To all the engineers out there!
 

Will you please create a device to connect a P2 port to any other computer via US2 or firewire? I don't want to buy that expensive hard disk from Panasonic, and my laptop has no PCMCIA slot!
-EDWIN

If I'm not mistaken, I think you can connect the HVX directly to a laptop via firewire and record HD.

Yeah, no engineering needed. Just plug thr camera in to the laptop via Firewire, and you can record full HD for as long as you'r laptop's hard disk(s) will allow.

Yes, and there are also cheap PCMCIA-to-USB2 adapters that would work as well. Have no fear, there will be many ways to get at the footage!

Any brand you would recommend? I thought there weren't any. I was unsuccesful trying to find one the other day. The ones I found are PCMCIA cards that allow laptops to have USB ports, not the other way around. For trying to get a PCMCIA reader to a desktop computer with built in USB 2.0 ports.\

Still Unsuccesful!
 

Please, what will be affordable options (beside the camera itself) to plug my P2 cards to my ibook, emacs, imacs, etc?

All PCMCIA drives for desktop I found are all for PCs.

I was of the impression that firewire can't support HD data rates. HDV yes, but not full HD such as the DVCPROHD format.

Hoping for some clarification here.

-gb-

Yes it will. DVCPROHD 100 Mb/s, FIREWIRE 400 MB/s.

That was actually one of the big pushes for Panny's cheaper DVCPRO HD deck... that it would ingest through firewire... "JUST LIKE DV!" I actually don't know if that's an actual quote... that's just what I remember people saying about it when it came out. Oh how wrong they are... Nothing will ever be "Just Like DV"... it only gets more confusing and convoluted.

I don't know if this is "affordable" but a powerbook will work for a mac.

You can absolutely record straight to a laptop via Firewire. Everything from DV to DVCPro50 to DVCProHD 720p or 1080/60i/24p/30p. Firewire has 4 times the bandwidth needed for full HD.

To Edwin- Why bother with a PCMCIA slot on your laptop or desktop? You don't even need to remove the P2 cards from the camera! Just run a cable from the camera to the computer and download the footage from the p2 cards directly. If you're using a Mac, use the Firewire cable. If you're using a PC, use the USB2 cable. The P2 card(s) will show up on the computer as an external hard disk. Just transfer the clips from the HVX to the built-in hard disk, and you're good to go.

Yes it seems like there is ample bandwidth available but I thought it had more to do with 'sustained data transfer rate', as opposed to maximum rate. Hey, it's good news to me if this is true but then why do we need all these dedicated capture cards with SDI if firewire can do the job.

-gb-

Yeah, I know. But my intention is to download the P2 content on one card, while I'm using the camera to record on the other P2 card. Just like anybody else would do in a card swapping situation. But my Macs all lack PCMCIA.

Can the files on a P2 be accessed while the camera is recording on the other card?

Good point. I'm not sure if you can record to one while dumping footage from the other. Anyone?

I think you would hit the hard disk's sustained transfer rate limit before saturating the Firewire connection.

It certainly can -- that was the big announcement a year ago about FCP HD -- desktop editing of firewire-transferred data.

You don't. DVCPRO-HD is "just like DV" because it's grounded in the same frame-discrete, constant-bit-rate technology; a simple explanation is that DVCPRO-HD is actually four DV codecs working together to encode a picture with 4x as much resolution as DV. So yes, it is "just like DV", and yes you can transfer it over firewire just like DV.

Transferring DVCPRO-HD over HD-SDI would gain you nothing vs. transferring it over firewire.

But DVCPRO-HD is the only high-def format that has been integrated with firewire (well, HDV obviously, but I'm talking among the established pro formats). No other HD format uses it -- HDCAM, HDCAM SR, D5, etc. You'd need HD-SDI capture boards to capture the other formats, but DVCPRO-HD can work with a regular $29 OHCI firewire card, to a regular 5400 RPM hard disk.

No -- it's either in Camera mode, or VCR mode, but not both. Offloading the cards requires it to be in VCR mode.

Barry--Regarding Firewire output of DVCProHD in FCP, I had heard that there was a "recompression" of effects and the image when this happened, and that it was more desirable to go out HD SDI. Is this true?

Also, if editing HD in FCP, what are the options for real-time monitoring on a professional HD monitor (not the computer monitor). Is it necessary to have a separate card to do this? Thanks!

Peter

Don't know. Can't imagine why it would be. If the data on the timeline is untouched, it should just be written straight back out the firewire port. If it's been modified (color corrected, titles added, effects, etc) then yes it will need to be recompressed.

Again, some FCP expert will have to weigh in on this, but I believe that yes, you'd need some sort of HD card like a BlackMagic or Kona or something like that.

Thanks Barry. I think the effects or color corrected shots are specifically what I'd heard there would be recompression of, and this seems to be backed up by your post. How bad is this compression? Does anyone know? The idea of editing on a new Intel Powerbook and going straight out of FW800 to a deck is soooooo appealing, would be a shame if the image was seriously compromised.

Peter

The demo footage we shot had some areas of titling and dissolves -- we showed the training staff some stuff that was labeled with titles so it'd been back through the codec once, when output to tape for display. Looked very nice. DVCPRO-HD is basically DV compression, so recompression performance depends on the particular implementation of the codec -- some DV codecs can go 10 generations without significant loss to the image, some can't go more than a couple (I believe the Microsoft codec was famous for not being able to handle more than a couple of generations down, whereas the Sony Vegas codec is good for something like 8 to 10). So it will be with DV100 -- each codec will need to be tested for generational performance.

However, it's not really nearly as relevant as it once was -- we used to recompress and go out on DV tape, but in HD I suspect we're going to see acquisition and mastering being done in different codecs -- i.e., acquire in DVCPRO-HD, distribute in WMV9 or H.264 or MPEG-2, etc. So the recompression issue pretty much goes away, as you won't be often recompressing back to the acquisition codec.

What we shot and output wasn't compromised at all in any noticeable way. But as a point of correction, you don't need FW800, FW400 does just fine. There's only one deck to go to, the AJ-HD1200A, and it's FW400.