FS4 / FS4 Pro HD various topics

[Frank Yap]

For a second time I have all the buttons on the FS-4 dieing on me. Once I couldn't bring up the FS-4 even connected to AC. Next while the FS-4 was on, sameting. Had to remove battery and start again.

[Matt McEwen]

Hi Frank,

Have you contacted Focus tech support? They can be contacted at support@focusinfo.com or at 408-370-9963.

Thanks,

Matt

[Ray Liffen]

Having captured nearly three hours at a shoot I needed to download to free up the FS-4 for the next job, so I hooked up the FS-4 to a standard 1394 input on the editing PC. The destination drive was an ATA133 160Gb Maxtor.

I did a 'copy and paste' and waited, and waited, . . . . . It must have taken about 6 hours to download three hours of files.

Is this normal?

Ray Liffen
Intec Services, UK

[Mark Geiser]

Ray..

Definately not.....I read somewhere that it is 4 to 5 times faster than real time. however, I just copied off 1GB and it took 30 seconds, so a full Fs4 (40gb) should take about 20 minutes give or take 5 minutes I guess.

Perhaps the issue is with the copy and paste function, try just dragging the folder off the FS4 onto your machine. As its going from one drive to another it should do a copy and not a move..

Mark

[Dan Euritt]

specifically, tapeless recording with the remote gpi trigger, camera on shoulder, which means that the fs-4 is mounted behind you, and you can't see it's display... how do you know that it's in record mode?

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks Matt,

I would like to remind our members that the FIRST step they should take with regard to solving technical issues with any of our manufacturing sponsors is to contact their Tech Support channel directly. Doing so will produce much faster results than posting on a message board. Message boards are best suited for answering pre-sales questions and discussing usability, and NOT for tech support problems. Hope this helps,

[Wayne Morris]

Matt, I was curious why the FS-4 is formatted using FAT32 and also why the rotation is only 5400. Are these two characteristics good enough for DV video capturing?

[Chris Hurd]

I'll let Matt handle the FAT32 question, but 4200rpm drive speeds are perfectly adequate for capturing (have done it myself with an FS-1 and a Lacie pocket drive at 4200rpm many times).

5400rpm is plenty of insurance for capture.

[Steve Hawley]

I don't have the technical answers, but I was hesitant with the format's restrictions when buying the FS-4s.

That said, I have three. They are FABULOUS! We shoot some long-form things which means lots of QT files to put on the computer. They (so far) have been flawless except for one thing that was totally my fault. I really like the idea of having multiple files instead of one long file so that if there's any problem, I only have a small time to capture off the backup tape instead of having to capture the whole shabang. (I'm talking several hours)

- Steve

p.s. - I wonder if it would be possible to have flash memory instead of a spinning HD.

[Matt McEwen]

Hi Wayne,

Chris is correct, 5400RPM as well as 4200RPM are more than adequate for recording DV. We use 5400RPM instead of 4200RPM mainly for performance reasons when the drive is being used for streaming clips directly in an NLE system's timeline...one of the advantages of DTE. The extra speed makes a difference when you are using multiple streams of video.

As for the FAT32 file format, it is used because of its universal compatibility on Mac and PC. The fact that you can connect the drive to a Mac or PC and use the clips on each, is a big plus. For instance, if I record Avid OMF clips, I can use them instantly on an Avid on a Mac or a PC.

Hope that helps,

Matt

[Matt McEwen]

What camcorder are you using? Some camcorders like the canon XL1s and XL2 provide the FireStore's status (Rec or Stop) in the viewfinder. Also, our DR-DV5000 offers extensive viewfinder feedback when used with the JVC GY-DV5000/-5001/-5100 camcorders.

Hope that helps.

Matt

[Matt McEwen]

Hi Ray,

Mark is correct, it should be fairly quick to copy files off of FS-4 to your computer...at least 3 times faster than real-time. It does depend on a lot of variables though (how many peripherals are on the FireWire bus, computer speed, drive speed, fragmentation etc.)

Hope that helps.

Matt

[Karl Heiner]

<<<-- Originally posted by Daniel Kohl : Hi Karl,

I don't think that you can record directly from the FS-4. You would have to go through your camera or a digital / analog video converter. But that shouldn't really be a problem since you can use the camera you captured to the FS-4 with, for this purpose (unless it doesn't have a DV in).

And you would need to use a firewire hub to split the signal if you want to do this directly over firewire to the VCR / DVD recorder. Otherwise you would have to record using the composite video signal coming out of the camera or A/D video converter.

I'm not sure that the degradation in video quality would be that noticeable though, going this route. (I know that I am going way out on a limb here) but the quality loss of VHS or the realtime coding of the DVD recorder would subjectively exceed the visible quality difference between the pure DV signal and the composite signal.

But that's just a guess. Someone would have to make real world test to make the comparison to confirm that. -->>>

hello daniel,

thanks for your advice. i am getting my new toy, vcr/ dvd bidirectional recorder incl firewire connections this week and the fs-4 on monday (b&h)
i am also in a theater (opera) on sunday for a live recording, but will not have the fs-4, so i guess i have to a little bit at home.

will post the result.

thanaks

greetings

[John Tagliarini]

Anyone,

I saw the list of compatible cameras for the fs-4 but the ad sounds like any dv camera with firewire will work. What about my low end, consumer, Canon zr25?

Thanks,
John

PS. I'm using LiquidEdition 5.5 on an AMD platform...any issues there I should be aware of? Like, is raw dv the same as native dv?

[Steven Wills]

What about the JVC DV-GY500?