Wait a minute....Barry, did you say it can "STREAM" to a Laptop Hard Drive??

I think it is a matter of preference, but I had some bad experience with Western Digital. They had a series of 40GB HDDs all of which, mine and my friends', completely died in about a year. Bad sectors just wouldn't stop multiplying, so now I try to stay away and stick to Seagates or Maxtors.

EDIT: I started a thread on Nomadness. Maybe can figure something out.
 
[/QUOTE]Now, regarding your second question, the P2 card with the firewire out -- that would be basically the same thing as the computer hard disk controller we're talking about, and yes, I see that as a very viable option, but it remains to be seen if/when someone implements it.[/QUOTE]
Well it is not quite the same thing as a controller. The P2 card is a a non moving drive, but essentially just a hard drive, correct?
So if that is the case and data flow is not an issue then the camera itself has the smarts to record directly to a hard drive. The dummy card I mentioned would merely be a passthrough to enable the use of much cheaper, and yes I understand not nearly as reliable hard drives. No "smarts" should be needed in it.
I am looking forward to using P2, and I will more than likely buy this camera with three 8 gig cards to have work flow. But to enable some of the things that I do on a regular basis, recording to a drive would be very helpful, and to some it will be a necessity until P2 has bigger and perhaps cheaper drives.
 
fiercecurry said:
But WHO KNOWS what this camera will stream out the Firewire port?
Click to expand...
We know that it will stream out a full 100-megabit data stream. It'll be clone-capable with the AJ-HD1200A deck, and capturable by an FCP-HD or Avid HD system, or by a FireStore HD-type of device.

What we don't know is if it will also offer a way to stream just the active frames. But what we do know is that it will supply the full 100-megabit data stream.
 
great, thanks.

I know all this is confusing, but isnt there a difference between Mb/s and Mbits/s
From what i understand Firewire is able to handle up to 400Mbit/s, so will the output of the HVX at DVCPRO HD will be 100Mbits/s or 100MB/s? Most Firewire interfaces can hande up to 25-30MB/s sustained including the ones on laptops.
 
bits and bytes, a condensed glossary

bits and bytes, a condensed glossary

fiercecurry said:
isnt there a difference between Mb/s and Mbits/s
Click to expand...

Article: What is Mbps - A Word Definition
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Mbps.html

Mbps=megabits per second
MBps=megabytes per second
eight bits=one byte

usb 1.x=12Mbps
usb 2.0=480Mbps
firewire400=400Mbps
firewire800=800Mbps

MiniDV=25Mbps
DVCAM=25Mbps
DVCPRO-25=25Mbps
DVCPRO-50=50Mbps
DigiBeta=90Mbps
DVCPRO-HD720p60=100Mbps
DVCPRO-HD1080i60=100Mbps
 
what if you use a PCMIA firewire card used in laptops? If what is recorded to the P2 card is DATA...maybe that will be the passthrough to a hard drive? maybe?
 
I doubt that an existing product would work like that, but it certainly seems promising that someone could develop a PCMCIA firewire external disk controller, something that interfaces with the P2 card writer's file system and translates it to hard disk control.

I'll bet that we'll see a product like this by the time the camera's introduced.
 
Nice find Kidzed.

Now thats exciting. Hopefully more and more alternatives to P2 will keep coming up. Its all about flexibilty and options. Sorry Panasonic.
 
I like the sound of it.

How about a $600 80GB Macmini and a $40 PCMCIA to firewire adapter. Set up Automator to automatically copy contents of P2 and erase. You've got a firestore and hell of a lot more.

Still, I'm thinking someone has got to come up with a way to connect a hard drive straight into to the P2. You just gotta get it to think it's got a 128GB P2 in it. Juan?
 
Here's the thing, where do you put a hard drive in a camcorder?
How long will a battery last when there's a motor spinning a disc 7,000 times a minute?
Hard drives fail because of mainly two things: heat, vibrations/shock
To combat heat, you need a fan. Fans make noise and soak up batteries, at least on my laptop.
How much noise will it make? Will you hear it in the microphone?
To properly seal a hardrive to protect it against shock, well duh, takes a shock mount and more space.
If hard drives were a viable option they would have done it. There are too many compromises.

brian wells
"HardDrives belong on a shelf, not your camcorder"
 
The JVC HD100 has a hard-disk option, which is basically a rebadged FireStore. It mounts in the shoe above the mic, and it looks fairly well armored against shock. There's no way anyone could hear any fan noise on that convention floor -- the background noise was unbelievable, so we'll have to ask some FS-4 users about noise levels.
 
Phooey said:
I like the sound of it.

How about a $600 80GB Macmini and a $40 PCMCIA to firewire adapter. Set up Automator to automatically copy contents of P2 and erase. You've got a firestore and hell of a lot more.

Still, I'm thinking someone has got to come up with a way to connect a hard drive straight into to the P2. You just gotta get it to think it's got a 128GB P2 in it. Juan?
Click to expand...


YES!!!I could see this working..
 
No, the Mini WON'T work, at least reliably.

Why would you need the PCI card with a Mini? It has FW400 already, and has no PCI CardBus slot for a second. The HVX has a FW400 out, so it doesn't need one.

I suppose you could just capture straight to the computer's internal drive, but it is a pokey-slow 4200rpm 40GB HD. 20% of the drive will be taken up with the OS and apps right out of the box. Not really big enough or fast enough for capturing reliable DVCPROHD streams.

7200rpm external FW drives are fast enough, but then the problem might be that the Mini's one FW400 bus might not handle daisy-chaining an external FW drive to a camera. The data would have to travel from the camera to the Mac then back to an external FW drive on the same bus via one cable.

Mini's, iMacs, and eMacs all have just one FW400 bus (even those with two PORTS share just one BUS). To get separate and discreet FW buses for both the camera and capture drive you'd have to either get a true-blue 15.2" Powerbook ($2000) with a FW400/800 PCI CardBus card ($75), or a Powermac ($1499) with an extra PCI FW card ($75). Sharing one FW bus for essentially TWO 100mbs streams (from camera to CPU, then CPU to HD) is a risky proposition, The slightest hiccup stops the capture or gives you long/missing frames everywhere.

Technically the specs would indicate it could possibly work, but I know people who won't even capture standard DV streams that way, let alone HD streams. And remember, when this happens during tape captures, one can always start over. Live shooting straight-to-hard-drive acquisition leaves NO room for error. If you have a client willing to pay you for HD content, technical excuses for failing to capture a shot won't cut it.

The Mini is cool for what it was designed for--getting people to switch from PCs to Macs. It probably will NOT serve as a FireStore or QuickStream replacement, however.
 
I see that you can use a notebook to capture directly from the cam through the FW port, but I have another question. I will be editing with FCP 5 on a G5 but I only have a pc based notebook to do the capture with. What program would I need to use (Vegas, Pre Pro, etc.) on the notebook to capture with that I would then be able to transfer to the G5 for editing without any loss (file format, etc.)? Or is it possible?
 
Barry_Green said:
The JVC HD100 has a hard-disk option, which is basically a rebadged FireStore. It mounts in the shoe above the mic, and it looks fairly well armored against shock. There's no way anyone could hear any fan noise on that convention floor -- the background noise was unbelievable, so we'll have to ask some FS-4 users about noise levels.
Click to expand...

I used a FireStore for one day... then I had to give it back.

The noise level coming out is negligible. Any ambient noise will drown out the FireStore.

Most higher end external drives have shock mounting. On the inside of the case, rubber gaskets and foam protect the drive from hitting the inside of the case wall.
 
eqwalker said:
I see that you can use a notebook to capture directly from the cam through the FW port, but I have another question. I will be editing with FCP 5 on a G5 but I only have a pc based notebook to do the capture with. What program would I need to use (Vegas, Pre Pro, etc.) on the notebook to capture with that I would then be able to transfer to the G5 for editing without any loss (file format, etc.)? Or is it possible?
Click to expand...

I've used DV Rack and Vegas to do captures. Both will record it in .AVI format, which you can transfer to the G5 without loss.

I usually trim my clips and re-encode with the Huffy codec. I'm not sure if that codec is available on a Mac. (I'm Mac illiterate)
 
eqwalker said:
I see that you can use a notebook to capture directly from the cam through the FW port, but I have another question. I will be editing with FCP 5 on a G5 but I only have a pc based notebook to do the capture with. What program would I need to use (Vegas, Pre Pro, etc.) on the notebook to capture with that I would then be able to transfer to the G5 for editing without any loss (file format, etc.)? Or is it possible?
Click to expand...
I'd say run, don't walk, to get DV Rack. DV Rack is the ultimate capture app for a PC notebook, and it will let you capture in a variety of formats (including Quicktime MOV's).

I asked Serious Magic to consider making an HVX-compatible version of DV Rack, and they said they're already talking to Panasonic because they're quite interested in doing so.
 
They should definitely include this option in the camera, and they should call it HD2HD...
We want to use HVXs for reality shows (traveling documentaies, not 'survivor' type competitions) and having an external device with it's own power source (battery of some sort) will be the only way to go.
without it, this camera will not be useful to us (and you know that the HVX200a will have this feature for sure)
HighDef to HardDrive is a key feature for me
 
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