Ok, call me crazy but I actually had to put off buying the DR-HD100 today (Yes it was in my hands and JVC lost a sale due to horrible product management) because of ZERO knowledge and availability of how to power the DR-HD100 with the IDX battery system.

1. Yes I know there is a D-Tap 2 Pin Connector on the IDX system. This is taken up by the IDX Light. Ok so I just need to get an adaptor to allow more D-Tap plugs to plug-in, does anyone in this world happen to know what this is? I also need a cable for the DR-HD100 - see #2.

2. Yes, the DR-HD100 comes with its own battery but it lasts for 90 min, hardly usable. Anyone care to chime in on what plug I need to adapt it to use the IDX D-Tap Plug and where I can get it?

3. How in the world do I mount the DR-HD100 to the HD100 Camera while also using the IDX Light? Use a 2 or 3 pos hot shoe adaptor? Yes, but I don't want all these accessories hanging over the front of my camera. There is an adaptor from IDX that would allow side mounting, but again - know one seems to know which adaptor. Is this is? http://www.adorama.com/IDXALWRSB.html

I'm hoping someone else has already jumped through this madness.....?

Hi Tim,

Please keep in mind that JVC does not manufacture most of these accesories, so we are at the mercy of third party suppliers to get it all right.

Anton Bauer is a little further along in this process than IDX. Anton has a power cable for the DRHD100 with a D connector that plugs into the power tap connector on the AB bracket. This cable might also work on the IDX. I'm actually getting one of these Friday to test for a demo next week.

Anton also makes a power splitter, that will allow the power tap to run three things, like a light, wireless mic, and the hard drive for example. This splitter might also work on IDX. I will be testing this Friday also.

IDX has several metal plates that attach to their battery bracket. This would give you a mounting surface for the HDD recorder.

Regards, Carl

Hi Carl,

Thanks for the response. Well when JVC brands the DR-HD100 (Firestore) as their own product they should probably run the ball to the end zone and make sure there are accessories. I mean seriously, I'm no rocket science but if I were the product manager at JVC I would ask my team "Ok, so we have this IDX promo where we are essentially endorsing the Battery kit to work with our HD100, how about connecting our DR-HD100 to it?". "We are rigging our HD100's, HD200's, and HD250's, with IDX and Anton Batteries can we power our accessories with the D-tap?"

Why on earth would you not roll out the proper accessories to make things work. Does anyone over there actually have production experience? Maybe you should hire me as a consultant? Anyone with production experience would know that we need to mount Lights, Wireless Mic Adaptors, and now the DR-HD100. What good is a 6 hour record time on the DR with a 90 min battery? I understand these things take time but the DR-HD100 has been in development for some time, why is there no cable for it?

What makes things worse is that the "official" JVC website states the following: "The battery bracket has a 14.8V D-Tap accessory cable which will provide power simultaneously to DR-HD100 JVC disk recorder and to a light."

This is 100% FALSE.

Ref: http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?tree=GA&feature_id=01&model_id=MDL101584

It's not that JVC needs to make all of these but they should press (insist) that their 3rd party partners provide the right tools. After all they are gettring the JVC nod.

I really appreciate your help and if you can let me know tomorrow if it works with the Anton Bauer cable I'd really appreciate it. I'm just blown away that JVC Engineers and QA hasn't already done this leg work.

To help others here are the items in question that may work:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=204182&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=409393&is=REG&addedTroughType=search

http://www.adorama.com/IDXOLWPF.html

For Anyone at Focus - Why would you not have a D-Tap Power Cable for your equipment?

As a side note, I'm talking with Shining right now about doing an extensive test of their CitiDisk HDV with the HD100. Their bracket is one of the best I've seen for the IDX system. It mounts on the V mount and provides a duplicate V mount on the back where you put the battery. Note: You do need to connect it to the side D-Tap connector if you want to power it with on board battery BUT at least they make a cable: http://www.shining.com/store/product.php?productid=16144&cat=249&page=1

Carl, you might even try the CitiDisk D-tap cable with the DR-HD100, what do you think?

Bracket: http://www.shining.com/store/product.php?productid=16143&cat=248&page=1

Just keep in mind that once you power all of that from a single AB or IDX battery, you might start taxing that battery too much. You really need to do the math and figure out what should be the max draw from the battery because if you go over, the battery will not only last a much shorter time but it will also get damaged.

That is when I'll take it over to JVC and IDX and say but your website says:

"The battery bracket has a 14.8V D-Tap accessory cable which will provide power simultaneously to DR-HD100 JVC disk recorder and to a light."

These batteries should easily be able to handle a LED light and DR-HD100.

This has been addressed in the past and was the foundation for our abject refusal to deal with IDX anymore. Their solution, if you can believe this, is to disassemble the d-end, reverse the pins so the wire exits the other way and then re-assemble it. Of course this totally voids the warranty but that's IDX's solution. The issue wasn't covered here but over on DVXCUser.com. You're right, it's just another "What were they thinking" headscratcher deal on IDX's part. AS for JVC, it's really hard to keep up with all their partners. They rightly expect partners to think things through ojk JVC does but sometimes stupid things just find their way through. I'm not here, as anyone will attest, to defend JVC but this is definitely one instance where you can't blame them for depending on their partner not to do something that's so stupid.

We resorted to making our own accessory plates that hold the wirelesses but still allow for the accessories to be plugged in. It's a real simple fix that Mike Pellagatti came up with so let me know if you want the plan and I'll send it to you.
Jonathan

Does anyone over there actually have production experience? Maybe you should hire me as a consultant? Anyone with production experience...

I know things can get frustrating Tim, but I like the idea that the JVC people are so present and willing to chime in here.
I really don't think taking your concerns to the personal level encourages that and I think corporate representatives should be given the same courtesy that dvinfo requires that all members show each other.
I'm hoping for the same solution for our HD100s, but Carl already told you that they were trying to address this themselves and that he would test it next week.
I'm prety sure that insulting them won't acclerate the process.

Jim, I'm not insulting Carl what so ever. He has helped me in the past and I'm forever grateful. I think you are missing where I was aiming but that is the nature of posting text in forums.

The reason the HD100's bugs are fixed so quickly is because JVC does understand the power of "Word of Mouth". As soon as I made it known that there were Firewire capture issues with the HD100 (taking itself on/offline) it was fixed in days. However, I spent hours behind the scenes doing testing with CineForm tech support, etc to figure out that an update to the camera had broken something that previously worked. Japan had a fix days later. This then led to the "A" upgrade.

I'm a proponent of this camera, I love it, and I probably sold a couple myself by just giving it a nod to some "on the fence" customers at EVS yesterday. However, that doesn't mean that in the corporate structure of a company like JVC that there are not problems.

Tell me, what do you think is more helpful, Andrew Young taking the camera into the jungle and reporting back his findings or some guys sitting around a lab trying to design the camera in a black hole?

Don't you find it odd that this camera has been out for some time now, the DR-HD100 has been coming for some time and the IDX was promo'd with the camera, yet no one knows how to power it all? There is nothing personal about my attack. I'm simply stating that it's part of a product managers job to have answers to this and make it known. EVS is one of JVC's best sellers here in Southern CA - you should see the caliber of people that come in there to buy things. Just stand around in there for a day and you will be amazed. It should be a concern that know one there had any idea of what parts were needed, even after a call to JVC and IDX while I was standing there.

Please view this as valuable feedback to improve a company, not a personal attack. I have an event next week, I don't have time for "I don't knows". Having to rent an entire different system instead of just buying things to load up for my personal camera is not the answer. One more time for the record - this was not meant to attack Carl at all. It wasn't even directed at him, nor does he work in the dept that is ultimately responsible for this. I really appreciate him reporting back the tests, and as you see from my previous posts, I have also suggest another cable from CitiDisk that may help us all.

Feedback and Criticisim is good. Personal Attacks Bad ;)

This has been addressed in the past and was the foundation for our abject refusal to deal with IDX anymore. Their solution, if you can believe this, is to disassemble the d-end, reverse the pins so the wire exits the other way and then re-assemble it. Of course this totally voids the warranty but that's IDX's solution.
Run that by me again. What were you trying to plug in and what did they want you to disassemble?

Just keep in mind that once you power all of that from a single AB or IDX battery, you might start taxing that battery too much. You really need to do the math and figure out what should be the max draw from the battery because if you go over, the battery will not only last a much shorter time but it will also get damaged.
Max load on the IDX tap is 50W or the 15A fuse will blow.

It also depends on the battery; I have a couple of IDX 50s and they are rated to perform well up to 45W of a load. The camera is some 16W, a sungun light could be some 35W and you are over already. If the light is an LED it draws far less but one still needs to add it up. If you are getting near the full load, the possibility of damage to the battery is increasing.

Yes, the IDX (7s) battery load is 53w Max.

The IDX Light claims: 11W Load at 100% output.
The DR-HD100 claims: 7.5W (I think).
The JVC GY-HD100 in Record Mode: 17W

35.5W Total with enough room to spare. So seems like it should be ok.

As a side note the IDX 7s notes typical camera run-time: 2.7 hours (@ 26W) so the 35.5W load would save some of this run time off.

I was talking tap only guys. IDX list the tap alone at 50W. I tested it and indeed a 100W lamp connected to the Dtap will blow the 15A fuse.

Feedback and Criticisim is good. Personal Attacks Bad ;)


Of course and I have given both as you probably know. I just didn't think what I quoted was constructive criticism. As I said, I need D-taps for our systems immediately and like you will have to wait until JVC comes back with a solution or IDX does what they obviously should have by now. IMO they're the ones you should be asking that question of, but I'd like to see both companies come up with an immediate solutiom to what should be a very simple issue given that both the light and the hard drive system are on the market.

FWIW, the reason we haven't ordered DR-HD100s yet is because I'm waiting to see how we're going to power them. Of course it would be ridiculous to switch from brand new IDX systems to AB systems because of a $10 cable and it is perplexing that between the three companies selling expensive gear, they haven't realized that this simple power issue is likely holding up tens of thousands of dollars in sales...again over a $10 cable.

But from a realistic stand point, the real onus is on Firestore and IDX. Firestore has to become immediately aware that many people are powering their new HD-100s with IDX because of the promotion, and that a cable needs to be available.

IDX of course wants to sell many more systems to HD-100 users at retail and likewise needs to be made aware that this simple cable could prevent them from choosing IDX over AB.

What's missing is communication, because it certainly isn't an engineering hurdle.
It's much more of a very big DUH between marketing, sales and production.

I am not quite sure that I follow... If it's all just a matter of a cable, there are specialized shops that will make you a great snake with all the right connectors. One such shop is Audio Services Corp. Canada in Toronto. They will make just about anything - and really well.

I am not quite sure that I follow... If it's all just a matter of a cable, there are specialized shops that will make you a great snake with all the right connectors. One such shop is Audio Services Corp. Canada in Toronto. They will make just about anything - and really well.


Yes Jiri, if you reasd Carl's post above you'll see that is in fact about a simple cabling issue. Like Tim, I assumed that the cable was available and that we'd be up and running with a simple order of drives and accessories, but the accessories aren't available and that's the duh factor.

You've got new HD cameras, battery systems and direct to disk systems - but not the simple cable to allow them to work together.

Like I said in another post, I'm being a lot more Zen like in my approach, but we're in between major projects, otherwise Tim would be calming me down <g>.

I really appreciate your help and if you can let me know tomorrow if it works with the Anton Bauer cable I'd really appreciate it. I'm just blown away that JVC Engineers and QA hasn't already done this leg work.


Hi Tim & others,

I'm happy to report the following:

1. The Anton Bauer "POWERTAP OPEN FS4" cable, part #8075-0056, will plug into the IDX battery bracket, and it will power the DRHD100.

2. The Anton Bauer "PT MULTI" splitter, part #8075-0013, will plug into the IDX battery bracket. This will allow you to run up to four accessories off of the IDX battery, plus the camera. For example, the DRHD100, a light, and a wireless mic all at once. I used small cable ties to secure it to the top of the camera, right in front of the battery bracket. Be careful to limit total power consumption of all accessories and the camera so as to not overload the battery.

3. I powered up the camera, the DRHD100, and an Anton Bauer Ultra-Light 2, and rolled tape and HDD. It operated all items fine. I only did a short test. I will do a longer test over the weekend.

4. I mounted the DRHD100 to an IDX part #O-LWP - DV Camera Wireless Receiver Mounting Bracket. The bracket then attaches to the IDX battery adaptor. I used the supplied cradle for the DRHD100. I attached the cradle to the plate with a small tripod base screw. I had to drill a hole in the O-LWP plate to put the screw in. Be careful to set the DRHD100 cradle high enough up so that when the power cable is pludgged into the bottom, you cn still set the camera down on a table without putting and pressure on the power connector. Anton Bauer is in the process of changing this connector to a right angle design so that less clearance is needed.

IDX is working on a total solution, so at some point you can get it all from one source. Right now, you can put together a solution using IDX and Anton Bauer items together.

Regards, Carl

Thanks for the report, that is good news.

I agree that it's a Firestore (Focus) and IDX issue mostly but since JVC branded the drive they also need to be aware of how much headache a simple $10 cable can cause. Especially when they (and IDX) have wording on their website claiming that the system will power both items (HD and Light) at the same time.

What really scares me is that even after another call placed today to IDX they still had no answer for me, in fact they never even called me back. When I asked them at the NAB booth what bracket I need for my HD100 they looked at me like I was out of my mind. I'm with Jonathan, I officially give IDX an F.

Somewhat related - I just got back from talking with the CitiDisk people and I have one of their 80 gig HDV drives that I will be testing over the next week. So far I'm very impressed. It doesn't have a nifty screen but it's half the price. I'll be posting my findings (review) along with some photos of how it mounts to my HD100 in a seperate thread over the next few days.

Good to hear Carl.
Tim, Is CitiDisk saying that that they too have A drive that will handle HDV 24p? Are you working in FCP? Obviously you'll know very quickly if it works and is reliable.

Jim, the CitiDisk just records the stream to the hard drive as m2t files. So it records what ever format the HD100 can spit out of the Firewire port.

I shot some 24p footage to the disk, plugged the CitiDisk in to my PC, it showed up as a drive, I copied the m2t files over and played the footage just fine (I could have just played it back from the drive too). I then ran Cineform on it and converted them to Cineform 4:2:2 to begin editing.

I've been told by CitiDisk that they are working on wrapping quicktime around the files in a future update so that Mac users will have an easier time.

I'll have an in-depth review/worflow with photos later in the week.

Ok, good news.

How about powering the CitiDisk HDV from the IDX. What cable/adapter will one need to do this?

If not, what is the run time on the CitiDisk?

Jim, the CitiDisk just records the stream to the hard drive as m2t files. So it records what ever format the HD100 can spit out of the Firewire port.

I shot some 24p footage to the disk, plugged the CitiDisk in to my PC, it showed up as a drive, I copied the m2t files over and played the footage just fine (I could have just played it back from the drive too). I then ran Cineform on it and converted them to Cineform 4:2:2 to begin editing.

I've been told by CitiDisk that they are working on wrapping quicktime around the files in a future update so that Mac users will have an easier time.

I'll have an in-depth review/worflow with photos later in the week.

Sounds good Tim...and sorry for misreading you earlier.
I'm really interested in hearing your experience with the CitiDisk. I pretty much wrote it off as an option after getting some early feedback from Douglas S.E. about reliablility and support.
Has it been pretty much plug and play so far?
I'll give them a call on Monday to see how soon they're talking regarding the Quicktime update.

Steven, I was checking out the options earlier and it looks like they've got a nice V mount holder for the HDD that would fit onto the existing IDX back. The the battery would piggy back to that. It has a D-tap cable to CitiDisk cable to power it.
It looks like it would add about 3" to the back of the HD100.
It's the PCKT1256-V2V toward the bottom of this page.

http://www.shining.com/products/totalsolution/pckt1256/

I'm still leaning toward the Firestore especially if they are really coming out with the Quicktime 24p upgrade in the coming week.

3. I powered up the camera, the DRHD100, and an Anton Bauer Ultra-Light 2, and rolled tape and HDD. It operated all items fine. I only did a short test. I will do a longer test over the weekend.



Update: With a fully charged IDX 70 watt battery, the full package ran 1 hour and 15 minutes before shutting down. This is with the camera on and tape rolling, the DRHD100 rolling, the Anton Bauer Ultralight 2 on, and operating the zoom every 10 minutes or so. I think this is not bad for the IDX battery, considering the load.

Hmm, actually I think that is bad. I would like to see at least 2 +hours constant use. How much power does that light draw?

Here are some quick photos of my HD100 Rig with the CitiDisk attached. Notice how their adaptor mounts on to the IDX plate and then the IDX battery mounts to their adaptor.

What is great about this setup is that it provides an extra 2 pin D-tap connector so I can power the CitiDisk and on board light at the same time with no special cords or other hassles.

Note: I don't have the Firewire plug connected in the photos but normally you would have a short cord there to connect the CitiDisk to the HD100.

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1089.JPG

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1090.JPG

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1091.JPG

Hmm, actually I think that is bad. I would like to see at least 2 +hours constant use. How much power does that light draw?

Tim,

The UltraLight 2 has a 25 watt lamp.

Best Regards, Carl

Hmm, actually I think that is bad. I would like to see at least 2 +hours constant use. How much power does that light draw?
Tim, Carl is right. The load on the battery is pretty heavy and expecting 2+ hrs of everything rolling is unreasonable.

By the way, the AB Ultralight 2 could have different bulbs, the most common is 35W but the light can take up to 50W. Of course, the bigger wattage of the bulb the shorter battery life. Consider yourself warned; if you keep using the IDX (or any other) batteries with this much load you will shorten their overall life too.

i think the IDX light draws 11 watts. haven't tested this, but i think I can get 2 hours of use of the camera and light using the smaller IDS 7s battery.

If you run within the specified load max then you shouldn't shorten or damange your batteries. Let us look at the specs again.

1. IDX (7s) battery load is 53w Max.

2. IDX Light 11W Load at 100% output.

3. DR-HD100 (CitiDisk) 7.5W

4. JVC GY-HD100 in Record Mode: 17W

Total: 35.5W

The IDX 7s notes typical camera run-time at 2.7 hours (@ 26W) so the 35.5W load would shave some of this run time off but it shouldn't reduce it by half. Further, this is if you were running your IDX light at full output the entire time.

Obviously this doesn't account for the AB (or other high output) light. Which does put more load on the camera than an LED light.

tim,

this may seem obvious and stupid question, but the motors on the camera power down when the citidisk is connected right? it doesn't try to power up the motors every time you hit record on the camera? also, is there a delay when you hit record on the camera and the citidisk starts to record?

i hope that fills my stupid question quota for the day.

yooch

There are two ways to record with the CitiDisk. If there is a tape in the camera then hitting the record button on the camera will trigger the CitiDisk, since it's just a trigger the CitiDisk begins to record even though the heads may not have engaged on the tape drive. You can also hit the record button on the CitiDisk independently of the camera. When there is no tape in the camera this is how the CitiDisk must be triggered.

There are two ways to record with the CitiDisk. If there is a tape in the camera then hitting the record button on the camera will trigger the CitiDisk, since it's just a trigger the CitiDisk begins to record even though the heads may not have engaged on the tape drive. You can also hit the record button on the CitiDisk independently of the camera. When there is no tape in the camera this is how the CitiDisk must be triggered.


Hey Tim, what's your opinon of the CitiDisk so far regarding dependability, build etc.?
Any missed shots or corrupted files do far?

I imagine, based on the specs for hours vs load, don't assume the battery charge is linear with respect to its load, especially when approaching the batteries max load. Does anyone know the run time (specs.) at max load,?

Jim , so far no problems. I'm going to do some more testing today and over the weekend. That is when I'll post a full review of the product.

perhaps the IDX 98 watt batteries, models E10 or E10s, could achieve a two hour plus run time.
http://www.idxtek.com/endura.htm


Hmm, actually I think that is bad. I would like to see at least 2 +hours constant use. How much power does that light draw?

Here are some quick photos of my HD100 Rig with the CitiDisk attached. Notice how their adaptor mounts on to the IDX plate and then the IDX battery mounts to their adaptor.

What is great about this setup is that it provides an extra 2 pin D-tap connector so I can power the CitiDisk and on board light at the same time with no special cords or other hassles.

Note: I don't have the Firewire plug connected in the photos but normally you would have a short cord there to connect the CitiDisk to the HD100.

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1089.JPG

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1090.JPG

http://66.34.47.146/temp/hd100/IMG_1091.JPG




Tim I'm thinking of a similar setup to yourself, I've asked the question before, and haven't been fully answered. When you use a Mattebox, does it interfere with the oncamera light by casting a shadow over part of the image? And even does it deflect sound pick up from certain angles??
Thanks

Adam,

I haven't noticed any sound issues. When using the on board light, I would suggest removing the french flag. You can also add a hot shoe adaptor that will move the light up even higher if you need to but I don't think it's needed.

Jim , so far no problems. I'm going to do some more testing today and over the weekend. That is when I'll post a full review of the product.

Sorry to bring this back up, but before you post a final review, can you please make sure you test for SD 24/P. I want to know if it has a Quicktime 24 option like the DR-HD100 so that advanced pulldown can be removed.

Thanks

I would like to have a stackable D-Tap connector;
A male at the bottom
A female on the top where I can daisy-chain more equipment (wireless ++)
And a wire at the mid for the equipment (video-light)
Anybody who has seen such an animal? /Johan

I would like to have a stackable D-Tap connector;
A male at the bottom
A female on the top where I can daisy-chain more equipment (wireless ++)
And a wire at the mid for the equipment (video-light)
Anybody who has seen such an animal? /Johan

Anton Bauer makes a 4 output splitter for a power tap.

Anton Bauer makes a 4 output splitter for a power tap.
On IDX, don't forget you have only 50W available from the tap. If you exceed it you'll blow the fuse for sure (known from experience).

Please see this thread for updated information on new mounting kits.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=579178#post579178

I ordered a mounting bracket and cable that runs the light and the drhd100 at the same time. I went thru Universal Media Services in Pensacola Fl
850 479 3806
The part # is O-FS100..it runs about 105.00 but it works great.

Hope this helps