yes this is all good and well, but what is the price! hahaha

Alright guys sorry for taking so long to post back but I've been pretty busy this week.

How it works is you go into the A1's menu and choose System Setup -> DV Control -> ON DV(and what looks like a "Z")

Then you press both the red and black record buttons on the MC1 and it'll start recording to the CF card.

And to the person who asked why it's a big deal: It's quiet since it's fanless, you also don't have to worry about it breaking in a fall or something and it's expandable. Being able to pop in as many cheap CF cards s you want is way better than spending 2 grand on a drive you can't upgrade.

Hopefully when it's released separately it retails for between 70-1000, that already is another reason why it's better than buying a bulky expensive firestore.

edit: I'm having problems uploading the photos to dvinfo with both safari and firefox so here's my picasa link for all the pics: http://picasaweb.google.ca/ecking/Co...ashOnCanonXHA1

Now that is tight.

Please, Sony, make one for the XH-A1!

wait wait, seventy to a thousand? Or seven hundred to a thousand? Or seventy to a hundred?! hahahah good find!

I can't see one of these being $1,000...but then again, we are talking about Sony here...

But then again, I couldn't see it going for $70 either.

It'd be even nicer if it started and stopped when you pressed Record on the XH-A1. Anyway let's wait and see what price Sony decide to sell it at.

Richard

My bad I meant 700-1000. Personally think 500 would be fair, but like Richard said we're talking about sony, so I raised it. Maybe firestore or someone can reverse engineer it, because the only thing that would improve it would being able to take canon batteries.

Also I tried it with my friend's HD100, so it looks like it works with any flavor of hdv, hdv1 or hdv2.

Nice! Okay, I'm sold. Now I just need...sigh...money again... :)

evan any idea when this will be available for the Canon
 

Does anyone have an idea when this will be available for the Canon or sold on its own. I am very interested.

Hmmmm. Interesting

Requires 133x high speed CF cards, not any old CF will do.

Considering that many other all digital recorders (with internal A/D and D/A as well, go for $400 give or take (e.g,,MicroTrack).

$700-$1000 sounds like a likely price point considering the price Sony has put on other "Walkman" form factor video recording/playback devices in the past; e.g., the GV-Axxx, GV-Dxxx and GV-HDxxx series toys.

Bruce yo'll never see this made for the Canon specifically as it's made by it's competitor Sony.

However Sony will be selling it separately, but no price or date has beens et as of yet. I talked to a Sony rep this past Tuesday, and I thought that he told me it might be available in May sometime. Again, he didn't know a price.

Yeah 133x but sony says to use 300 is what they suggest, which is probably like an extreme 4.

Evan,

Can recording start/stop be controlled on the Canon or do you absolutely have to start/stop on the Sony CF unit?

Also, does anyone know the workflow when using the CF recorded files with Final Cut? Does Sony offer a clip importer like it does with the EX1?

Thanks,
Paul

Hello All,

Help me out here.

I get the impression, from reading threads on this forum, that the perception is that the A-1 tape system is so fragile that a tapeless system is imperative.

Is that true?

If it isn't true, I'm guessing that my A-1 tape system will work well for many hours/days/months or a year or two until something non-linear cheap and reliable is developed for my A-1.

Not true?

Tx

I would think that the odds are very good that your A1 tape system will work flawlessly for years. I don't think there is any particular reason that it would be considered fragile. Some people will be using their's on a daily basis, which might increase the risk of mechanical failure, but it still would be unlikely that it would happen. That's my take anyway.

Pat

The A1 tape mechanism seems fine, although some people have reported problmes with it. The 2 reasons I am interested in tapeless are to avoid tape drop-outs and to replace the tape capture stage with file copying which is much faster.

Richard

Me too Richard...that's the good part of this unit.


David

No, not true, and what many see as the beauty of this device is that you can have your cake (tapeless workflow benefits) AND eat it (tape backup/archive). It's seen as SUPPLEMENTING tape, not replacing it.

All that's true of such as the Firestore as well, but in principle, a device like this is far more elegant.

Thanks for the replies. The info provided helped to clarify this issue for me.

Take care.

Hi all - to supplement Evan's info - I've been able to borrow the company's new Z7 for the weekend to try this out, and I can confirm that this recorder does indeed start and stop recording with the A1's start/stop button.

The HVR-MRC1 needs to be set to cam link mode (press CAM LINK button, a little lightning bolt appears in the display) for the A1's start/stop to function.

It does create several M2T files for a single capture sequence, so I'm not sure if it's doing scene detection or what. The files are various lengths so it's not a max file size thing. Anyone have a link to the manual?

Hi James. That is great news if the recoder does sync to the start/stop. Thanks for reporting that.

Regarding the scene detection thing, what exactly do you mean by "single capture sequence"?

Richard

the A1 tape system works flawlessly. I have been using Sony Premium DV tapes with no dropout problems whatsoever.

Like all tapeless workflows, it will create a file every time the you hit start and stop, so a separate file for every shot. Bring them in to an NLE and every shot then becomes a discrete clip. That can get unmanageable, in which case clips can be grouped to form a sequence, the actual material remaining as separate files. Max file only comes into play for long takes, (typically >10 minutes) when a single take may be split into single files. Obviously they can be seemlessly rejoined.

Hi Richard - As David noted I meant a single take - one continuous start to stop sequence.

However, after a fun day experimenting, I've found that the MRC1 consistently creates two files per take when hooked to the A1 - a small 8-10MB file, then the remainder of the take in the second file with no further errors. Between the two files I see a glitch for two frames at 00:02;15. An example is shown this PPro2 grab.

The error does not appear on the tape of the same take. On the same subject with the Z7U, it does not create the error, and has a single file per take as would be expected.

Thanks James. So this 8 - 10 MB file is what - the first 3 seconds or so of each shot? If so, that's pretty bad news, right? That glitch could ruin a lot of otherwise good shots.

Richard

Just to clarify - the first 2-3 seconds are recorded ok in the first file, then the glitch appears for the first 2 frames of the second file. The rest of the second file is ok. Of the about 20 takes I did on the A1 yesterday, 14 of the small files are 2 secs-15 frames long, the rest are 3 secs 0 frames.

A quick snip in your NLE of choice should remove the error without losing anything significant - it's just annoying as it is definitely repeatable on every take. It would be good to hear from any others with this combo - if they are seeing the same problem, of if I'm doing something boneheaded...

So the moral here is "try to start recording 3 second early to avoid glitches", I suppose. Shame, but that's life, I guess.

What about sound? Does that drop too?

Ok, getting to the bottom of this now... I found a setting in the MRC1 menu that sets it to "SYNCHRO" rather than "FOLLOW", with synchro selected I now get single files per take (6 out of 6 tries, anyway).

Just the sort of goof that happens when playing with cool new stuff without access to the manual! I found out that Sony put the manual for this on the CD that came with Z7U, which I don't have here.

Anyhow - it seems to work as Evan originally posted, and I will be borrowing this one every chance I get...

Cards used are PNY 266x 8GB. Very fast reading into the PC - finally a (cost effective) non-real time HDV transfer solution for the A1! PPro2 mode used was HDV1080i, I haven't yet tried the Cineform modes that I normally use to capture from the A1.

Excellent news! Now, if B&H can just get this thing in stock, we'd be all set. :)

Yes that sounds a lot better! Thanks James.

Richard

I'm fairly happy about all this :)

m2t to FCP
 

I am also intrigued by this. I would like the unit mainly for Same Day Edits during wedding day shoots. I was discouraged by the news that the unit only records mt2 files as FCP can't use them but then I found this thread on the Apple Discussion forums.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....sageID=6807725

About 2/3 of the way down the thread "AlexTW" posted this link which is off of Sony's site. It is a plug-in to convert the mt2 files for FCP. Right under his post another person posts that, after some trouble, they got the plug-in to work with files from the Z7's memory recording unit. Here is the link to the plug-in.

http://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/...dv/fcp_plugin/

I downloaded it in hopes that Sony will sell these units.

PS.. if someone can get a hold of one of these units and test this plug-in I would be over joyed.

Link to HVR-MRC1 manual
 

Link to the PDF posted recently in the Z7 forum...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=114943

James: Have you tried the cache recording mode? I'd be VERY interested to hear any experiences with that. I can think of all kinds of uses for that one.

James, thanks for all this info.
On page 9 of the PDF it seems to make reference to this "Synchro" business

It seems that "synchro" would be a more frame accurate method of simultaneous recording to both tape
and card while stopping and starting.

So could it be that the A1 has this "external REC control"
which in turn solved your problem?

Any update on this? Has this become an option to purchase separately from Sony? Got quiet here all of a sudden..heh.

I've been wondering the same thing, only hoping that someone suddenly breakout the good news. I also tried contacting Sony but always end up at the wrong place.

I suspect (hope) we'll hear more during NAB.

Sorry I forgot to post back. It'll be around 1000 bucks (at least in canada) and look for sept-oct for availability. That's what I've been told by sony so far.

A bit more then I would have liked but hey this is sony, but at least the option exists. I'm hoping NAB will have a focus enchancements reverse engineered one for less bread and maybe a second slot.