Let Me Get This Straight
 

I'm shooting a wedding video for my mom's friend daugther wedding. I want to try the HDV option instead of the DV with the FX-1 camera. Now do I get this right... I use regular miniDV tapes, I can then use the FX-1 camera to capture via firewire to my sony vaio computer 1.0 Anthlon. I have Sony Vegas 6 which should allow me to capture that?

When capturing footage from the HDV camera is there more space needed on the comp then capturing DV footage?

Also when rendering my computer might not handle it right?

Also I won't be able to capture this footage from the tape if I shoot HDV with a regular camera, so I have to use FX-1 asap before it needs to be returned.

Umm.. not sure if this will work, but I have a feeling I will need to do the DV option.

Any suggestions, any advice appriciated.

As far as I understand it:

1. yes, you use regular MiniDV tapes

2. yes, you can capture this with Vegas 6

3. no I don't think you need more space, unless you convert it to another format (the capture program may or may not do this, I'm not 100% sure). The reason you (in theory) don't need more space is that the footage is recorded in MPEG-2 instead of DV compression which uses the same bitrate but stuff more data in it

4. any computer can handle the rendering, it will just take (a lot) longer on your computer due to at least 2.7 times as much data that needs to be handled

5. I think you indeed need the FX1 to capture that HDV footage

Thank you for that info, I'm glad that the HDV option is a possibility for me to record with. :)

For such an important event, I think you'd want to spring for the premium for the Sony HDV-rated Mini DV tapes. This should minimize dropouts. There are no second takes.

And DO TESTS first!!!!! This to make sure you can capture and work with this footage!

Do you have another DV camcorder available? One solution would be to set the FX1 to downconvert via firewire which will give you a standard DV data stream out the port. You could then use a cable to connect to the firewire port on your regular DV camera. Put that camera in VCR mode and hit record. This way you would be capturing a SD DV version as a backup which could be used after you return the FX1.