I just connected my FW camera port to the FW port of my external HDD, recorded in device native in QT Pro (setting the destination to a folder on the external drive).

I took the HDD to my FCP workstation and I then took that .mov file, converted in Compressor to NTSC DV 4:3 and pulled it into the FCP timeline with no obvious issues.

Since it's now in DV does anyone see any issues of using this as a "poor man's" way of recording live footage directly to HDD on the fly? An Apple G4 iBook, 160 GB 7200 RPM external HDD in FW 400 enclosure (at $60/drive I'd just use a fresh drive/event), and now you have a 6 hour recording drive (80 GB for the .mov files and 80 GB for the converted .DV files).

Just thinking "outside the box". Since I'd also have a tape in the camera and am doing stationary event videos, any unseen "gotcha's" with this setup?

Thanks,
Grant

[Edit] I just filmed 30 minutes directly to the HDD using QT Pro, converted in Compressor (FCS 5.1), edited in FCP, titles/edits/etc..., rendered out, and then connected a set-top DVD-R drive via Firewire from FCP and it looks great on the DVD. I only do event video and at 1-6 hours at a time, so for me this works, and don't film as a main career, so I can live with the results.

I also only film in SD-DV (Sony TRV-840), and unless I'm missing something, the digital signal out of the FW port is the same signal that is being placed on tape, correct?

I also only film in SD-DV (Sony TRV-840), and unless I'm missing something, the digital signal out of the FW port is the same signal that is being placed on tape, correct?

Any technical insight into this thought? Since, I just did a test and let QT Pro capture at device native and let it film the wall of my editing room (no tape in camera), it ran until the HDD filled up then gracefully quit recording. 2.5 hours of a single QT movie at ~30+ GB in size. How is that any different (from a 1/0's standpoint) than footage imported off of three tapes and digitized? I hope I'm on to something here. I just finished three weekends of event where I had the firewire port of my DVD-R set top connected to my camera and made the DVD's instantly, BUT did no editing. And I realize this setup I've tried won't work in the field, but my events are all filmed at a static location from a tripod.

The only downside I see to that is if my HDD fails, my footage is gone. But if a camera eats my tape, so is my footage.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Grant

I doubt QT PRo will record TC, but that wouldn't necessarily be a big deal.

I've used this feature before on a system that didn't have FCP loaded. However, those DV files could not be read by FCP and I had to convert them to NTSC DV in compressor. I found that odd.

Is there any reason you haven't just tried capturing directly into FCP for a couple of hours? Just turn off deck control and "capture now."

I doubt QT PRo will record TC, but that wouldn't necessarily be a big deal.

I don't think for what I'm doing, I need it. It's a single camera from start of event to end of event. Edit in FCP to clean up any outtakes, add titles, etc...

I'm the sales department, purchasing agent, event filmer, event editor, event producer, and shipping department all rolled into one, so I'm not handing off my footage to others to edit.

I've used this feature before on a system that didn't have FCP loaded. However, those DV files could not be read by FCP and I had to convert them to NTSC DV in compressor. I found that odd.

That's what I'm finding when capturing as device native in QT Pro.

Is there any reason you haven't just tried capturing directly into FCP for a couple of hours? Just turn off deck control and "capture now."

Yes, because I didn't know I could. Ha, ha. I was getting messages that I need the device in VTR mode due to no timecode found. I switched to non-controlable device and it worked like a charm, brought the footage into the timeline with no conversion. I just tried that it works great! One less step in post to deal with. Thanks for that suggestion. The only thing I need to worry about with that is to make sure all my auto renders and auto saves are turned off so I don't get any unwanted disc activity when I'm recording with FCP, which I didn't have to worry about in QT Pro.

Thanks Tim for the feedback.

Grant