http://www20.tomshardware.com/business/200504191/index.html

According to the article, it only does SD to tape or firewire. If you want HD, you have to use the uber-expensive cards.

Yup. As it stands so far. But Focus Enhancements (makers of Firestore) are a P2 partner, and there is a chance that it will simply write to an off-the-shelf firewire or USB2 HDD.

Will firewire work with DVCPRO HD at 100 mbps though??

Most HDDs are capable of handling 100Mbs (mega bits per second) as it works out to about 12.5 MBs (mega bytes per second). And Firewire has about 4x the bandwidth needed. (USB 2 has about 5x)

wow there are all sorts of goofy wrong facts in that article. Where did they get their info on the resolutions?

wow there are all sorts of goofy wrong facts in that article. Where did they get their info on the resolutions?
The author has acknowledged that they'll be revising the article to correct some errors.

The camera unquestionably supports firewire streaming of the full HD signal, so you can capture to a laptop or desktop running a capture program (such as FCP-HD or Avid Express HD), or a (hopefully forthcoming) DVCPRO-HD-aware version of DV Rack, and you will also be able to stream to a device like a firestore.

The ability to use off-the-shelf hard drives is unprecedented, so if they are able to implement it, it'll be a first (and a very welcome first!) But even if it can't do that, it'll still be capable of doing everything any other camera can do, stream-wise.

"I asked whether the HD signal could be transferred to these drives. Panasonic officials said, "Only standard definition can be transferred via the firewire port, because of bandwidth limitations. "

???

"I asked whether the HD signal could be transferred to these drives. Panasonic officials said, "Only standard definition can be transferred via the firewire port, because of bandwidth limitations. "

???
That's 100% wrong. Jan Crittenden has verified that all the codecs will be streamed live over firewire, which includes 100-megabit HD.

Where the confusion apparently comes in is that the author was asking about compatibility with the existing FireStore and DV Rack products, and was told that only SD would work with those products, but it's not because of a limitation of the camera or the firewire, it's a limitation of those products. A forthcoming FireStore (perhaps FS-5? who knows?) will absolutely be able to record the full 100-megabit data stream, as could a hopefully-forthcoming DVCPRO-HD Rack version of DV Rack.

Thanks Barry. This camera just got much more attractive.

The funny part is, Panasonic has the camera under glass at their booth. But, go over to the Apple booth and they have the camera sitting out in the open where I was able to pick it up and look at it very closely...go figure. It looks like a DVX100 on steroids.

-gb-