recording to a laptop some questions

[Damien Greaves]

hi all - i have a z5u and i was interested in capturing directly to a laptop type device in full hd using the firewire port or hdmi port

i would also like to record to tape while i capture on the laptop is there software that will recognize when i stop and start recording

i hope i am clear

thanks

[Chris Medico]

The hardware interface you can use to record HDMI to your computer is here - Blackmagic Design: Intensity

I do not know of software that will start and stop automatically with the tape recording on the camera.

[Mark Wheelan]

I believe the Intensity unit is pretty is a hard match for most PC platforms. It requires some very specific hardware specs which is something you'll need to research.

In my case I have an Asus i7, 2nd gen SandyBridge (4 cores with hyper-threading), the USB 3.0 controller doesn't have the full 5gb bandwidth. There is some info out there on what laptop have been able to accommodate the Intensity unit.

[Jay West]

Originally Posted by Damien Greaves

I was interested in capturing directly to a laptop type device in full hd using the firewire port or hdmi port

Are we understanding what you meant by "full hd?"

Do you mean something that records HDV (as opposed to downconverting to DV) or do you you mean uncompressed HD video, right from the Z5 sensor?

If you mean uncompressed video, you cannot do that with firewire. The firewire port on the Z5 outputs the same HDV that is being recorded to the tape.

If you actually want uncompressed HD over HDMI, there are numbers of devices by the likes of BMD, Matrox and AJA which can give you that capability. Unfortunately, the recommended laptop friendly BMD Shuttle Intensity does not have the capability to pass uncompressed HD. It uses a USB 3 port. Assuming your laptop has one, USB 3 simply does not have sufficient sustained data capability to handle an uncompressed stream. Not even the new MAC-Thunderbolt version has enough bandwidth for that. Also, many laptops have only 5400 rpm disks which is also used for system operation and programs, a combination which can make them unsuitable for even HDV recording.

If you are looking to record uncompressed HD video streams, a laptop will not be an easy solution. An uncompressed data stream is going to be at least 6 to 8 times the data rate of HDV. I remember reading a couple of years ago that using one of the laptop devices by AJA or Matrox required that the uncompressed video stream be fed to an 8-disk RAID array. Expensive, cumbersome and and complicated when done with a laptop, eh?

If you really want very high-bit depth recording, it will not be something you can get inexpensively from a laptop. For that, you probably should be looking one of the on-camera hdmi/sid recorders by Convergent Design or Atomos.

Originally Posted by Damien Greaves

would also like to record to tape while i capture on the laptop is there software that will recognize when i stop and start recording

If you are actually only looking for tapeless recording solutions (rather than uncompressed), there are choices.

If you have any version of Adobe PPro CSx, you will have On-Location which allows you to do what you want including starting and stopping with tape in the camera. (Again, this is assuming you are not wanting to send uncompressed signals directly from the camera sensors.) However, Adobe no longer sells On-Location as a separate product. AFAIK, it is only available in a PPro package. You might be able to find an inexpensive used copy of PPro CS3. I used that version of On-Location for several years with a Laptop and an HDV camera, so I know it can work. (Note, my laptop had a 7200rpm disk which I could use in a pinch, but I generally recorded out to a separate 7200 rpm firewire drive.)

I believe I read somewhere that Sony Vegas also can do live recording via firewire, as well. I am not familiar enough with Vegas to know about cameras controlling the recording by the laptop.

The other option, which will be more expensive but will be hard to beat for convenience and ease of use, would be an MRC unit. I'm guessing that you looked into that and decided against it for budgetary reasons (that is, if you were only looking for tapeless recording of HDV from your

[Jeff Pulera]

"HDV Split" is a free download

Jeff Pulera

[Jay West]

I used HDVSplit for years and never knew HDVSplit would do a live capture, but Jeff is correct. See this link for some details on using it:
The DV Show......Digital Video Podcast, Video Editing, Camcorder Reviews, Videography

But to go back to my previous post, whether it will work for Damien depends on what he thinks he wants from "full HD" --

* if "full HD" means uncompressed HD from the Z5 sensor, HDVSplit will not work and he will need hardware HDMI input and a RAID set-up;.

* if he wants to capture 1920 x 1080 (rather than 1440x1080HDV), he will need something like the Atomos or the Convergent Designs devices on the camera (which can give him 4:2:2 or better color, assuming that is what he is after);

* if he only wants tapeless recording of 1440x1080i HDV, HDVSplit may very well work for him. HDVSplit is a free program so experimenting will not be a financial risk and it certainly is easier than going with On-Location or the like if he does not already have such a program.

One word of caution. HDV Split would not install on my Win 7 system or Vista 64 laptop without my installing ffdshow. Installing ffdshow caused all manner of problems with CS 5 and other apps on my computers. I gather that this is a hit or miss thing: ffdshow either screws up your system or it does not.