added 14 February 2005

 

FireStore FS-4 DTE Recorder Test Results
by Chris Kamilar

Let me start by saying that I do not work for Focus Enhancements. I am not associated with the company in any way, and do not even own any of their stock. I am an engineer in another State, who owns a video and photo business on the side. I did send in a request to be a beta tester, and to my surprise was selected from among the masses. With some consternation I received a beta unit in the mail and I took a hard look at it, with a number of very honest emails being sent to the manufacturer. I now have in hand a unit that is less beta and more production, and I want to give an honest opinion. What you read is based on my personal testing and my opinion only. It is not the opinion of Focus Enhancements.

I like it so much that I have four on order. I recorded with the FS-4 and with a tape at the same time on separate cameras, took all the video into my NLE, synced the two different sources at the beginning and went to the end to see if they were in sync, looking for dropped frames. There were no dropped frames. I tested it with Sony VX2000 cameras, a Canopus ADVC110, and with a number of computers for mounting issues.

The battery testing that I have done is showing better performance than what Focus is specifying. The battery is easy to switch , has a meter to indicate power level and when I let the unit run until it just totally ran out of power and turned off,… the video that was being captured was not corrupt. I don’t know how the unit should work, but I tried this multiple times with the same results.

The unit is light and looks very professional. Even my wife had no problem clipping it on her pants.

The controls were very intuitive. I have other DTE recorders and I found this unit easier to use. After some complaining, they even added some features that make the menus not just easy, but very quick to navigate through. The manual describes the operation well. If you can work a tape recorder, this unit should be no challenge to operate.

I really only had two reservations about buying my units. I expect to be doing a lot more HD in two years or less and was concerned about the return on this investment. I also was not happy with the fan noise when the unit was mounted to the camera. A new quieter fan was spec’d and will be installed in the production units.

This is not official announcement, but I was told that all FS-4’s that ship will be HD upgradeable. This makes sense since the data rate coming out of the cameras is 25 Mbits compressed, same data rate as the uncompressed data we are currently working with on mini DV cameras.

To make a long story short, I would recommend this product. If you want to record directly to hard drive and avoid the capture process and wear and tear on your camera, the FS-4 is a great unit.

For more info, see www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/firestore.htm

Written by Chris Kamilar.
Thrown together by Chris Hurd.