Tested: Canon XH-A1 does work tapeless- FS-4HD
 

Great news for those who wondered about the new Canons and their compatibility with the FS-4 HD- they work perfectly. The Canon can trigger with "Rec" button in "Tapeless" mode as well as "Sync" mode for a truely tapeless or taped backup workflow. This is great news for those looking for high quality HDV tapeless recording!

(My Sony FX-1 could NOT do this- you had to manually hit the "Rec" button on the Firestore itself as where the Canon can trigger (and stop) it from the camera as if using tape~ you could always do it manually should you desire as well.)

Interesting. I have been considering going this route but was waiting to hear from somebody with field experience. Do you know anything about the new FS-C that is specifically for Canon?

Is there higher quality in tapeless recording than in ordinary tape-rec?

I know nothing about the FS-C- you might want to address Matt McEwen as he's the resident FE guy! I can tell you it (FS-4HD) works in all modes (60i, 24F, 30F and DV modes) with triggering from the camera.

There's no upgrade in quality as it simply records the stream via Firewire to the FS-4HD instead of tape- so while there's no upgrade there's no downgrade either- it's full quality (as far as the camera is concerned) HDV/DV!

Here is information on the FS-C model.
http://www.focusinfo.com/solutions/catalog.asp?id=171

The FS-C can be upgraded to record in native NLE formats such as HDV for Apple users etc......the regular FS-4HD can't be upgraded in this way (although the "Pro" version can.)