question about workflow in XDcam EX/HD
 

Hi,
I know the XDcam EX isn't out yet, but I would imagine it would be a good second camera on a shoot with an XDcam HD camera like the 330 or 350. So, my question is, would it be possible to dump the footage from the EX camera directly onto the XDcam disk on a 330 or 350 in the field, i.e. without having to go through a laptop, so that all your footage could be delivered to the editor on one disk?

Good question - there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to dump data from the EX to a 330 or a 350. Let's hope it's going to be a feature.

How would you do it?
 

I know in the File Access Mode, the camera or the deck looks just like a drive to the computer. I assume if you hook up a Firewire cable to the EX, it would look just like a drive to the computer as well.

So do you hook up a XDCAM camera/deck to a computer, and then using another Firewire port, do you hook up the EX? I would think you would have to have a computer in the middle. Otherwise, how would you tell the deck to go get the files from the EX?

I'm pretty sure the answer is no. You need to have a 'host' in there somewhere in the form of a computer with the appropriate drivers to recognize the camera in FAM mode as an attached storage device. You may be able to copy the files over from the express card media and then to your attached camera but I'm not sure that will work either.

-gb-

on the Mac side, the new version of XDCAM Transfer due later in the year will allow multiple XDCAM devices to be mounted simultaneously, so drag and drop between media should certainly be possible via the host computer


if the newer crop of camera's such as the F355, or deck's, have both expressCard and disc recording then it seems likely that it will be able to transfer files between the two without a host

It all depends on whether the codec is exactly the same in the final version. AFAIK nothing has been absolutely finalised yet in terms of archival devices/workflow.