With the fast changing times of the present- what are our options for direct to hard drive recording right now?

Has the Quickstream DV come to reality?

Anyone use a CitiDisk- what do you think?

I had a Firestore and found it worked exactly as described but the lack of internal HD and external battery was cumbersome....what are the best options today for built in HD and battery?

I saw one of these very briefly in person yesterday.

http://www.lairdtelemedia.com/files/pdf/specs/LTM-CPDV3.pdf

The fellow that had it just received it via UPS 2 hours earlier and didn't have time to test it yet.

Steve, were you aware that the new FireStore FS-3 does have an internal, removeable hard drive and an attached battery? It's truly a portable, camera-mounted hard disk recorder, unlike the original FireStore FS-1.

Would an FS-3 be mountable on a GL2? The website shows much larger cameras for examples. Are there brackets that would allow devices to be mounted at the back or bottom of a GL2?

That CapDiv looks cool, too.

I've seen the FS-3 with a GL2 mounted on an Anton Bauer shoulder support at various trade shows, so the answer is yes, with the right kind of shoulder support, you can do it.

Is anyone recording directly on to a laptop?

I experimented with my XL1 and Premiere Pro on the desktop and it seemed to capture fine....

Chris- know of a shot somewhere online showing the FS-3 being used with a smaller DV camera? .....I'm wondering how I can set it up with the DVC80.

ADS has a HD recorder for $700. Half the price of an FS-3 and also about half the size. I am currently using one with great success. It's 30 Gb in size, includes a rechargeable internal battery that charges off the 5v that comes across on firewire. It's only drawback is that to begin recording, you have to press the "record" button on the enclosure rather than the camera trigger. Since it records the video stream coming off of the 1394 port on the camera, it will begin recording as soon as you power your camera up.

Dunno why this product has gotten no press. The FS-3 seems over-rated.

Check it out at www.adstech.com.....look for the DVDrive.

Here's the Anton Bauer Stasis mount link from the Anton Bauer website:
http://www.antonbauer.com/pr/Stasis%20Sheet.pdf

The FS-3 would mount in the back between the mount and the battery.

Although the new FS-3 was designed to perform seamlessly with much higher-end shoulder mount broadcast cameras, it's nice to know that it will also work with lower-end handycam camcorders with the right mount. One added plus with the Stasis mount is that it also helps to stabilize a handycam.

Obviously, the FS-3 is more expensive due to the feature set intended for the professional broadcast market. With that increased price you are getting a lot more highly useable features such as the ability to perform as a slave to the camera, exchangeable hard drive pods which will also double as an external firewire drive with your NLE in addition to the ability to loop through to an external firewire drive (allowing you to continue shooting with your choice of another pod or an external drive of your own while you edit), multiple capture formats, easy to use interface, large LCD display screen, defeatable tally light, various powering options and a very heavy-duty construction designed to withstand the rigors of high end applcations such as broadcast ENG or EFP shooting. And, it is capable of being upgraded by the user as new features are offered. The big plus with the FS-3 is that you do not have to press record on the FS-3 separately when you roll the camera as you do with the ADS. Also, when you do decide to step up to a higher-end broadcast camera, the FS-3 will still perform quite well as it was designed to.

There are a lot of different solutions available besides the FS-3 so I would suggest trying each one out before you decide what best fits your needs.

Hope this info helps!

- don

Bill, the PYRO DV Drive seems like the best bet for me right now- the fact that you can setup a tripod and leave the camera running w/o tape and record the incoming DV via Firewire (with a press of the "Rec" button the the drive itself) can be seen as an asset not a drawback (having to press the but manually)......I like the ADS drive- gonna look into it a bit more........has anyone done a review of it? I also noted that it's being offered with a 30GB HD and allot of online retailers are selling them with 20gb HD's....of course I'd prefer the 30GB HD model.

Bill have you had any issues at all with it? How do you set it's recording format- say AVI, DV, MOV how do u select format?

Thanks.

steve...

there are two buttons on the device, a power on/off and a disk record/stop. by pressing these buttons in a certain sequence, you tell it what format to record the files in. i've had no issues with the device. i will note that when you first power it up it takes a few secs to initialize the HD. If you try to record before the drive is initialized, it won't record. also, occasionally, i have a problem getting my computer system (win xp pro) to recognize the drive. in these cases, i just unplug the 1394 connection and try again. i think if you use the microsoft "disconnect drive" before unplugging, you won't have any issues with recognizing the drive. it took me a few tries before i realized this.

best of luck.

One of the advantages of the FS is that it will record in the codec of your editor, meaning it is ready for editing.

"One of the advantages of the FS is that it will record in the codec of your editor, meaning it is ready for editing."

According to their websites, so will Citidisk and Quickstream DV.

I'll have to check them out. Originally they didn't support Matrox or Canopus codecs, which would mean thye would require conversion before editing thus nullifying their Advntage. I hope you're righ, because they are considerably cheaper. Althoough, I think their all much higher then they should be. Kind of like DVD burners used to be.

I just checked theri websites, and all I saw was that they accepted the different file formats, like avi and quicktime. No mention of codecs, at least that I could see. The FS does capture in Canopus and Matrox codecs, meaning they are ready to edit as is,important when you are using realtime systems and odn't want slowdowns, although file conversion might not take as long as capture. But I would rather it could capture it the way I want it!

You're right, they only save as DV, AVI and MOV. Which might not work for everybody.

It is inevitable that some people's requirements will be much more demanding than others. But, when considering to incorporate a new, professional piece of equipment into your workflow, you should ask as many questions as you can.

One issue that should definitely be considered is how quickly you need to start capturing. Do you want your system to be remotely controlled by your camera when you hit the Rec Start button on the camera? If your system cannot be controlled by the camera, will you miss the shot if you have to look away from the viewfinder and reach over your back shoulder with your left hand to press a couple of buttons to get it to start capturing? Surely, there will be some that will say "I can deal with the lag" and many more will say "I want instant capturing!". How low-profile do you have to be? Will the movement of reaching over your right shoulder compromise your transparency, distract your subject and bust your shot?

Does your solution perform its' duties transparently? Does the solution you are considering offer you the ability to remain still and focused on the viewfinder frame by effectively being remotely controlled by your camera's REC Start/ Stop button?

How many times have you hit Record, only to realize that you were a few seconds too late? How many times have you said to yourself in post "Nice shot - if only we had some pre-roll..."? Does your solution help enable you to cover your mistakes with a Retro-Cache feature which effectively captures the shot a full 10 seconds *prior* to your decision to press Record? This can be a key feature to many shooters.

Does your solution offer you a lot of visual feedback via a large LCD display -or- does it offer you little or no feedback? Does your solution ever compromise your comfort level or "take you out of your zone" by not making it clear as to what it is doing?

What happens with your solution when your internal hard drive is maxed out? Do you have to stop what you are doing and miss the shot? Does your solution clearly tell you exactly how many minutes and seconds of recording time you have left on your drive? Ever wish that you had over 3 hours of recording time? How about over 6 hours of recording time???

Can you easily erase clips that you know you do not need in the field while shooting with an easy to understand menu-based system interface with a large LCD display? Is it easy to free up space on your disk by erasing clips that you know you do not need - without having to erase all of the clips or reformat?

Will your solution keep capturing even if the tape in your camera runs out? Does it offer you any type of warning?

What happens when you max out your drive? Will your solution allow you to spill out via a FireWire Loop-Through to another external firewire drive? Does your solution offer an additional 6-pin FireWire port for external drives? How about HDD Bypass - does your solution allow your connected Disk Drives to Mount to a computer without Disconnecting?

Does your solution allow you to format the disk AND partition without the need for a computer to be connected? Is your solution Windows-only or will it work seamlessly with either Windows or Mac?

Does your solution provide you ANY type of anti-shock protection? Does it offer a built-in RAM cache too? Does your solution offer a full 10 seconds of Anti-shock Cache, preventing lost shots during extreme shock times? Does it offer you any type of easy file-repair in case you see a corrupted clip in extreme conditions? Can you do that in the unit itself, while you are in the field shooting -or- do you have to try to repair the clip on your desktop or laptop?

Speaking of extreme conditions, how weather-resistant is your solution? Is it made of metal? Does it have an internal rubber shock gasket?

Is your solution designed only to be used as a capture drive on-camera? Or, does it also allow you to easily use it as a DV Playback/ Record deck in the studio or via Remote? Does your solution offer you RS232/ GPI and wired remote control? Does your solution offer ANY type of remote control???

When timecode is generated by your camera, does your solution capture that identical timecode to disk? Does your solution offer you the ability to also Preset your timecode -or- record timecode in Free Run Mode or time of day?

Does your solution allow you to *capture* Time Lapse? Can you easily adjust the Time Lapse Interval up to 24 hours? How about Single Frame Animation - remotely controlled?

Does your solution offer any type of capture file management in the field? Does your solution offer you the ability to handle all of the capture clip management for you - autonomously? Can you mark your clips as keepers at a moments' notice? During Recording and Playback? Can you create your own custom "Keeper" folder on disk?

Does your solution allow you to play back your clips and see them through the viewfinder of your camera? Does it allow you to preview the first frame of every clip with easy indexing Forward or Backward? How about multiple Playback functions such as Reverse Play, Multi-Speed Forward/ Reverse Search, Multi-Speed Slow Motion, Frame-by-Frame Forward/ Reverse Step and Index Clip Forward/ Reverse? Do you find yourself wishing that you could preview the last shot 2 to 3 times without having to re-cue it every time or having to re-cue the tape? Do you still suffer from tape timecode breaks because of this? Does your solution offer you a very fast way to preview your shots? Do you find yourself missing shots while previewing?

Does your solution offer a "soft-key" based Menu system, allowing for easy and quick setup and operation for any application?

Is the system OS in your solution limited? Or, is it Flash Upgradeable with an easy way for you to be Up To Date on the most current revisions? Or, will you have to buy again when the next revision and update is offered?

Does your solution offer you the ability to capture RawDV, AV1 1, AVI 2, Canopus AVI, Matrox AVI, QuickTime and AVID DV OMF? Are the capabilities of your solution upgradeable in the future?

Do you still have to convert your file captures with your solution? What if you have little or no time to edit - can you simply import your clips from your solution disk to the timeline too? Can you easily play those clips immediately once you drag them onto your timeline or do you have to re-render? What if you want to hand off your footage to another editor or production house which uses AVID OMF? What if that editor or production house tells you that "we will only accept AVID OMF." ??? Do you have the ability to Export to OMF without rendering??? You mean you have to spend hours converting your clips to OMF on your desktop? What if you could easily and much more quickly convert your clips to AVID OMF in Real Time and save yourself hours of conversion time?

Does your solution not capture properly if you accidentally create a Time Code break on the tape inside the camera? Is your solution smart enough to sense this and back you up every time by continuing to capture regardless? Or do you miss the shot?

Do you have the true ability to edit your clips on the run or are you hindered by a simple LED light or little or no display?

Does your solution allow you to completely eliminate the INGEST stage of your production workflow??? What? You mean you can't just pop in another hard drive pod and continue to shoot while your editor injests your clips? You mean you have to stop doing what you are doing, walk over to your editors' workstation, offload the clips to his drive, reformat your drive, reconnect it to your camera? Why can't you simply hand off the hard drive pod to your editing crew? Can your editor immediately start importing clips into his timeline from your hard drive pod? Can your editor use your hard drive pod as a source drive or does he have to copy all of that footage to his own drives because your solution can't play back your clips without dropping frames when connected as a playback source drive? Does your solution offer the ability to power your drive pods via 6-pin firewire bus powering or does it only offer 4-pin Firewire ports (which don't pass power to devices). Does your editor say "get that thing out of here, I'm not allowing you to connect that to my edit system!" or Does your editor breathe a sigh of relief and say "Sure, no problem, that will connect easily - go ahead!" when you try to hand him your hard drive pods? Do the hard drive pods in your system also offer ports to connect external AC-DC power adaptors? Do the hard drive pods in your system also offer the defacto standard 6-pin Firewire Input and a 6-pin FireWire Loop Through?

Does your solution perform every task that you need in the here and now - and then some? Or does your system "kinda" do the job. Can you upgrade your solution easily via software? Is the manufacturer of your solution committed to setting the Gold standard and providing you with a solution that will grow with you as your skills and needs grow? Does your solution perform effortlessly in the high-end professional DV Broadcast venue as well?

What type of warranty does your solution manufacturer offer? How about support?

These are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself if you are charging for your services and looking for the best solution that will perform in any venue and grow with you.

As you can see, there are many, many questions to ask when trying to make your final decision! If you find yourself asking "Why not??? or "How come mine doesn't do that?" more often than not, then you owe yourself the opportunity to FireStore.

- don

Does the Pyro device record to the DV .avi file format?

Or does it record to some other intermediate file format?

Does anybody know if ADS plans to release an HDV-ready hard disk recorder?

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

<<<-- Originally posted by Barry Gribble : Is anyone recording directly on to a laptop?

I experimented with my XL1 and Premiere Pro on the desktop and it seemed to capture fine.... -->>>

I've shot some scenes directly to my DELL laptop for my Lady X
episode using my XL1S and Vegas capture utility. Worked
perfectly. A laptop harddisk usually is more prone to dropping
frames (they usually rotate at a slower speed) and therefor
absolutely need defragging before use. A seperate capture
partition will definitely help with this.

in recording directly to hard disk, does this benefit at all the limitations that miniDv has in chromakeying, given its weaker chroma capabilities, or does directly recording to disk not make any difference in that?
Thanks,
John

HD recording is like when you capture your miniDV footage to your HD on your editing station. It just is a transfer of the data from the camera to disk. So the miniDV format is still the same, you just bypass the tape part of it.

John: no, it will not give you any benefits other than the files
are ready to be used or you have an extra backup if you are
recording also to tape, etc. The information is the exact same,
bit for bit.

Capturing is actually the wrong word since all your doing is
copying a digital "stream" (file) from one place to another. If
your capturing a tape you simply copy that "file" to your harddisk.
If you are capturing realtime then it's simply the stream coming
of the DV encoder onboard your camera.

Thanks, Rob.

So man, the best thing would be to buy a cam that has a better output than typical miniDV like the JVC HD one? And dump it right to Hard disk? Would a firewire HD take that kind of signal?

And edit in Vegas or Premiere? Converting the files to the needed format?

Thanks for any info,
JOhn Haskins

My knowledge regarding this stuff only lies in the normal DV
consumer/pro-sumer range. I don't know much about the higher
end stuff. If the higher end still has DV then you are still using
the same compression. There is one higher DV standard (DVCPro
I think) that runs on 50 mbps instead of 25 mbps and thus has
less compression artifacting. Whether this will work good with
an NLE like Vegas or Premiere, I don't know. To the best of my
knowledge such NLE's only support the 25 mbps DV codec.

Then again, if you really want a better system direct to harddisk
might be a better option. I'm not sure there are high-end camera's
to offer this feature. I think there was one new ENG style camera
out with this option.

To the best of my knowledge higher end cams tend to use SDI
connections with dedicated SDI capture boards.

Anyone have website for CitiDISC ?

The first hit from google when searching on Citidisk (http://www.shining.com/products/totalsolution/citidisk_dv/)

this is identically the same unit offered by ADS Tech.

Actually the fine folks at CitiDisk are the OEM's, rather than the other way around. They brand several versions of their technology, two of which are represented on this forum - besides their own brand. It's a small world after all.

Here are pics of CitiDISK http://www.shining.com/ on XL1. Very neat & compact; smaller than a large DV CAM tape case & light, & for my use it's compatible with Macrosystems Solitaire NLE.

Well actually the folks at Shining are still working on releasing their DVR for Solitaire. It's not available today, but should be soon. But then again, Solitaire is not ready for market yet either.

Shining was the first manufacturer to utilize the Lithium Polymer internal batteries and did a very nice job. Overall they did a wonderful job of filling a niche in the DVR market unaddressed by their competitors - a low-cost, portable DVR that can capture in a limited number of native formats.

Kudos to Chris Wang for a job well done!

Hi Bruce & thanks for that correction. Am I right in assuming that some NLE's don't capture in the Native format & if CitiDisk does that for Solitaire, then it's quite a good product? Cheers PC

There are only three OEM's competing in this market space today using the "capture in native format" approach. (That is bound to change.) Part of the reason is that this is a very difficult product to support - as well as being a low-volume market. Those that are available all capture in one video format or another and all are looking towards more formats over time. Conversely, video formats are becoming less proprietary and more "open-source, cross-platform" at the same time.

The CitiDisk approach does not effectively capture in the "native video format" of Solitaire. The Shinning Technology philosophy is geared towards capture in .AVI or .MOV, so in affect they are simply providing a generic .AVI format to the Solitaire platform. The trick with MacroSystems products lay in the OS as well as their flavor of 1394, which has proven quite vexing to every OEM except for nNovia whom has the only DVR certified by MacroSystems. Perhaps CitiDisk will soon join that list but as of today nNovia is the sole member.

I tend to wait on giving kudos on products until they are a market reality. Today the list is very short.

And as an aside, nNovia does not "capture in native formats" like every other OEM. We capture in our own proprietary format and output "native video formats" on demand. This is FAR more flexible than being restricted into using the single video format you thought you needed when you originally captured the content don't you think?

Well Mr.Yale it will be better if your product would have had a variety of industry stadard recording type options like firestore like your on demand (rendering types)

Give it a thought Firestore user chooses his edit format shoot and go to edit w/o any on demand delay...NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK.

Better try a firesore product and then comment.

Well Mr. Jain, I can assure you that since we are all quite friendly with the Focus Enhancements staff given that they are just down the street from us that we are quite familiar with each others product. Call it mutual respect.

But to answer your indirect question, the QuickCapture platform currently supports the following formats upon output (not input):

.AVI Type 1
.AVI Type 2 Microsoft
.AVI Type 2 Canopus
.AVI Type 2 Matrox
.MOV

…and of course raw .DV as all direct-to-disk recorders do. There are a handful of other formats being finalized as well. This is a "real-time" process, one we refer to as "Edit-Ready", identical in functionality to that of the FireStore platform.

By not having to select prior to capture the video format that you MAY utilize later in post production, we are able to switch between .AVI video formats repeatedly without re-rendering AFTER capture. We feel this is a more flexible approach to the problem.

A bit of history for you:

The nNovia engineers were the principle engineers of both the TiVo and Replay platforms when with Quantum Corporation in the late 90's. As a result we have arguably the most extensive domain knowledge in the DVR business. At the very least, we are FAR from new-comers to this business as you infer.

I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have about our architectural approach or products in general.

Mr. Yale,

A very explanation to my concerns. I wish if i would have know before buyin my FS3 about your company but its just after six months of my purchase that i have come to know any thing beyong FireStore.

FYI I am using FS3 with my Pany DV200 and with a AB stasis for my PD150 ... I am pretty happy with the direct docking to the ab nount behind the DV200. I get more looks when i shoot in market (And mind it The looks surely count as we get to talk with more people just out of their inquisitiveness. ) We get more business cox of the pro looks we carry in shape of our units. This is just a thought.

Today i find not to many people using the direct to disk facility in India I hope as the awareness increases i would also get to see your units in my land !

- A happy FS3 user !

Mr. Jain,

We have in fact been very successful distributing our products in India as well as many other sub-Asian countries. If you require personal assistance on any matter you may contact me via email at byale@nnovia.com.

Both Focus Enhancements and nNovia realized early on that the education of this new market niche is paramount to the long-term success of this new product genre. Professionals like Matt McEwen are intrinsic to this endeavor and are an accreditation to the adoption rate of direct-to-disk recording. But it has not been easy. Fortunately quality products like the FireStore platform and the QuickCapture platform go a long way to overcome the barriers to entry in establishing consumer confidence. Still, there is a long way to go before direct-to-disk recording is a defacto standard amongst professional videographers.

Is it nessary to have a tape in the camcorder? I am using a VX2100, how can I set a stream on the firewire without a tape inserted?

Hi Frank,

The ability to record without a tape in a camcorder is "camcorder-specific". If memory serves me correctly your camera should in fact be able to record without a tape being in the camcorder, but please refer to your camcorder operations manual to be certain.

DV camcorders in general usually send and receive 1394 commands when the camcorder is powered up. They both "listen" and "talk" when buttons are pushed - without tape being present. In some camcorders the "talk" function is disabled when there is no tape in the camcorder and no 1394 commands are issued. In either case a asynchronous video stream is most always issued when recording begins, regardless whether or not the "RECORD" command was issued. Again there are some exceptions, so please refer to your camcorder manual.

In the case whereby no 1394 commands are issued, you must first put your camera in a "PAUSE" state whereby it is ready to begin recording and manually start QuickCapture just prior to pressing the RECORD button on your camcorder. There are of course some methods to initiate camera triggered recording outside of the 1394 RECORD command issued by the camcorder (GPI; RS-232C; TimeCode; etc) but that is another topic for discussion.

I hope this helps clarify this issue a bit.

I've done some test by connecting the VX2100 via firewire to my computer and capture in Prem Pro. I can capture the dv video stream, but when I press the record botton I get a msg "no tape" flashing on the LCD.

So basicaly there is a stream even without a tape. Question now is if I can start-stop the recording with the record botton?
Maybe I have to buy one and find out for myself or just use the record botton on the harddisk itself.

You have it about right, Frank. The camcorder is issuing a DV stream, but not a AVC 1394 control command to "RECORD" (or STOP) since there is no tape in the magazine. So in a nutshell you must manually begin recording on QuickCapture just prior to initiating the DV stream.

There are a few alternative camera trigger configurations you can conjure together as I said earlier, but none that use a 'phantom' 1394 RECORD command issued by your camcorder.

Thanks Bruce for the quick reply.

BTW, I hope I did not just pooch you name - Yap!

I just relaized my mistake! Sorry about that!

I'll just edit my response here...."Frank".

I'll get it right next time!

No problem. I am easy going. Actualy you have it right. It's Frank Yap.

Your user name is fixed, Frank.

Thanks.