_Green
Moderator
I don't have 5.1 yet, but it is my understanding that yes, 1080/24pA would work in log & capture mode now. Hopefully someone with 5.1 can write in and verify that.
Recording HD straight to computer
- Thread starter RecTeach
- Start date
Pascal Parvex
Well-known member
RecTeach said:
Is this the same as having two Firewire buses? So, that there will be no bandwith issues? Because with my setup, I go from the HVX to the notebook through Firewire, and then on to the USB 2.0 external drive.
Last edited:
Jan_Crittenden
Veteran
doondoon said:
If you come out of the USB you will only be able to do a file transfer. There is no live video from there. There is only streaming from the firewire port.
Hope that helps,
jan
vincekeala
Member
Okay so this is good news for MacBook Pro owners, right?
Capture in FCP via 1394 to external USB drive. Correct?
Solves the problem of no pcmcia cardbus or having to buy/use a expresscard/34 1394 card.
BTW, we tested HVX 720p to internal hard drive and it played back fine.
Capture in FCP via 1394 to external USB drive. Correct?
Solves the problem of no pcmcia cardbus or having to buy/use a expresscard/34 1394 card.
BTW, we tested HVX 720p to internal hard drive and it played back fine.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Yes you should be able to do that with an MBP.
The whole USB 2.0, Firewire 400 and 800 topic is kind of confusing. Even on a G5, in spite of the fact there are 'discreet' FW400 and 800 ports, they do use the same controller chip. This definitely limits performance. It is a good idea to have your FW400 devices (camera) on the 400 bus and FW800 drives on the FW800 port - this way you realize the transfer potential of the FW800 drive. But the controller chip can only handle so much. For example, if you are using an AJA Io or Mojo with Firewire drives, you *really* have to add a PCI FW card to even a G5 to get decent performance. Yes...it can work to some degree without it...but try doing 10 bit uncompressed and the system bogs down pretty quickly. Fortunately, the higher limit of HVX data transfers is only 100Mb/sec so it is not that tasking.
As I mentioned before, I am able to record 1080i to a FW800 drive with my HVX hooked up to my Powerbook on the FW400 port. I'll give the USB port a try, but whenever I've hooked up drives to a USB port they don't seem to perform as well as FW. Looking back, it's possible my experience with those tests may have been with a crappy USB drive. I'll try it with one of the new triple interface drives that I've been using lately.
Interestingly enough, I found that when playing on an Avid Xpress Pro PC system, I HAD to have the camera hooked up to USB to import the files into XPress Pro - it didn't like the FW ports....data corruption during transfers. Then I found a note in the HVX manual - if using a Mac, use FW - on a PC, use USB to transfer data.
As I mentioned before, I am able to record 1080i to a FW800 drive with my HVX hooked up to my Powerbook on the FW400 port. I'll give the USB port a try, but whenever I've hooked up drives to a USB port they don't seem to perform as well as FW. Looking back, it's possible my experience with those tests may have been with a crappy USB drive. I'll try it with one of the new triple interface drives that I've been using lately.
Interestingly enough, I found that when playing on an Avid Xpress Pro PC system, I HAD to have the camera hooked up to USB to import the files into XPress Pro - it didn't like the FW ports....data corruption during transfers. Then I found a note in the HVX manual - if using a Mac, use FW - on a PC, use USB to transfer data.
jeffyjones
Well-known member
That's the million dollar question, eh? I've been meaning to give it a shot but I don't yet have an external USB 2.0 drive. There are some convenient 2.5" drives that power off the bus around 100 gigs that I'd really love to have. They're 5400 rpm, but that shouldn't be an issue since the internal drive in the MacBook is too (and I can tell you that editing performance is INSANE).vincekeala said:
I've gotta try the direct 1080/24pa capture. That would be sweet. If I could just figure out the mapping between camera resolution/frame rate settings and timeline settings!
jeffyjones
Well-known member
Yep... captures like a champ, no hiccups or weirdness. I had to set device control to none, and create a capture preset that had the pulldown box checked, but other than that, it worked like a champ!
jeffyjones said:
Can you guys clarify what's been tested on the MBP so far? Jeffy, you're confirming that you can capture directly from the camera to an external USB drive? Has anyone recorded directly to the internal hard drive? Which MBP are you using (1.83 or 2.0 GHz)?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Snarton,
You can capture what's on the P2 card via USB but you can't stream live via USB.
You can't use FILM Mode (or maybe it's called film native) for streaming. You have to use Video mode. Tried this last night and it works fine.
You can also stream live from the P2 into your NLE (I used Avid). Not sure why someone would do this but hey, it worked.
In terms of the P2 card - Film/native mode give you more recording time.
For those of us using 4 gig cards this huge.
Transfering 4 gigs to a firewire drive (this was a 7200 rpm drive) was not as fast as I'd hoped it would be but at least it worked.
Dragging and dropping from P2 card (while mounted in the pcmcia slot) was much quicker.
You can capture what's on the P2 card via USB but you can't stream live via USB.
You can't use FILM Mode (or maybe it's called film native) for streaming. You have to use Video mode. Tried this last night and it works fine.
You can also stream live from the P2 into your NLE (I used Avid). Not sure why someone would do this but hey, it worked.
In terms of the P2 card - Film/native mode give you more recording time.
For those of us using 4 gig cards this huge.
Transfering 4 gigs to a firewire drive (this was a 7200 rpm drive) was not as fast as I'd hoped it would be but at least it worked.
Dragging and dropping from P2 card (while mounted in the pcmcia slot) was much quicker.
Carlone, thanks for the reply.
I'd like to get a MBP for field use with my HVX, and on occasion I'd like to use it for direct recording instead of transfering from P2. I read about people with Powerbooks adding a second firewire bus with a PCMCIA card. I'm wondering: with the MBP, can you record directly to the internal hard drive? (There were dropped frames when this was done with the Powerbook.) It sounds like Jeffy tested that recording directly onto a USB drive worked, but I wanted to confirm this.
Thanks,
Jeremy
I'd like to get a MBP for field use with my HVX, and on occasion I'd like to use it for direct recording instead of transfering from P2. I read about people with Powerbooks adding a second firewire bus with a PCMCIA card. I'm wondering: with the MBP, can you record directly to the internal hard drive? (There were dropped frames when this was done with the Powerbook.) It sounds like Jeffy tested that recording directly onto a USB drive worked, but I wanted to confirm this.
Thanks,
Jeremy
jeffyjones
Well-known member
No... that was to the internal drive. I'll have an external USB drive on Friday, and I don't see any reason that won't work just as well. I have the 2 GHz model.snarton said:
What I do find confusing is that when you "analyze" video, the 1080/24pa capture still shows as being 1080/60i. Is that correct? I'm not very deep into using FCP yet, so I'm a little confused.
By the way, I did a capture preset copy using 1080/60i and checked the box to remove pulldown. I think I may have forced the resolution to 1920x1080, but I don't have the machine here in front of me.
jeffyjones said:
Hey- thanks for getting back to me. That's great news that capturing to the internal drive works. Although the laptop is bigger than the firestore, I think the simplicity of recording onto one device is a big improvement over the laptop+external hard drive solution that was needed in the past. I had been holding out for the 17" MBP (just for the extra screen real estate), but you made me think again about the 15" for an even more compact setup in the field. I'll look for your post about recording to an external USB.
Thanks,
Jeremy
P.S. I've been sticking to 720P, so I can't comment on your question about 1080 analysis.
jeffyjones
Well-known member
I'm pleasantly surprised with the 15" screen. I had a Dell with that size that was also 1680x1050 (widescreen), and that was nice for Avid. But the FCP interface is such that it fits just fine, and really pretty well at the 1440x900 MacBook resolution.
CINEMANIAC
Member
5.1 1080/24pA reads fine & 5 HOURS OF INTERVIEW TO MACBOOK PRO DIRECT WORKS (KIND OF)
5.1 1080/24pA reads fine & 5 HOURS OF INTERVIEW TO MACBOOK PRO DIRECT WORKS (KIND OF)
Before my story, I have 5.1 and did some testing of streaming with 1080 24pA and no problems - just set it to 1080/60i and it reads it fine (though the guy on the mac help website said it wasn't supported yet when I ordered it, so it was a nice surprise).
I had a nightmarish experience with 5 hours of back to back interviewing, but think it was probably partially my fault due to it being the first time ever doing this on Final Cut Pro. I had my HVX set up with a firewire 400 to a Lacie Porsche 250GB 7200rpm(used it because of 2 firewire ports on back) and daisy-chained it to my Macbook Pro, which had the Lacie as the scratch drive. Strangely (and alarmingly), every 4 1/2 minutes (or 2 GB) on 720/30P Log and Capture would stop recording, saying there wasnt enough room, where I would have to quickly hit capture now as quick as possible to not lose more than a couple of words said. Then, I overheated my drive (2.16 2 GB ram but was on a cloth chair - helped when moved to wood), so it would report dropped frames every ten-forty seconds and delete everything it had recorded to that point. I had to hit escape as quickly as I can to get it to stop and save before hitting capture now - the interview took 45 minutes yet has almost 100 segments (not so good) - but in the middle I disconnected the extrenal and recorded straight to my internal 100GB 7200rpm, and this was actually when it worked the best, with no problems at all. I have no idea why so many things went wrong, but any thoughts/expanations would be appreciated. I am about to buy one of the SIIG expresscard double firewire 400 cards and hope that daisy-chaining was to blame. I didn't have a recording limit set, which perplexes me. I bought a Swiss Army backpack that's pretty popular now (Maxxum computer backpack, $40 on the Dell Webste) that actually fits an HVX standing up, an external hard drive (or four if you pack creatively), tons of cords, and the MacBook Pro in a separate pocket. I pad the Hvx with shirts so it doesn't get banged up by other drives. My system otherwise has worked great, but there were so many things that could've screwed up that shoot that I don't know anymore. Luckliy just premiered the cut interviews and no one knew any different, and even the 720 footage looks astounding - I can't wait to try more with 1080/30p which didn't seem to always work on my configuration (think RAID was needed, had to buy the drive the day before and only have one firewire port, only RAIDs I found had only one so no daisy chaining; forced to buy non-Raid). However, could it be because one of my firewire cords is 6.5-7 ft long? (the other is 1.5). Any help appreciated, don't want this to reoccur; also, got first short shoot coming up in next week, will do some P2 some straight to laptop so will tell you about the streaming stuff. Thanks, and hope this helped somehow.
5.1 1080/24pA reads fine & 5 HOURS OF INTERVIEW TO MACBOOK PRO DIRECT WORKS (KIND OF)
Before my story, I have 5.1 and did some testing of streaming with 1080 24pA and no problems - just set it to 1080/60i and it reads it fine (though the guy on the mac help website said it wasn't supported yet when I ordered it, so it was a nice surprise).
I had a nightmarish experience with 5 hours of back to back interviewing, but think it was probably partially my fault due to it being the first time ever doing this on Final Cut Pro. I had my HVX set up with a firewire 400 to a Lacie Porsche 250GB 7200rpm(used it because of 2 firewire ports on back) and daisy-chained it to my Macbook Pro, which had the Lacie as the scratch drive. Strangely (and alarmingly), every 4 1/2 minutes (or 2 GB) on 720/30P Log and Capture would stop recording, saying there wasnt enough room, where I would have to quickly hit capture now as quick as possible to not lose more than a couple of words said. Then, I overheated my drive (2.16 2 GB ram but was on a cloth chair - helped when moved to wood), so it would report dropped frames every ten-forty seconds and delete everything it had recorded to that point. I had to hit escape as quickly as I can to get it to stop and save before hitting capture now - the interview took 45 minutes yet has almost 100 segments (not so good) - but in the middle I disconnected the extrenal and recorded straight to my internal 100GB 7200rpm, and this was actually when it worked the best, with no problems at all. I have no idea why so many things went wrong, but any thoughts/expanations would be appreciated. I am about to buy one of the SIIG expresscard double firewire 400 cards and hope that daisy-chaining was to blame. I didn't have a recording limit set, which perplexes me. I bought a Swiss Army backpack that's pretty popular now (Maxxum computer backpack, $40 on the Dell Webste) that actually fits an HVX standing up, an external hard drive (or four if you pack creatively), tons of cords, and the MacBook Pro in a separate pocket. I pad the Hvx with shirts so it doesn't get banged up by other drives. My system otherwise has worked great, but there were so many things that could've screwed up that shoot that I don't know anymore. Luckliy just premiered the cut interviews and no one knew any different, and even the 720 footage looks astounding - I can't wait to try more with 1080/30p which didn't seem to always work on my configuration (think RAID was needed, had to buy the drive the day before and only have one firewire port, only RAIDs I found had only one so no daisy chaining; forced to buy non-Raid). However, could it be because one of my firewire cords is 6.5-7 ft long? (the other is 1.5). Any help appreciated, don't want this to reoccur; also, got first short shoot coming up in next week, will do some P2 some straight to laptop so will tell you about the streaming stuff. Thanks, and hope this helped somehow.
Bryan Xin
New member
CINEMANIAC,
Maybe this info might be helpful to you: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=54917
It looks like we're using similar equipment. I didn't try daisy chaining to the MBP though.
Maybe this info might be helpful to you: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=54917
It looks like we're using similar equipment. I didn't try daisy chaining to the MBP though.
How do you config your HVX so that you can go straight to computer. I have one with me I am trying to get familiar with. Camera is on, FW plugged in, FCP settings et for DVCPROHD 720p60 as is the camera. HVX is in camera mode, but I get no picture in log and capture in FCP (the latest version).
Please advise.
Please advise.
make sure you turn it from DV to OHCI in log and capture.