Canon Console Software?

[Eduardo Mayen]

is this system simply awesome? is the hype real? anybody used it? impressions? anecdotes? recomendations?

[Brian Findlay]

You can download it for a free trial for 30 days or something like that.. I recall seeing something like that. Personally, aside from the abiltiy to run some controls.. I think most basic NLE editors (Vegas) would allow you the same (or better) abilities. The one thing that does come to mind is if you were running it on a crane.. but I can't think of much else.

- Brian

[Mouayed Zabtia]

Brian with all respect Vegas can't do Canon Console Software, its completely different , Canon software have many functions ,you can control all thing in your camcorder via you laptop ( gama, focus, zoom ,gain ,sound etc…) all thing that can't do with linc control, you can also record your video in your laptop and play in reel time that mean is beater then focus hardware or other DDR technology, I think that software is very useful not only for jib but for all pro jobs.

[Boris Mandich]

We (firm where I work at) bought this software thinking that it is remote software, but it’s not.

IEEE1394 standard has a limitation of 20 meters per cable without a repeater, having that in mind I ordered couple of FireNEX-MX extenders and 120 meters of fiber. After assembling our system (H1-firewire-FireNEX-fiber-FireNEX-firewire-Console) I found console not being able to communicate trough extenders. It displayed an error message that says “more than two devices on firewire channel” and did not allow camcorder operation.
First I wanted to make sure that extender is working properly so I turned on Premiere2.0 (hardware configuration stayed the same) and tried capturing, rewinding, fast forwarding…etc. Premiere performed everything with no problem whatsoever.

Next thing I did was connecting trough two 20 meter cables and one repeater(FireNEX-MX can transfer firewire into fiber optics or you can use it as a single repeater for joining two firewire cables), error message disappeared, camcorder operation was possible. 40 meters is probably enough for some applications but for remote shooting on a 75 meters high cliff it is 60 meters too short.

By addressing Canon support this is what I got from their representative:
“Please note, the Canon Console software was designed for use with the camcorder connected directly to the computer via a single firewire cable. What you are trying to achieve is beyond the software specification.
Our senior technician agrees that the repeaters are causing some shift
in the communication, regardless if it works in another program. The
other program does not offer the same level of control as the Console
does, so we would expect it to be more tolerant of communication errors.”

I was’t satisfied with that explanation and it gave me pretty bad opinion of their senior technician who totally disregarded the error massage console displayed, as if he could not explain it.

To be on a safe side I’ve contacted Newnex manufacturer of the repeater, this is the answer I got from him:
“It appears from you are telling us that the problem lies with the Console1.1 software. Your e-mail said earlier that it will only work with one 1394 device at a time. I assume that our FireNEX is seen as a device.
Going through our FireNEX 300' and through 60 feet of cable will introduce small delays, but such delays should not affect the data being transferred. I disagree with the statement from the Canon representative.
We have successfully used many types of devices through our FireNEX-MX up to 1,500 feet without a problem.
The 1394 standard is 4.5m for copper cables, but typically you can get S100 devices, such as cam corders, to go longer. But if the connection works with the other software I would assume that your connection is fine.”

Console can obviously “see” devices on a firewire channel and “count” them. If there are more than two it blocks communication. Bill from Newnex suggested that same problem could appear if using a firewire hub.