Sorry, just need to complain for a moment at DVinfo.net
DV Info Net

Go Back   DV Info Net > The Tools of DV and HD Production > External Video Recording Solutions > External Recording Various Topics

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old March 5th, 2008, 01:30 PM   #1
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posts: 79
Sorry, just need to complain for a moment

I look at these different tape-less solutions, like the firestores and the quickstream and wonder how they justify pricing. The basic fact is that it does two jobs, moving a data stream and giving it the correct file extension.
I want to look at the quickstream where the 6 hour version is $800, then the 9 hour version is $1000.
Is that to say that the difference in price from an 80gb to a 120gb drive is $200. For that money you get no extra benefits, they just throw one drive or the other into the thing. And if that's how they price drives based on size, does that mean the $800 you spend on the 6 hour version is $400 for a drive and $400 for the device?
How about they sell an empty one for $400 and let people put their own drive in.

Really, I'm very sorry. I just had to let it out. That all said, I'm going to be buying one, because I can't make one myself. It's a great idea; I just feel ripped off when it comes to the difference in drive sizes versus price.
Samuel Hinterlang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 5th, 2008, 02:31 PM   #2
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posts: 79
But then, what I really love about this forum

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...430#post822430

The home-brewers guide to swapping drives in a fs-4 pro
Samuel Hinterlang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 6th, 2008, 02:05 PM   #3
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Riverside, California
Posts: 112
heh

while you're reading that tutorial i wrote... you should check out the Tekkeon MP3450 battery.

The Tekkeon battery has volt adjustments from 5V-19V. At 12V, it just feeds the Firestore extra power while the firestore battery is being used. At 14V, it charges the device battery while you use it.

Here is a little secret! :)

I upgraded my 40GB - 120GB(tutorial above ^^). From 203mins to 610mins of recording time for just an extra $69 bucks. The firestore battery only gave me about 90mins or roughly 1hr 45mins before it started sounding the battery alarm. Attaching the Tekkeon battery got me all the way through to just 36mins left of recording time.

610mins-36mins = 574 mins.
9.5hrs straight!!! Thats how much juice i got from combining the firestore battery and the tekkeon battery(12V).

This was tested yesterday. I simply hooked the firestore to the camera, started rolling the record and left it there for 9.5hrs! Obviously the Tekkeon was plugged to the firestore. :)

think about it 9.5hrs!
__________________
dcrin3.com
we don't know alot of genres, at least as of now.
Kalulu Ngilo is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 6th, 2008, 05:23 PM   #4
Trustee
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Newark, Delaware
Posts: 1,067
your my hero!:)
Randy Johnson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 6th, 2008, 07:52 PM   #5
Trustee
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Newark, Delaware
Posts: 1,067
The thing that bothers me is, I dont know about you guys but 40 gigs is plenty of storage for me. Its 4-5 hours and I id rather spend money on more drives at home for long term storage vs my shooting drive. Id much rather see the prices drop vs drives getting bigger.
Randy Johnson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 6th, 2008, 09:06 PM   #6
Inner Circle
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 3,420
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel Hinterlang View Post
I look at these different tape-less solutions, like the firestores and the quickstream and wonder how they justify pricing. The basic fact is that it does two jobs, moving a data stream and giving it the correct file extension.... It's a great idea; I just feel ripped off when it comes to the difference in drive sizes versus price.
You've left out the hardest and most expensive parts of making a hard-drive recorder - you also need an OS, what we used to call a DOS (disk operating system) to get files named, sorted, recorded on disk, a file allocation table (FAT) to keep track of where the file was laid down. This OS is going to be burned to a chip... but then don't forget the OS also needs to support a display and some buttons, and manage a firewire port.

Maybe a graceful powerdown sequence if power supply voltage gets too low, perhaps monitor the incoming data stream and buffer it so that if garbage starts coming in you save the file and start a new one...

Which is why you can't just plug a drive into the firewire port of your camcorder (please don't try it, burned ports are expensive!)

I don't mean to be an apologist for the manufacturers, I totally agree with you that certain manufacturers are charging way too hefty a premium for a larger drive.
Seth Bloombaum is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 7th, 2008, 09:33 AM   #7
Trustee
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Newark, Delaware
Posts: 1,067
I agree that there more to these things than a hardrive and a port. My thing is they have been making these things for years now and the price has'nt really come down that much instead of lowering the price they just make the drives larger. Based on what you just posted the harddrives are the "cheapest" part of the product but they raise the price expodentially and all they do is put in a 100 gig vs a 60. they are just using larger hard drives to justify the high prices.
Randy Johnson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 10th, 2008, 03:49 PM   #8
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posts: 79
Thanks Kalulu,

Glad to see there are ways to get things done other than throwing too much money at the problem.


Randy,

I totally agree with having plenty of hard disk space for file storage. I just happen to also be doing a lot of live event shooting and that sometimes requires a lot of continuous recording. I'll still be running tape, but this will cover my butt to have non-stop footage.
When I'm doing studio work, interviews, commercial spots, this will be overkill. It just depends on your needs for the job.

Seth,
I again agree with what you are saying here. If it was an easy solution to reproduce, we'd probably see a dedicated thread on the subject. I figure if you plugged a firewire HDD into a camera, it just wouldn't do anything rather than frying ports. Just the same I don't intend to try it.


My real point is that the drives are just too overpriced. If it were a simple 20-30% mark-up, I'd be understanding on some level. The fact that they cross over a 150% mark-up, just shows that they charge based on the fact that they are making a product for a historically overpriced market.
Samuel Hinterlang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 10th, 2008, 08:47 PM   #9
Inner Circle
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Portland, Oregon
Posts: 3,420
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel Hinterlang View Post
...My real point is that the drives are just too overpriced. If it were a simple 20-30% mark-up, I'd be understanding on some level. The fact that they cross over a 150% mark-up, just shows that they charge based on the fact that they are making a product for a historically overpriced market.
Well, I can't disagree with you there. The incredible prices that get you from 40GB, to 80, to 120(?)... when we as consumers can buy raw laptop drives for a fraction of the upgrade price does *not* generate much love for the manufacturers.

More competition, a bigger market, these things would help. Check out the concept CF recorder that Cineform posted in DVInfo and on their web site. A pretty interesting box, and quite a buy if they're able to stay to their target $1200 for an HDMI version. The next product after that would be SDI-HD. I don't know if they're going to announce/show at NAB, but I hope so.

I have to wonder - in a couple years will we be looking back on harddrive recorders with any affection at all? What will event videographers do in a solid-state world? I sure like using those 3hr. DVCAM tapes...
Seth Bloombaum is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 11th, 2008, 05:23 AM   #10
Trustee
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Newark, Delaware
Posts: 1,067
Man put a Firewire port on that vs HDMI and let it have a battery and sign me up. I think this is a a sign of things to come.
Randy Johnson is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 11th, 2008, 07:24 PM   #11
Inner Circle
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Minnesota (USA)
Posts: 2,171
There isn't a whole lot of point to putting a firewire port on the Cineform CF recorder (if they ever market the device). Better to just record the HDV MPEG2, coming over the firewire, directly to a CF card (and convert to Cineform on your computer later, if desired). There's no quality advantage to transcoding MPEG2 to Cineform (on the fly while shooting) and the MPEG2 stream will take up much less space on the CF card (longer recording time).
Robert M Wright is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 12th, 2008, 01:36 PM   #12
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posts: 79
I think we need to find someone who can program an fpga and work with PCBs and just get a device that translates the stream for recording to a usb drive and we can have something that's functional and easy to replace drives on.

Yeah 422 color space is nice, but I don't find a desperate need for it, since HDV has been working out for me.

Sorry, wanted to stay on topic. You might get what I'm saying though
Samuel Hinterlang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 12th, 2008, 02:16 PM   #13
Major Player
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Portland, OR
Posts: 949
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel Hinterlang View Post
I look at these ... and wonder how they justify pricing.
Prices are set to maximize profit. Sometimes that means low prices with volume sales, or loss leaders with high margin cross- and up-sells. But many times it simply means charging the maximum that the market will bear.

If you think disk-based firewire recorders price schemes are bad, wait until you try to sell a house. The standard fee structure is 7% of the home value, which obviously has little relation to the cost required to sell it. Does it really cost $63,000 more to sell a $1M home than a $100K home?
Daniel Browning is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 12th, 2008, 05:32 PM   #14
Inner Circle
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Minnesota (USA)
Posts: 2,171
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samuel Hinterlang View Post
I think we need to find someone who can program an fpga and work with PCBs and just get a device that translates the stream for recording to a usb drive and we can have something that's functional and easy to replace drives on.

Yeah 422 color space is nice, but I don't find a desperate need for it, since HDV has been working out for me.

Sorry, wanted to stay on topic. You might get what I'm saying though
It's occured to me that it just wouldn't be all that tough (for somebody that knows what they were doing) to design a board to capture a DV or HDV stream from firewire, and record it to disk or flash memory. Once designed, it wouldn't cost squat to produce.

Flash memory really would make more sense nowadays. The cost of flash memory, with adequate bandwidth, has dropped dramatically, and should continue to plunge.
Robert M Wright is offline   Reply With Quote
Old March 13th, 2008, 02:02 AM   #15
Regular Crew
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Posts: 79
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert M Wright View Post
Flash memory really would make more sense nowadays. The cost of flash memory, with adequate bandwidth, has dropped dramatically, and should continue to plunge.
Heck, I'd take some IDE, eSATA, Firewire, USB. I just think a plain old bridge controller would be the bestest thing ever. If you could hot swap some flash cards--man that would be beautiful.
Samuel Hinterlang is offline   Reply
Reply

DV Info Net refers all where-to-buy and where-to-rent questions exclusively to these trusted full line dealers and rental houses...

B&H Photo Video
(866) 521-7381
New York, NY USA

Scan Computers Int. Ltd.
+44 0871-472-4747
Bolton, Lancashire UK


DV Info Net also encourages you to support local businesses and buy from an authorized dealer in your neighborhood.
  You are here: DV Info Net > The Tools of DV and HD Production > External Video Recording Solutions > External Recording Various Topics

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

 



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 08:19 AM.


DV Info Net -- Real Names, Real People, Real Info!
1998-2024 The Digital Video Information Network