FS-4 HD with XH A1 questions from beginner
 

I have read a lot of comments concerning the use of the FS-4 HD with the
XH A1, but not the answers a beginner can sort out. Some more questions.
1. Will the XH A1 start/stop button work the FS-4 HD?
2. Can a playback be viewed using the camera lcd?
3. Will the XH A1 work tapeless?
4. Since this is play thing for me is it an overkill to want the FS-4 HD?

Thanks for your patience.

Charles Dodd

1. If you have a tape in the camera and sync the FireStore to the camera, yes. Very easy, just a simple press of a button.

2. Depending on the format. HDV files will play back, I think .AVI files will, but QuickTime files won't.

3. Yep, but you'll have to hit the FireStore record button directly, as the Canon camera won't send a record signal without a tape in the deck.

4. If you want to preserve the life of your camera so that down the road you won't have to buy a new camera quite as soon, I would recommend it. Heck, even if your tape heads up and die, you can still use the camera with a FireStore. Then, if the FireStore dies, you just buy another one at $800 as opposed to buying another $4,000 camera.

clarification on #1 - you have to enable 'dv control' in the A1 menu, you don`t need a tape in to use the firestore. And it will work at the push of a button. You can also record to the firestore AND a tape for backup if you so desire.

#3 again, enable 'dv control' and it works tapeless by pushing the camera record button

Nice! I didn't know that! Woohoo!

Thanks for each response
 

Nathan,

Just the information I wanted to hear. Can I view clips from the Firestore
on the camera lcd, just like viewing from tape? As I stated this is not a
money making camera, just fun. I think I will go for one. A poster today
spoke of audio and video dropouts, which is disappointing, but in my case
not that serious. Additional information concerning the Firestore would
be greatly appreciated. Thanks again gentlemen for the information.

Charles Dodd

so long as it functions like the FS-C. I have an FS-C with my A1 and the same firestore as you with the H1 at work. It takes a little getting used to how to do it, and theres sadly no thumbnail view or anything (that i know of) you just go to vcr mode like you normally would, then go to 'play clip' on the firestore and i think you can scroll through the saved video files and push play with the firestore navigation buttons and it plays them back. Again not set up SUPER fantastic, but it works. Just don`t plan on reviewing every take, because like with tape that would eat up twice the actual filming time ;)

Also the dropouts I think that happen most often are caused by moving the camera suddenly causing the firewire to wiggle, thus breaking the contact of pins inside the port even for a split second. Sadly, if your recording lets say a 5 minute clip and you hit that wire...if it messes up the connection you`ll likely lose that whole clip. I lost a good bit of wedding footage to this issue because i didn`t know about it ahead of time. I also used a 3rd party firewire...best to stick with the one that comes with the camera i believe, it fits more snug. The firestore does have a repair feature to try and recover said damaged video files, but it didn`t work for me :|