FCS to DVD Recorder via Firewire?

[James J. Lee]

I'm trying to record movies direct from my Macbook Pro to a DVD Recorder using the firewire. Do any of you do this for basic SD DVD delivery to clients? If so, please tell me what set-up is working for you. I recently purchased a Sony DVD recorder from wally-world with firewire input, but when attached, it seemed to sap all system resources from FCP and I was unable to play out to it. I've heard that some are capable, not only of recording direct from the NLE but also work as a poor man's break-out box? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Shaun Roemich]

Never been able to make that work, myself. Mostly with Panasonic recorders but also with a Toshiba - no luck.

Hope this helps...

[Boyd Ostroff]

I have read several posts recently about problems exporting to a DVD recorder. I got an early Sony DVD Recorder (RDR-GX7... or something like that?) and made DVD's for a number of years using a firewire connection to my G5 Power Mac. I also used it for monitoring DV by connecting an LCD monitor the the DVD recorder's component output jacks. It all worked great - used it as an uncontrollable device.

So something must have changed in FCP to prevent this from working. I still have the recorder at the office, and it seems to me I had a problem using it there. I use DVD Studio Pro now, so it's been awhile since I've tried.

All I can say is that this definitely did work for me with the old Sony DVD recorder up through FCP 5.0x.

[James J. Lee]

THats exactly what I was hoping to do Boyd, so glad to hear it's possible. Maybe a setting in FCS2 I'm missing? I use DVDSP frequently, but sometimes it's not worth it to go through the painful compression times needed for long projects, for test or preview discs. Don't know if it's this recorder, limits of FCS. If you get a chance to try it, I'd love to hear how it works for you.

[James J. Lee]

OK - Bought a new Sony GX257 recorder with FW input, a 19" flat panel TV, hooked everything up and every time I plug the FW into the DVD it crashes the FW800 external that I have all my footage on! I unplug the firewire from the DVD recorder and my drive returns. Something about the FW bus maybe? I just don't get it! I'm running a MBP 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB Ram and OSX 10.5.6. Any help?

[Boyd Ostroff]

That's something I haven't seen before! What happens if you try using the MBP internal drive? I will try to find a chance to hook up my old Sony recorder to my MBP in the office this week since now you've got me curious. But my recollection is that it didn't work the last time I tried. And the last working setup I used was a dual G5 with FCP 5.x. That machine died last year and isn't worth fixing.

[James J. Lee]

Hey Boyd, I haven't tried moving anything over to my internal drive, which has pretty limited space. In fact, having to work off the internal drive would be such a PITA that it would pretty much defeat the purpose of making quicker & easier DVDs. There is clearly some conflict between the MBPro and the Sony recorder. May return this Sony unit and try one more recorder...
I was just trying to do a print to video on my camera, then playing out from my V1u through the A/V out to the DVD Recorder and that looks incredibly BAD on my screen. This is beginning to turn into rocket science with too many factors to consider. Beginning to think it's more trouble than it's worth. I'm pretty sure that if I threw enough $$ at a full editing system, these process would be easy, but my business just won't support a new editing suite complete with breakout boxes, etc. Frustrating.

[Colin McDonald]

I use a Phillips DVDR3460H 250 GB hard drive DVD recorder and its firewire functionality is limited to accepting dv streams from compatible camcorders:

Helpful Hints:
– The DV IN socket does not support a
connection to a Personal Computer.
– It is not possible to record from the
recorder to your camcorder via the DV IN
socket on your recorder.

However, a Firestore FS-4HDPRO 60Gb HDD manages to fool the Phillips it into thinking it's connected to a camcorder. The Firestore is the only other device I have got to work with a DVD recorder, and I've tried a few different makes. The only other workaround for me is to print to tape from the mac and then play it back but that's 2x real time (and a bit for rewinding) of course.

[James J. Lee]

[QUOTE=– The DV IN socket does not support a
connection to a Personal Computer.[/QUOTE]
Now if they put that little note on all the recorder's specs, it would save some headaches. It sounds like Boyd and others were able to do this at one time with some version of FCP and some DVD Recorders. I've now been testing or troubleshooting this for 15+ hours with no luck. It does look like I can Print to Video and then take the feed from camera/tape to the Sony DVD recorder, but as you mentioned, that's 2X+ realtime. Might be worth it for longer projects though. Interesting that it works with the Firestore, makes it even more appealing.
Seems like someone should be able to come up with a hack for this so that the a Mac firewire would be recognized as a camera. My DVD-recorder does have a USB port, that I would think could be used to upload a piece of code. Anyone on here a programmer?

[Boyd Ostroff]

Well of course it will look terrible to take a/v out (composite) video from your camera to the DVD recorder! It should work with firewire though (well, mine does anyway). I only suggested using your internal MBP drive for testing purposes (with a short clip). That would take the second firewire device (disk) out of the equation.

I don't understand why the DVD recorder would care if it was connected to a camera vs computer. I had to use mine as a non-controllable device, but that was no problem.

[James J. Lee]

Thanks Boyd, guess I was too frustrated to make that connection. Will try it from the local drive tomorrow without additional firewire attached and see if it makes any difference. I guessed some type of bus problem since it shuts down my external firewire drive whether FCP is open or not so it doesn't appear to be solely and issue with FCP.
I also don't see why it would make a difference whether it's attached to camera vs. recorder. In my mind, a line out is a line out. The terrible AV out performance was when using the camera as a pass through to the monitor. Not so bad direct from camera AV to recorder. I'll try to find a dv-dv (4pin-4pin) firewire cable tomorrow here in podunk, OH and see if that improves the picture. Still would prefer the realtime of coming straight from the NLE. Thanks for all your patience. I'll let you know if I get this resolved.

[James J. Lee]

Research indicates that mine is a common problem with DVD recorders after about 2007. For some reason (probably copyright concerns) none of the newer DVD recorders seem to be able to record direct from FCP's timeline. Other forums indicate a few older recorders that were able to do this including Boyd's Sony RDR-GX7. So, Boyd, if you get a chance to test this with your current FCP version, it would be greatly appreciated. If it works, I will start searching for one on the used market. Thanks, JLee

[James J. Lee]

Boyd, did some searching on the GX7 and found a lot of users begging for a firmware upgrade as they were having trouble with <8x discs. Might that have been the problem you had? http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=39788

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Why don't you want to use the standard method of exporting via Compressor as an MPEG-2 and muxing it to a dvd using either DVDSP, iDVD, or Toast? Granted its a 2 steps instead of 1 but its not a deal breaker.

[James J. Lee]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Why don't you want to use the standard method of exporting via Compressor as an MPEG-2 and muxing it to a dvd using either DVDSP, iDVD, or Toast?

The biggest issue with that is it's a major time killer on my machine. I recently had a client that wanted 9 hour long presentations burned to DVDs for duplication. You could say I substantially underestimated the time it would take to 1)Export Full Quicktime 2)Compress it to SD MPEG-2 using compressor 3)Mux with DVDSP & 4)Burn with Toast = @ 6-8 hrs. per disc.
I did a 5 min. webbie last week that the client requested a DVD for as well and that 5 min. piece took almost 2.5 hours to complete a disc! Gotta streamline this workflow.