FS4 / FS4 Pro HD various topics

Ron Williams · December 23rd, 2005, 07:13 AM

thanks that did do the trick - but tell me is this typical? or am i missing something?

Mike Teutsch · December 23rd, 2005, 07:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron Williams

thanks that did do the trick - but tell me is this typical? or am i missing something?

As I said, mine works the same way. I found the trick while pulling my hair out and leafing through the manual. Page 42, something about SYNC toggels between SYNCRO and NORMAL. Does seem unusual that it always reverts to normal, but consider this, it does save you from going into the menu again to go back to normal. You just have to hit the SYNC button to continue in sync. Not sure which way is better, but this is the way it is setup.

Mike

Gary Powell · December 28th, 2005, 11:49 AM

I just got the fs-4 pro to use with my XL2. I was wondering if the quick time 24p recording setting is recorded at 24p, 24pa, or just 24 frames a second? I mostly work with Final Cut pro, and was just wondering about which settings will be the best for importing my clips into a project. When recording to tape I use 16x9 24p (2:3 pulldown).

When I was fooling around with the Fs-4 I had it set to raw dv, I assume that if my camera is set to 24p then it'll get to the fs-4 as 24p but as 60i.

So bascially what is the fs4 quick time 24p recorded like, would it be better to use that over the raw dv capture?

Ron Williams · December 31st, 2005, 07:16 AM

very new to the DTE style and for giggles have been trying to record tapeless using cannon XL2 and will not record unless i put a tape in - i have read manual couple of times and still nothing - i am asking you experts here what the heck am i missing?

ron

Mike Teutsch · December 31st, 2005, 08:41 AM

Hi Ron,

I had not tried to record without a tape before so I did it to see how it works.

Turn the menu on and go to SYSTEM, DV Control and turn DV Control ON, then exit the menu.

You will not see the timecode on the camera change or the record indicator come on while you are using this feature, but in the bottom right hand of the display you will see DV(and a little bent arrow) and a red ball or a square green box. The green box will be there when you are pausing and the red ball will show when you are recording to the FS-4 drive.

There will still be a "no tape warning" in the camera display, but just ignore it.

Additionally, you must put the firestore into the tapeless mode.

Try it and let me know if it workes for you.

Mike

Dan Euritt · December 31st, 2005, 02:10 PM

there are a couple of places in the fs-4 menu where you choose "tapeless"... i do both of 'em... you also have to have the "e" show up in the top left corner of the fs-4 display, use the menu button on the left to select it, there is some menu info for that near the end of the fs-4 manual.

many operations of the fs-4 are not documented... for instance, once you have it set up to record in tapeless mode, you never have to change the menu settings again... when you plug it into the pc via the computer i/o port, just hit the dd/dv button once, and it'll show up as a hard drive.

i've probably recorded well over 1,000 tapeless video clips with the fs-4, it's been very reliable, with one very intermittent bug exception, which may or may not be peculiar to my particular setup with the hacked up firewire cable... sometimes it will fire up in this mode where it isn't recording to the hard drive, despite what the camera viewfinder display sez... when you hit the "rec" button, the fs-4 receives the signal and starts to record, but immediately stops, and it does that on every clip, until you turn off the camera or reboot it(?)

in order to make sure that you are actually recording, hit the middle button of the fs-4 to set it up to display "dv ntsc", which gives you the total amount of record time for the session you are in... you'll be able to see if it's not recording... you could alternatively play back the clip in the viewfinder, off of the hard drive, but that wears out the big rotary switch every time that you go in and out of vcr mode... once you are booted up in a tapeless recording session that works, it will always record, without failing.

once you have it plugged in to the pc, you can look at the log file in one of the subdirectories, and there will be entries that show details of every clip that was recorded.

overall, i am very happy with the fs-4 in tapeless mode, it's allowed me to do things that i really couldn't do before, because it saves the head and tape transport wear... it also extends the life of the camera battery quite a bit, because you aren't using energy to run the tape drive, and when you hit the "rec" button, it starts recording immediately, you don't get that tape delay.

Mark A. Foley · January 7th, 2006, 09:42 PM

For some reason, my NLE (Vegas) is reporting corrupt files with footage shot in AVI 1...won't open. Repair disk/clip doesn't fix. The files themselves will play in real player. Can I transfer (record to another FS-4)? How do I setup the two firestore to do that...?

Dan Euritt · January 8th, 2006, 12:35 PM

transferring to another firestore would not be any different than transferring to your pc... i would copy everything that you shot over to the pc asap, then make a dv tape backup right off of the firestore, as it's playing into the dv camera/deck via firewire... that would also give you another way to capture the clips back to the pc, to see if they are good.

Mark A. Foley · January 9th, 2006, 06:17 AM

The firewire cable turned out bad...as I noticed the firestore was acting very sluggish with it connected. Putting a different cable between the camera and the FS... it works fine. What is strange is that only Vegas won't recongize the AVIs...but real player...media player...will play the files fine. I just captured the tape copy and ordered and new firewire cable...:-)

Jon Omiatek · January 9th, 2006, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark A. Foley

The firewire cable turned out bad...as I noticed the firestore was acting very sluggish with it connected. Putting a different cable between the camera and the FS... it works fine. What is strange is that only Vegas won't recongize the AVIs...but real player...media player...will play the files fine. I just captured the tape copy and ordered and new firewire cable...:-)

Make sure you are capturing as AVI-2 (Type 2) if you capture them as type 1, vegas will not be able to use them.

Mark A. Foley · January 9th, 2006, 11:49 AM

why is that?

Jon Omiatek · January 9th, 2006, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark A. Foley

why is that?

Vegas doesn't accept AVI-TYPE 1. It only accepts AVI-TYPE 2!

I had the same problem with my firestore. Change it to type 2.

Jon

Joe Moulins · January 27th, 2006, 04:14 PM

I've now heard from a rep at Focus with this explanation for the runaround:

"Hello Joe,
We have developed a Quicktime HD encoding option for the FS4 HD, and will be releasing it very soon. This will make the unit very compatible with Final Cut Pro. I knew that was coming, but could not say anything about it until the company announcement was made (late last week). We are a public company and some proprietary information we are not allowed to disclose.

If you still want to return the FS4HD unit for credit, please confirm and I will get approval from our sales manager for the return for refund."

Austin Thaler · January 28th, 2006, 12:27 PM

Okay, I'm new to the forum, new to the XL H1 and new to this FireStore hard drive. I do read the threads and find great information, just thought I'd say so.

Where's the dilemma? Making the camera and the FireStore talk. Well, they do talk, but not very well. I've setup the FireStore drive as instructed in the user guide and have put the DV control switch on in the XL H1. Between the suggested control settings on the FireStore and all the other crazy configurations I've tried, I still cannot successfully capture anything onto the hard drive.

Between the syncro slave, tapeless and local control options, the drive has said it was recording. I had the 'remaining' display up to watch the timecode wind down, but there was no change in numbers after recording was stopped. The camera did monitor the hard drive's status accurately. In the viewfinder (while the DV control is on) there was a readout between stopped status and recording status. So, I think it's safe to say they are talking, but just not very well.

Anybody?

-Austin

Shannon Rawls · January 28th, 2006, 03:42 PM

The XL-H1 & the FS-4 Pro will communicate.

The problem, and ONLY problem is there is not TIMECODE.

Focus Enhancements need to implement HDV TIMECODE.

Without proper timecode on the D.T.E., the Firestore FS-4 Pro is worthless in my opinon.

- ShannonRawls.com

December 28th, 2005, 11:49 AM	#153
Gary Powell New Boot Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NJ Posts: 10	Fs-4 Pro 24p? I just got the fs-4 pro to use with my XL2. I was wondering if the quick time 24p recording setting is recorded at 24p, 24pa, or just 24 frames a second? I mostly work with Final Cut pro, and was just wondering about which settings will be the best for importing my clips into a project. When recording to tape I use 16x9 24p (2:3 pulldown). When I was fooling around with the Fs-4 I had it set to raw dv, I assume that if my camera is set to 24p then it'll get to the fs-4 as 24p but as 60i. So bascially what is the fs4 quick time 24p recorded like, would it be better to use that over the raw dv capture?

December 31st, 2005, 07:16 AM	#154
Ron Williams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 70	FS-4 Tapeless Problems very new to the DTE style and for giggles have been trying to record tapeless using cannon XL2 and will not record unless i put a tape in - i have read manual couple of times and still nothing - i am asking you experts here what the heck am i missing? ron

December 31st, 2005, 08:41 AM	#155
Mike Teutsch Inner Circle Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Port St. Lucie, Florida Posts: 2,614	Hi Ron, I had not tried to record without a tape before so I did it to see how it works. Turn the menu on and go to SYSTEM, DV Control and turn DV Control ON, then exit the menu. You will not see the timecode on the camera change or the record indicator come on while you are using this feature, but in the bottom right hand of the display you will see DV(and a little bent arrow) and a red ball or a square green box. The green box will be there when you are pausing and the red ball will show when you are recording to the FS-4 drive. There will still be a "no tape warning" in the camera display, but just ignore it. Additionally, you must put the firestore into the tapeless mode. Try it and let me know if it workes for you. Mike __________________ Chapter one, line one. The BH.

January 7th, 2006, 09:42 PM	#157
Mark A. Foley Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bonaire, Ga. Posts: 356	Help! Something went south with FS-4 For some reason, my NLE (Vegas) is reporting corrupt files with footage shot in AVI 1...won't open. Repair disk/clip doesn't fix. The files themselves will play in real player. Can I transfer (record to another FS-4)? How do I setup the two firestore to do that...?

January 27th, 2006, 04:14 PM	#163
Joe Moulins New Boot Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 16	Is this company legit? I've now heard from a rep at Focus with this explanation for the runaround: "Hello Joe, We have developed a Quicktime HD encoding option for the FS4 HD, and will be releasing it very soon. This will make the unit very compatible with Final Cut Pro. I knew that was coming, but could not say anything about it until the company announcement was made (late last week). We are a public company and some proprietary information we are not allowed to disclose. If you still want to return the FS4HD unit for credit, please confirm and I will get approval from our sales manager for the return for refund."

December 23rd, 2005, 07:13 AM	#151
Ron Williams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 70	thanks that did do the trick - but tell me is this typical? or am i missing something?

December 31st, 2005, 02:10 PM	#156
Dan Euritt Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Carlsbad CA Posts: 1,132	there are a couple of places in the fs-4 menu where you choose "tapeless"... i do both of 'em... you also have to have the "e" show up in the top left corner of the fs-4 display, use the menu button on the left to select it, there is some menu info for that near the end of the fs-4 manual. many operations of the fs-4 are not documented... for instance, once you have it set up to record in tapeless mode, you never have to change the menu settings again... when you plug it into the pc via the computer i/o port, just hit the dd/dv button once, and it'll show up as a hard drive. i've probably recorded well over 1,000 tapeless video clips with the fs-4, it's been very reliable, with one very intermittent bug exception, which may or may not be peculiar to my particular setup with the hacked up firewire cable... sometimes it will fire up in this mode where it isn't recording to the hard drive, despite what the camera viewfinder display sez... when you hit the "rec" button, the fs-4 receives the signal and starts to record, but immediately stops, and it does that on every clip, until you turn off the camera or reboot it(?) in order to make sure that you are actually recording, hit the middle button of the fs-4 to set it up to display "dv ntsc", which gives you the total amount of record time for the session you are in... you'll be able to see if it's not recording... you could alternatively play back the clip in the viewfinder, off of the hard drive, but that wears out the big rotary switch every time that you go in and out of vcr mode... once you are booted up in a tapeless recording session that works, it will always record, without failing. once you have it plugged in to the pc, you can look at the log file in one of the subdirectories, and there will be entries that show details of every clip that was recorded. overall, i am very happy with the fs-4 in tapeless mode, it's allowed me to do things that i really couldn't do before, because it saves the head and tape transport wear... it also extends the life of the camera battery quite a bit, because you aren't using energy to run the tape drive, and when you hit the "rec" button, it starts recording immediately, you don't get that tape delay.

January 8th, 2006, 12:35 PM	#158
Dan Euritt Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Carlsbad CA Posts: 1,132	transferring to another firestore would not be any different than transferring to your pc... i would copy everything that you shot over to the pc asap, then make a dv tape backup right off of the firestore, as it's playing into the dv camera/deck via firewire... that would also give you another way to capture the clips back to the pc, to see if they are good.

January 9th, 2006, 06:17 AM	#159
Mark A. Foley Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bonaire, Ga. Posts: 356	The firewire cable turned out bad...as I noticed the firestore was acting very sluggish with it connected. Putting a different cable between the camera and the FS... it works fine. What is strange is that only Vegas won't recongize the AVIs...but real player...media player...will play the files fine. I just captured the tape copy and ordered and new firewire cable...:-)

January 9th, 2006, 11:49 AM	#161
Mark A. Foley Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: Bonaire, Ga. Posts: 356	why is that?

January 28th, 2006, 12:27 PM	#164
Austin Thaler New Boot Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 5	New XL H1 user with FireStore FS-4 Pro Okay, I'm new to the forum, new to the XL H1 and new to this FireStore hard drive. I do read the threads and find great information, just thought I'd say so. Where's the dilemma? Making the camera and the FireStore talk. Well, they do talk, but not very well. I've setup the FireStore drive as instructed in the user guide and have put the DV control switch on in the XL H1. Between the suggested control settings on the FireStore and all the other crazy configurations I've tried, I still cannot successfully capture anything onto the hard drive. Between the syncro slave, tapeless and local control options, the drive has said it was recording. I had the 'remaining' display up to watch the timecode wind down, but there was no change in numbers after recording was stopped. The camera did monitor the hard drive's status accurately. In the viewfinder (while the DV control is on) there was a readout between stopped status and recording status. So, I think it's safe to say they are talking, but just not very well. Anybody? -Austin

January 28th, 2006, 03:42 PM	#165
Shannon Rawls Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Los Angeles, California Posts: 853	The XL-H1 & the FS-4 Pro will communicate. The problem, and ONLY problem is there is not TIMECODE. Focus Enhancements need to implement HDV TIMECODE. Without proper timecode on the D.T.E., the Firestore FS-4 Pro is worthless in my opinon. - ShannonRawls.com __________________ Shannon W. Rawls ~ Motion Picture Producer & huge advocate of Digital Acquisition.