Another Direct-to-Harddisk solution...
 

Just found the press release, even though it's a bit old already. You can find it at

http://www.adstech.com/media/mediafiles/PR_PYRODVDrive.htm

Size (about the size of a PDA) and price ($499US) look very interesting. Of course, you don't get all the controls that the Videonics Firestore offers, just a record start/stop button, but it looks like a great product anyway. 20Gb of 2.5" notebook harddisk should be enough for about 95 minutes of DV, and maybe you can even stick your own, higher capacity, HD in there.

I will enquire at my local shop if they will get any in for testing. Looks like this may even work with the non-S XL-1 as the start-stop happens at the disk side, not the camera.

If anyone can shed some more light on this product, I would be very greatful.

Cheerio,

Kai.

I haven't logged onto the ADS site recently, but the last I checked they still didn't have the product in that news release for sale.

Sony announced what sounded like an even better solution than ADS (I believe they announced it at the NAB), but they, too, have not yet made the product available. You might be able to log onto the Sony site and search their news releases for their product. It was released about the same time as the ADS news release.

I think the sony is in the "pro" line. i.e. not $, but $$$

It will be the standard to beat, though. If it had a minimonitor, I'd be there. I love my little D8 Walkman!

jepp it's Sony's DSR-DU1. Seems to be quite flexible piece of equipment. Recording time 3hrs. They said price in Europe will be under 3 000 Euros, availability somewhere in autumn.