DV-PC question...
 

I want to bring a laptop to shoots to record straight to disk with the XL2, but I don't want to record straight to the laptop's built in drive. Rather, I want to hook up an external Firewire Hard Drive to the laptop. Does anyone know if this is possible or foresee any problems with this setup?

Thanks for your help,

Shawn.

Re: DV-PC question...
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Shawn McBee : I want to bring a laptop to shoots to record straight to disk with the XL2, but I don't want to record straight to the laptop's built in drive. Rather, I want to hook up an external Firewire Hard Drive to the laptop. Does anyone know if this is possible or foresee any problems with this setup?

Thanks for your help,

Shawn. -->>>

well the first thing is you will need 2 firewire ports on your laptop. I wouldn't think you would want to have the DV data coming off the camera on the same line that is also sending it to disk. 2 seperate ports would be better I'd think. Other than that you should have no problem. Good Luck.

Yeah...I'm having some difficulty finding a laptop with 2 Firewire ports....anyone know where I should look on this?

More importantly, if anyone happens to have any doubts as to whether this would work, please let me know. Like marty, I don't really see how it'd be a problem, but I haven't used the software either.

Thanks,

Shawn

I'm guessing that you might have to buy a PC card and add it to the laptop in order to get multiple Firewire ports on most laptops. You can get these for as little as $39.00 nowadays. I have an HP with a firewire port built in and a PC card to add 3 more ports. I've never used both but if you'd like I'll try it out tonight and see if it works with my portable hard drive. I've been wanting to try this anyway.

I just did a ton of this, recording directly to an external hard disk, but I used a USB2 drive for the external. Laptop has three firewire ports on one card, but the external drive is a super-tiny little thing, a 2.5" disk drive in a Triton "Warp Drive" enclosure. It's about the size of a deck of cards and draws all its power from the USB bus, so it's amazingly convenient. The laptop's firewire ports don't support sending bus power, so USB2 seemed to be the better choice. Worked fine.

<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Green : I just did a ton of this, recording directly to an external hard disk, but I used a USB2 drive for the external. Laptop has three firewire ports on one card, but the external drive is a super-tiny little thing, a 2.5" disk drive in a Triton "Warp Drive" enclosure. It's about the size of a deck of cards and draws all its power from the USB bus, so it's amazingly convenient. The laptop's firewire ports don't support sending bus power, so USB2 seemed to be the better choice. Worked fine. -->>>

Barry,
Did you try this with the Xl2 and the proprietary DV-PC software that the XL2 ships with? I only ask because I know you are an avid DVX user/guru and I am thinking that Shawn might have wanted to test the specific canon software. I tried it with a Pana one time and it said the camera was not supported.

Just asking so I know wether to test it myself or not!
Peace!

Marty.
You mention "proprietary softaware" that the xl2 ships with. Mine didn't come with any software. o called Canon, and they said I would get someting in 6-8 weeks. Then at the Canon clinic in Miami last month, I asked the Canon tech about this, and he said it wasn'y available yet...
Is there any way now to record directly to pc?
thanks
Bruce yarock

<<<-- Originally posted by Bruce S. Yarock : Marty.
You mention "proprietary softaware" that the xl2 ships with. Mine didn't come with any software. o called Canon, and they said I would get someting in 6-8 weeks. Then at the Canon clinic in Miami last month, I asked the Canon tech about this, and he said it wasn'y available yet...
Is there any way now to record directly to pc?
thanks
Bruce yarock -->>>

I'm sorry! I forgot they didn't ship it. I downloaded it off the web from somewhere! I don't think Canon USA posted it yet and somebody had a link to the software on a Japan server or something.

Getting a card with extra FW ports is a good idea. Even with a PowerBook that has 2 ports it is using the same system bus and while it can easily handle it in theory (and often does fine), you can run into problems. That wouldn't be good seeing as how you are not putting it to tape at all.

If you decide to go with USB2.0 make sure you do not have anything else connected to your USB ports, the protocol will slow down your data if there are slower devices on the bus. Again, because you are not taping it, I would go with a FireWire drive for less chance of dropouts.