The upgrade adds a new category 'HD recording' to the 'HDD Mode' screen and a new HDD recording screen.

Only tried it briefly but all seems to work fine. I recorded a few minutes from the Z1 to the FS4 then played it back through the Z1, also checked the m2t file when transferred to computer.

The revised manual on the CD (pdf format) simply says

"Support for cutting edge HDV camcorders with 720p and 1080i capacity equipped with a Firewire 1394 connection"

What it DOES mean is that the continuous recording limit of one hour (set by the physical size of HDV recording tape) is extended to almost three hours - of particular interest to event videographers.

Ray Liffen

Ray,

Glad to hear things are working so far. I also have the upgrade and I use it with an HD100 and a Z1. I've noticed that my Z1 files are fine if I'm just recording with the FS4 (not recording to tape). However, whenever I record with tape (syncro slave or just 'Local'), some of my files tend to get corrupted, and they play back very erratically in my editor. I use a Canopus Edius 3 system. Vegas won't even load some of the files, Edius tries to work with them and gets very sluggish or freezes.

I can't help but think it's a bug (not the editor), as I've seen Z1 files play fine, only not when recording with the tape. Perhaps some funky timecode/sync issue? This has been consistent with 2 FS4 units, and I've never seen it happen when recording with other cameras in DV mode. I thought the HD100 was fine as well. Maybe it's my camera, but I don't know why that would be either...

Any advice or testing would be greatly appreciated. I was trying to work it with Focus support, but haven't heard back in a while.

Thanks,
Shawn

Just curious what you find - if you can test recording to tape as well (synchro slave, and on 'local' mode hitting the Z1 record button on/off as the FS4 continues to keep recording).

Shawn

I'm snowed under with work at present (everyone wants their job edited and finished in time for Christmas) but I'll investigate further as soon as I can.

Ray

Ray,

Glad to hear things are working so far. I also have the upgrade and I use it with an HD100 and a Z1. I've noticed that my Z1 files are fine if I'm just recording with the FS4 (not recording to tape).

Can you explain how you get the Z1 to work tapeless? I'm missing something here.
Thanks