Thanks for the comments Garrett! Can you post a photo of your mount. My feeble mind can't picture what it looks like. Also which cards are you using?

So, no more dirty heads or replaying/rewinding etc on a tape? Sounds almost too good to be true, but from reading the last 18 pages, just "GREAT" and "TRUE".

So, how do you watch footage you recorded to the card with the camera using the LCD screen? Do you select clips?

What are you guys/gals doing to back up your footage if not using tape?

Serisously, what are the best cards to use? I think space and speed and reliability are the 3 main qualities to look for in a CF card.

I'll try to post some pics later tonight. I've got 1 8GB Sony UDMA CF (300X), one 8GB Sandisk Ducati, and 4 16GB Kingston (133X). All of them perform flawlessly in capturing video.

I filled all four Kingstons this last weekend during an all day dance recital shoot. I was able to get each act on one card. During the intermission I put the card full of video that I just got finished shooting into my laptop and started playing it. I was planning on just checking to make sure there were no problems and when people started seeing it they wanted to see more so I left it running during the entire intermission. It definately helped create more buzz about the DVD so I'm sure having people see will help with sales.

When I got home I just popped each card in copied the files over to my editing machine. It took approximately 8 minutes a card (there was as little over hour on each card). So over hours of footage shot and in about a hour of ingest time I was ready to edit. Unfortunately my other camera (XH A1) was recording to tape so I had 4+ hours of ingest to do on that one.

Transfer times are faster with my Sony or Sandisk cards but the Kingstons only cost me $25 each so I can't complain.

Will this work for me
 

So I have been following this thread for a while and have a few questions:

1) Will there always be dropped frames when the file splits?
2) Will the Sony wrap program fix this when it puts the files back together?

I shoot mostly recitals and concert and need the long recording time and can not afford to have any dropped audio frames. Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks you.

I think someone already stated that this is not an issue if set up correctly with the XH A1. If not set up correctly, I believe there is a 3 second frame drop or something I read early on. I then read that if a clip is created because of lenghth of video shot before hitting stop record, you can merge the two clips together when editing and you can see you hadn't missed a single frame.....if I read this correctly.

Thanks Garrett! Just FYI to everyone, B&H has a FW800 CF card reader for $59.95 and it has a $35 mail-in rebate. Lexar | Professional UDMA FireWire 800 CompactFlash | RW034-001

FYI - Rebate end today... 1/15/09

How does this unit work in cold weather?

Hey Derrick if you know where that post is where they describe the setup so there is no dropped frame I'd really appreciate it. I looked back through and couldn't find it anywhere. I tried every conceivable combination of camera and recorder settings and I still get about a 6 frame drop out of sound and the last frame of the ending file doesn't exactly match to the first frame of the new file.

Jonathan, I too shoot a lot of recitals and shows and have the camera running continuously for up to two hours. Before I had to worry about making a quick tape change every hour. Now, I'm waiting for 64GB CF cards (hope the Sony unit will support them that big) so I can go 4 hours. I do also capture to tape simultaneously both as a backup (I'm a huge believer in redundancy) and for archive. I figured I'd just save the parts where I have tape changes to DVD so I will have a complete archive copy.

I always shoot with a minimum of two cameras and capture sound via a mixer and laptop. So the couple of frames dropped between files is no deal breaker for me but it would be nice to just be able to pull the files into my NLE an connect them end to end.

Only few things are holding me back from pulling the trigger :

1) That drop in audio while the CF reader splits into another file due to the file system limitation. Doing long ceremonies, having a drop in audio during an important part would suck. Then I'd have to break out the tape archive and grab that piece. Derrick, what would be "the correct setup"?

2) Not sure how I would capture HDV -> ProRes in FCP using these clips.

3) Ger mentioning of the unit erroring out with certain cards. I guess I'd have to spring for the more expensive cards.

4) Is this thing hot swappable? Like when a card fills up, can I just swap in another card while the tape is recording?

It's either the CF recorder or buy a Switz light and have some pocket money for next month..lol.

Hi Randy,

I haven't tried swaping cards out when the tapes running. I'll have to try that tonight.

Garrett.

Thanks for the heads up!

Sounds good! Please try these two methods :

1) When data fills up and unit stops recording.

2) Mid write of the data (unit hasn't stop recording).

I suspect number 2 will be a big failure but am curious as to how number 1 will do.

Thanks for volunteering Garret!

A lot.
Basically you need to give the unit time to write the file to the card before you press rec again. You'll get away with it most of the time but get caught now and again.


now i actually just keep it recording to avoid this problem.

You could have done that on the journey home with the unit. No pc required for capture any more! Just play the tape on the cam and push REC (both buttons) on the unit.

I have 3 of these units with my 3 A1 Cameras. At the beginning I was not sure of the investment, Now I'm thinking I did the best. We are shooting multicamera weddings and we are saving a significant time in capturing tapes.
So far no error with CF transcend 133x 32G cards. Changing the tape after an hour It was no creating any significant drop out in my audio.
I let my tape finish and the unit still recording. I change the tape and then I hit record. The tape started recording and the unit instantly creates a new file. on post I did not see any big drop out.