Laptop Capture
 

I was planning to use one of the latest Apple Power Books with a 5400 rpm 80Gig ATA/100 drive to capture directly from the HVX.

I've heard from some people that the laptop doesn't have the speed to capture the 100Mbps data stream. From those who are familiar with both products, does capture to a laptop seem possible?

I think that your hard drive is too slow. Most video manufacturers require a 7200 to 10000 rpm hard drive. I have used slow hard drives in the past and get dropped frames quite often.

I've been capturing form my DVX100a to laptops with USB2 5400 and 4200 RPM drives with zero dropped frames for several months. Of course, DV is much less data than DVCPro-HD.

Laptop 7200rpm drives are widely and cheaply available. My guess is they should work for most HVX capture scenarios, especially on a firewire connection but maybe even USB2.

I'd really recommend using an external drive. For portable editing I use a little 5400rpm 30GB 2.5in drive in a USB2 case as well as a 7200rpm 120GB 3.25in drive in a Firewire case.

The little USB2 drive is great for portability, but it would definately struggle with anything much beyond 25Mbit DV. You might get away with single stream 40Mbit 720p24 DVCPro HD.

The larger Firewire drive is much quicker and I suspect could cope with full-on 100Mbit DVCPro HD (although the most demanding I've personally used is DVCPro50). The down side is that it's more bulky and requires a power-supply. However, I think it's well worth the extra space and speed.

I'd also suggest building your own Firewire drive - ie, select a drive mechanism and a case and put them together yourself. That way you know what you're getting in terms of drive performance, acoustic performance and reliability, you'll also be able to get a slightly more compact case (many "name brand" Firewire drives come in ridiculously oversized cases!), and you'll save yourself a few pennies in the process.

Alex

We had problems with uncompressed Digibeta SDI out and several forms of HD. We tried D5, HDCam and even D-VHS. We did not try DVCProHD, so that might not drop frames as it would be coming in over firewire.

I'm glad you've had good luck with your laptops. We've done okay with dv. Just not the bigger stuff. Had to move to an Avid Adrenaline and a DS for the other.

One solution: Mac T-Book with FW800 and a drive such as a
LaCie Big Disk Extreme.

After some research, I'm going to try upgrading the hard drive to a 7200. I've also been researching bus powered external drives, as I will be out, away from AC for a lot of my shooting.

Thanks for the ideas and input.

KC

Hi Ken,
I have a similar problem...and don't have a clear solution at this point. I will be working off 12V DC for an extended period shooting a documentary. I want to be able to reduce my archived material by editing off any unusable footage. This would require the ability to load the DVCProHD material onto an editing platform like Avid or the like and trim as required...then transfer the edited video to the storage device (another issue!!) not having lost any quality in the process. I'll be watching this thread to see if you come up with a solution...and will let you know if I come up with any ideas beside the hugely expensive (around $8,000!) "1 Beyond" laptops: (http://www.1beyond.com/products/lapt...search=laptops)
Cheers,
Bruce

Laptop recording.....
 

I've been watching M-Tech laptops to see when the dual channel processor AMD & INTEL models role out. They are priced reasonably at about $3,000.
I'm a Mac guy and I'm going the way of Serious Magic DV Rack for HD recording. I still edit with FCP.

For those of us who might go the laptop/external hard drive route, any thoughts about how we'd keep them hooked to the camera while using a full-on glidecam with arm and vest?

Maybe something like this:

http://www.standalonelaptop.com/pages/1/index.htm

I know it looks a little flimsy for production work and will no doubt add to the front-heavy feeling of the fully loaded glidecam.

Running / travelling shots will definately be more of a challenge with the laptop capture method. The difficulty of getting these shots (especially if your show is filled with them) may make it worth getting the P2 cards or waiting for the Firestore solution.

Two solutions:

1) The FireStore. It's only a pound, and very, very tiny.

2) a LONG firewire cable. You should be able to run a 75' cable. Not as good a solution as the first one, but with a skilled cable wrangler following you around and keeping the weight/tension constant (i.e., you the operator are not actually dragging the weight of the cable), it should be perfectly workable.

Firestore for HDV
 

I'm not finding a firestore drive that is compatable with HDV. Can you point me in the right direction?

Serious Magic for 10 Bit HD
 

I know DV Rack supports HDV now, but will it work for 10 bit?

HDV is not relevant to the HVX200. The FS-4 can be upgraded for $299 to support HDV, but that doesn't do an HVX200 user any good.

Firestore is introducing a new model specifically designed to work with the HVX200; they've made a press release, the actual unit should be delivered sometime in the first quarter of next year.