Can you attach any old firewire HD to the camera?
 

Well, can you? I thought I remember reading that you could hook up the XL1s directly to a firewire drive for recording, rather than using tape. I'm not sure if this only applies to things like the Firestore ,or just a regular hard drive. I hope this doesn't sound as stupid as it feels as I write it. If this does work, how is the data recorded? Is previously existing data on the drive safe? Does this bypass the compression that occurs when the camera signal is put to a minidv tape, or does the same compression occur when the signal is laid to disk? Please don't hurt me.

You will need some kind of go-between controller like the Videonics FireStore. See http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/firestore.htm

Thanks. I'll give it a look.

<<<-- Originally posted by Josh Bass : Thanks. I'll give it a look. -->>>

My Firestore is having it's OS upgraded. When it arrives you are welcome to give it a go.