If we can have a small portable camera running off batteries that can record DVCPROHD live onto media it should be just as easy to make a small portable DVCPROHD deck for a lower cost to use with other cameras for field recording. Adding HD component input or HD SDI input would allow any current HDV camera to output HD video and record it as DVCPROHD on P2 cards. Since this field recorder wouldn't need a lens or CCD's it could be much cheaper than the HVX200.

I doubt Panasonic would make such a device but maybe somebody else will.

Hi Thomas,

The DVCPRO HD tape transport all by itself costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $16,000 to $20,000. I'll have to ask Jan to help me accurately pin that down. In terms of complexity and expense, a DVCPRO HD tape transport is exponentially much more involved and costly than a plain-vanilla DV tape chassis.

So you can see this is the reason why there is no such transport in the HVX to begin with, and it's also important to note that Panasonic chooses who can or cannot make DVCPRO HD equipment, since they own the format. Hope this helps,

Wait a second, I think I misread your post, Thomas... you're not talking about a DVCPRO HD tape recorder, but a P2 card recorder? There is a P2 studio recorder, the AJ-SPD850:

http://www.p2info.net/articles/misc/morep2hardware.php#spd850

You're proposing a small, field-portable version of that, right?

Panasonic created and marketed basically exactly that same type of product (but for DV) as a companion deck to the DVX. It was basically a small deck that was a DVX with the lens sawed off (okay, that's a gross oversimplification, but you know what I mean). So the precedent is there; they'd just have to make a P2 version of it. It could be slick too -- it could be the size of a pack of cigarettes, and maybe in a tablet PC style form factor, with an LCD screen the size of a P2 card...

And why not a field recorder that would write DVCPROHD to a 250gb fixed disk instead of into ultraexpensive and short running P2s?
Then you wouldn't have to go download after every scene but rather after every day of shoot.

And why not a field recorder that would write DVCPROHD to a 250gb fixed disk instead of into ultraexpensive and short running P2s?
Then you wouldn't have to go download after every scene but rather after every day of shoot.

Isn't that what the Firestore is? A 100GB drive that can record DVCProHD directly from the camera. Shoot for 1hr 30min non-stop. And it's less than $2000, so the HVX + Firestore costs less than $8000 total.

Well, the FireStore's not exactly that -- you couldn't plug the FireStore into the XL H1 or Z1 or HD100 and get DVCPRO-HD written on the tape. The camera is what does the encoding to that codec.

If you plugged a FireStore into one of those cameras, you'd get HDV written to it, as that's what the camera encodes and transmits through its firewire port.

Well, the FireStore's not exactly that -- you couldn't plug the FireStore into the XL H1 or Z1 or HD100 and get DVCPRO-HD written on the tape. The camera is what does the encoding to that codec.

If you plugged a FireStore into one of those cameras, you'd get HDV written to it, as that's what the camera encodes and transmits through its firewire port.

OK. What you say is clear.
But...does anyone know if it is technically possible to think of some kind of FireStore or similar, that can take, say, HDSDI-in and record some form of HD onto disk?

The XLH1 has HDSDI-out. The HVX doesn't AFAIC.

It isn't impossible. If they can fit a DSP and DVCPRO HD encoder into a camera as small as the HVX200 then a SDI translator and DVCPRO HD encoder chip shouldn't take up much space at all. Imagine how much smaller the HVX200 would have been without the lens and DV tape drive.