Can someone tell me if there is a way to transfer what you taped to the computer thru the DV connection without hitting play like a vcr? I am wondering if there is a faster way to transfer the data and it doesnt display thru the evf?

If I understand your post I believe no is the answer. The computer captures video from the camera in real time, theres no way I know to make it go any faster.

The only way at the moment is to use a Firestore and capture to an external firewire hard drive as you shoot. You can then transfer the captured DV files to your computer from the ext hard drive.

even if you could do it, you would still need to put the "avi wrapper" on it so it would be useable by the onboard DVcodec. To do this you'd still need a real time, frame by frame processing.

What is an "AVI Wrapper"? Does the AVI format still exist? I thought that went away.

DV viewed on a Windows PC is in the AVI file format. DV viewed on a Mac is in the Quicktime format.

To answer the question, FireStore will do what you want, because it's recording an edit-ready DV file to a hard drive in the first place. FireStore completely eliminates the video capture process.

I just did a search and its 1k and if you want the manual its another $25 bucks! Ok so if you buy this then does that mean you dont even need the tape?

If you're referring to the Firestore, it's LOTS less than 1K, and includes a manual -- check B&H. I recently bought one, but haven't gotten the courage to skip the tape part yet. I had a clip not write to the device properly, so I have to gain some more confidence in the unit before I make that leap.

About those formats. AVI and QuickTime are just wrappers
for the DV stream, so that you can easily use it in your
programs. They are just a container for the actual DV stream.
It actually is possible to save the raw DV stream to a .DV
file, but only a handful of programs support reading such
files. To answer the other question, AVI still exists. It probably
will for some time to come as every video application on the
PC supports it.

Do you know whether or not Vegas, Premiere Pro, Avid Express Pro, or Final Cut Pro are able to use '.dv' files? Thanks!! :]

Randy,

Most of these applications will allow you to import a .dv file...I know at least that Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro can. The downside is that they need to be rendered in the timeline. Even though most DV NLE systems utilize the same DV data, each has it's own type of wrapper or container for the raw DV stream. In the case of Vegas Video and Premiere it is an AVI Type 2 wrapper (.avi file), in the case of Final Cut it is a QuickTime wrapper (.mov) and in the case of Avid Xpress it is a OMF file with separate AIF audio files.

The concept behind FireStore's DTE Technology is that it records clips to a hard disk in these native NLE file formats so that clips can be used instantly without the need to render.

Matt McEwen
Focus Enhancements