Direct to HDD options??
 

With the fast changing times of the present- what are our options for direct to hard drive recording right now?

Has the Quickstream DV come to reality?

Anyone use a CitiDisk- what do you think?

I had a Firestore and found it worked exactly as described but the lack of internal HD and external battery was cumbersome....what are the best options today for built in HD and battery?

I saw one of these very briefly in person yesterday.

http://www.lairdtelemedia.com/files/.../LTM-CPDV3.pdf

The fellow that had it just received it via UPS 2 hours earlier and didn't have time to test it yet.

Steve, were you aware that the new FireStore FS-3 does have an internal, removeable hard drive and an attached battery? It's truly a portable, camera-mounted hard disk recorder, unlike the original FireStore FS-1.

Would an FS-3 be mountable on a GL2? The website shows much larger cameras for examples. Are there brackets that would allow devices to be mounted at the back or bottom of a GL2?

That CapDiv looks cool, too.

I've seen the FS-3 with a GL2 mounted on an Anton Bauer shoulder support at various trade shows, so the answer is yes, with the right kind of shoulder support, you can do it.

Is anyone recording directly on to a laptop?

I experimented with my XL1 and Premiere Pro on the desktop and it seemed to capture fine....

Chris- know of a shot somewhere online showing the FS-3 being used with a smaller DV camera? .....I'm wondering how I can set it up with the DVC80.

ADS has a HD recorder for $700. Half the price of an FS-3 and also about half the size. I am currently using one with great success. It's 30 Gb in size, includes a rechargeable internal battery that charges off the 5v that comes across on firewire. It's only drawback is that to begin recording, you have to press the "record" button on the enclosure rather than the camera trigger. Since it records the video stream coming off of the 1394 port on the camera, it will begin recording as soon as you power your camera up.

Dunno why this product has gotten no press. The FS-3 seems over-rated.

Check it out at www.adstech.com.....look for the DVDrive.

Here's the Anton Bauer Stasis mount link from the Anton Bauer website:
http://www.antonbauer.com/pr/Stasis%20Sheet.pdf

The FS-3 would mount in the back between the mount and the battery.

Although the new FS-3 was designed to perform seamlessly with much higher-end shoulder mount broadcast cameras, it's nice to know that it will also work with lower-end handycam camcorders with the right mount. One added plus with the Stasis mount is that it also helps to stabilize a handycam.

Obviously, the FS-3 is more expensive due to the feature set intended for the professional broadcast market. With that increased price you are getting a lot more highly useable features such as the ability to perform as a slave to the camera, exchangeable hard drive pods which will also double as an external firewire drive with your NLE in addition to the ability to loop through to an external firewire drive (allowing you to continue shooting with your choice of another pod or an external drive of your own while you edit), multiple capture formats, easy to use interface, large LCD display screen, defeatable tally light, various powering options and a very heavy-duty construction designed to withstand the rigors of high end applcations such as broadcast ENG or EFP shooting. And, it is capable of being upgraded by the user as new features are offered. The big plus with the FS-3 is that you do not have to press record on the FS-3 separately when you roll the camera as you do with the ADS. Also, when you do decide to step up to a higher-end broadcast camera, the FS-3 will still perform quite well as it was designed to.

There are a lot of different solutions available besides the FS-3 so I would suggest trying each one out before you decide what best fits your needs.

Hope this info helps!

- don

Bill, the PYRO DV Drive seems like the best bet for me right now- the fact that you can setup a tripod and leave the camera running w/o tape and record the incoming DV via Firewire (with a press of the "Rec" button the the drive itself) can be seen as an asset not a drawback (having to press the but manually)......I like the ADS drive- gonna look into it a bit more........has anyone done a review of it? I also noted that it's being offered with a 30GB HD and allot of online retailers are selling them with 20gb HD's....of course I'd prefer the 30GB HD model.

Bill have you had any issues at all with it? How do you set it's recording format- say AVI, DV, MOV how do u select format?

Thanks.

steve...

there are two buttons on the device, a power on/off and a disk record/stop. by pressing these buttons in a certain sequence, you tell it what format to record the files in. i've had no issues with the device. i will note that when you first power it up it takes a few secs to initialize the HD. If you try to record before the drive is initialized, it won't record. also, occasionally, i have a problem getting my computer system (win xp pro) to recognize the drive. in these cases, i just unplug the 1394 connection and try again. i think if you use the microsoft "disconnect drive" before unplugging, you won't have any issues with recognizing the drive. it took me a few tries before i realized this.

best of luck.

One of the advantages of the FS is that it will record in the codec of your editor, meaning it is ready for editing.

"One of the advantages of the FS is that it will record in the codec of your editor, meaning it is ready for editing."

According to their websites, so will Citidisk and Quickstream DV.

I'll have to check them out. Originally they didn't support Matrox or Canopus codecs, which would mean thye would require conversion before editing thus nullifying their Advntage. I hope you're righ, because they are considerably cheaper. Althoough, I think their all much higher then they should be. Kind of like DVD burners used to be.

I just checked theri websites, and all I saw was that they accepted the different file formats, like avi and quicktime. No mention of codecs, at least that I could see. The FS does capture in Canopus and Matrox codecs, meaning they are ready to edit as is,important when you are using realtime systems and odn't want slowdowns, although file conversion might not take as long as capture. But I would rather it could capture it the way I want it!

You're right, they only save as DV, AVI and MOV. Which might not work for everybody.