Leonard Levy
March 2nd, 2006, 01:45 AM
Just came back from the Apple/Panasonic seminar on HVX200 in San Francisco.
I was surprised that my questions about the "Capture Now" scenario in Final Cut Pro (HVX firewire into powerbook capturing directly into FCP in the log & capture window) were met mostly with blank reactions. I don't mean this to criticize any of the people who put on the seminar. They were informative, helpful and I liked them alot.
But it seems that neither company seems to have considered "Capture Now" as a very likely scenario with the HVX. The Apple presenter at the seminar had never tried it and the HVX "expert" DP ( a very nice and knowledgeable guy) had just tried it a day or so before. They were thoroughly unprepared for questions about it.
Likewise Jan Crittendon when I asked about Robert Lane's suggestion to use a separate PCMCIA card for an extra firewire port responded by saying that he probably knew more about it than anyone else. It was a good endorsement of our own Robert Lane BTW.
Similarly Jan had to call Apple herself to find out about the timecode issue. (Apple confirms - No timecode in Capture Now).
The people running the seminar seemed to be surprised that anyone would want to work this way, though the DP (sorry his name is escaping me) volunteered that he was very attracted to this method after trying it.
A few people suggested afterward in conversation that it might be safer to pre-format a drive as Fat32 and then record to it kind of like a firestore would - only without some of the error protection and other goodies the firestore might provide. (They had only just gotten their Firestore the day before.)
Personally I was more attracted to the "Capture Now" idea as I didn't like the idea of going into a drive blind. And I also liked the ideas of being able to capture to an ordinary drive and having the producer able to look at footage immediately.
I noticed in talking to people in the audience, esp. producer types, that like me, they were generally most attracted to "Capture Now" as a way of working in controlled environments.
So I am wondering - do Apple & Panasonic not consider it safe, or did they just kind of miss the ball on this? If they don't consider it safe - why?
Were they aware of Robert's concerns about overstressing the firewire busses? Did they consider his idea of adding a PCMCIA card adapter with an extra firewire port as a way to get secure captures?
Were they worried about the stability of the powerbooks? Concerned about crashes in Log & Capture"?
And of course the big question - wel... is it safe or not?
I was surprised that my questions about the "Capture Now" scenario in Final Cut Pro (HVX firewire into powerbook capturing directly into FCP in the log & capture window) were met mostly with blank reactions. I don't mean this to criticize any of the people who put on the seminar. They were informative, helpful and I liked them alot.
But it seems that neither company seems to have considered "Capture Now" as a very likely scenario with the HVX. The Apple presenter at the seminar had never tried it and the HVX "expert" DP ( a very nice and knowledgeable guy) had just tried it a day or so before. They were thoroughly unprepared for questions about it.
Likewise Jan Crittendon when I asked about Robert Lane's suggestion to use a separate PCMCIA card for an extra firewire port responded by saying that he probably knew more about it than anyone else. It was a good endorsement of our own Robert Lane BTW.
Similarly Jan had to call Apple herself to find out about the timecode issue. (Apple confirms - No timecode in Capture Now).
The people running the seminar seemed to be surprised that anyone would want to work this way, though the DP (sorry his name is escaping me) volunteered that he was very attracted to this method after trying it.
A few people suggested afterward in conversation that it might be safer to pre-format a drive as Fat32 and then record to it kind of like a firestore would - only without some of the error protection and other goodies the firestore might provide. (They had only just gotten their Firestore the day before.)
Personally I was more attracted to the "Capture Now" idea as I didn't like the idea of going into a drive blind. And I also liked the ideas of being able to capture to an ordinary drive and having the producer able to look at footage immediately.
I noticed in talking to people in the audience, esp. producer types, that like me, they were generally most attracted to "Capture Now" as a way of working in controlled environments.
So I am wondering - do Apple & Panasonic not consider it safe, or did they just kind of miss the ball on this? If they don't consider it safe - why?
Were they aware of Robert's concerns about overstressing the firewire busses? Did they consider his idea of adding a PCMCIA card adapter with an extra firewire port as a way to get secure captures?
Were they worried about the stability of the powerbooks? Concerned about crashes in Log & Capture"?
And of course the big question - wel... is it safe or not?