nNovia A2D review by Douglas Spotted Eagle
 

Check out this review on DMN by D.S.E. about the nNovia A2D, a portable 80gb FireWire hard drive that writes edit-ready files and includes analog input and output. Hooray!

I wanted to extend my thanks to Douglas Spotted Eagle for finding the time in his busy schedule to review the nNovia QuickCapture A2D. I hope you folks find our QuickCapture family of DVR's versatile and easy to use. We at nNovia believe without superior versatility, reliability and ease-of use this genre of products will never be adopted into most videographer's workflow.

Chris has been kind enough to extend an invite to nNovia to participate in your community and help folks better understand what our digital products bring to the industry. I hope I can lend a bit of insight into this exciting new class of products along with the other capable OEM's already represented here.

Will this device work with the DVX100?

Yes Glenn, the QuickCapture family of digital video recorders works with the Panasonic DVX100. In fact we used that camera last year for our booth demos at NAB 2003.

Our proprietary DVR technology, the "Stream Storage Processor" (or "SSP-100") accepts any video signal in its native format and stores it with bit-for-bit accuracy. We do not have any difficulties storing some troublesome digital video formats (such as 16 x 9) or those requiring the tweaking of frame rates found in cameras such as the DVX100.

The reason is this: The architectural approach of the SSP-100 does not entail the user having to "dial in" a video source format - prior to recording. We feel its simply too inflexible. Instead, the QuickCapture DVR's accept any digital video signal in thier native format on input, then after acquisition the user can select which "edit-ready" video format he wants to output to his NLE. The only caveat to this architecture is that the user must select whether he is on a Mac or PC-based platform prior to recording.

In principle, the SSP-100 can accept anything from regular digital signal (timed) such as DV25 to irregular digital signal (un-timed) such as MPEG. In fact, the technology can even be used to support high-bandwidth DV50 applications very few other companies can even contemplate pursuing with their HDD-based DVR solutions. The SSP-100 is extremely versatile and highly reliable. There are a lot of exciting developments on the horizon centered upon our patent pending core technologies.

I guess this was a bit more than you asked for Glenn, but I thought this explanation may help you and others to better understand why QuickCapture is not camcorder limited. In fact, QuickCapture A2D takes this flexibility to an even higher level, allowing videographers to use both digital and analog video sources in the same "edit-ready" fashion of our digital models of QuickCapture. We are pretty pleased with the results thus far.

That was an excellent response, thanks!

You are quite welcome, Glenn.

If you are anyone else has a particular question about the nNovia QuickCapture family of products, or the product genre in general, please do not hesitate to ask and I will do my best to provide a timely response.

We do things quite differently than other manufacturers so I am quite certain you may be surprised by some of the answers. After all we have been building DVR's since our days at Quantum Corporation and the design and development effort of both TiVo and Replay TV architectures. We have learned a thing or two about designing DVR's over the past eight years.

I feel almost embarrassed to ask this question, but I’m new to DV, so what the heck. Can I use the A2D as a means of converting my NLE’s fire wire signal into an analogue signal for my production monitor? Would the A2D be just as convenient as a VTR for this purpose of conversion? Thanks in advance!

Absolutely, Glenn.

nNovia's QuickCapture A2D is an extremely high-quality, bi-directional media converter as well as both a digital, tapeless VTR and a DV/Analogue capture device. In fact, it is the only third party media converter that has passed the rigorous testing parameters (and is recommended) by Hitachi for use with their Broadcast Cameras, which are analog.

Many folks today use QuickCapture A2D to "live-view" DV content on a local analog monitor as they are capturing during DV camcorder shoots. The composite video output is always "hot" during recording, but even when it’s not being used as a capture device it can be used as a desktop, bi-directional media converter or HDD-based digital VTR.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, I'm gonna buy one this summer, for sure! It just doesn't make any sense to buy a tape VTR at this point.

I have another question. Since I wont be capturing Analogue video, wouldn't the regular Quick Capture be good for me?

If you do not require the benefits of the integrated media converter Glenn, I would advise you to look towards QuickCapture rather than QuickCapture A2D.

There are plenty of inexpensive media converters on the market today if you require one latter on.

I am very interested in recording directly to Disk, but I already have plenty of external HD in a box that supports both Firewire and USB 2.0. What alternatives are there to using a PC?

So far the Firestore FS-1 is the only device I have found...

Ben

Well there are really just a few OEMs in the business of direct to disk recording. They are as follows:

nNovia Inc. (www.nnovia.com) - Product: QuickCapture & QuickCapture A2D

Shining Technologies Inc. - (www.shining.com) - Product: CitiDisk

MCE Technologies - (www.mcetech.com) - Product: QuickStream (built on the Shining Technologies PCB)

ADS Technologies - (http://www.adstech.com/products/API_820/intro/API820intro.asp?pid=API820) - Pyro DV Drive (Built on the Shining Technologies PCB)

And of course you are familir with the Focus Enhancement FireStore products.

That's pretty much the entire lineup for DV direct to disk recording.

Hi Ben,

All the FireStore products allow you to use any FireWire disk drive. It is also possible to daisy chain up to four drives at a time for ultra long recordings. Here are the options:

FireStore FS-1: Any FireWire 400 drive.

FireStore FS-3 & DR-DV5000: Internal, removable FSHDD-1 FireWire drive or any FireWire 400 drive.

FireStore FS-2: Internal IDE drive or any FireWire 400 drive.

If you need more info, visit http://www.firestore.com

Hope that helps.

Matt McEwen
Focus Enhancements

This thing so called A2d is no where coming close to FS3 esp with this price of abt $1800 it is a real waste of money ... the thing is to work around your hip and when you connect it to your camera with firewire you will never knwo if any kid or mischievous person
removes the cables from your HIPside toy.

FS3 gets seamless attached to any v, sony, AB mount of any camcorder and makes love comfortably whilst yo shoot without any fear of the cable getting loose or being plugged out. as far as the toys claim of analogue input its again a waste feature cox al the modern day cameras digital ones will give firewire output so why would one like to shoot digital and get an analogue recording.

This unit is a very unprofessional toy in nut shell i would sum it up.

If any one desires buying a professional unit one must compare FS3 features.

- One Happy FS3 user !