HARD DRIVE Support: This is huge

Aaron Koolen · April 19th, 2005, 03:19 PM

Ahh OK. I think I misread, I was reading it as "realtime" capture to HD.
That's still up in the air right?

Aaron

Barry Green · April 19th, 2005, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aaron Koolen

Ahh OK. I think I misread, I was reading it as "realtime" capture to HD.
That's still up in the air right?

There are conflicting reports on that. Noah talked to some engineers who apparently said that yes, it could capture directly to hard disk (unless I misunderstood his report). When I talked to the product manager, it was made clear that definitely it will be able to dub to hard disk, but as to whether it can capture directly to it, there are issues that need to be sorted out. They definitely know we want it, but it may not be practical to implement it. Fortunately for us, this is one of those areas where the long lead time before introduction may work in our (the consumer's) favor, as there's plenty of time to hopefully sort through the issues and come up with a rock-solid, reliable way to guarantee the footage.

Like someone else said, I'm sure there will be people who try to plug an ipod in there, and then when it only sort of works and mostly fails, they'll scream and cry (and I'm sure some will try to sue Panasonic over it). Even the FireStore only supports 40mbps sustained capture rates, so there are issues that need to be resolved. 3.5" drives can sustain the capture rates easily, but they're big and unwieldly and not designed for portability. So there are apparently a lot of issues, and some pretty smart engineers at work on the problem, so I'm hoping that it will indeed do direct capture to off-the-shelf USB hard disks, but at this time the reality is, that particular aspect can't be confirmed.

Jeff Patnaude · April 19th, 2005, 07:30 PM

Why hasn't Panny considered using the new blue ray DVD burner for a record medium? 23 gigs (and some change) on a Disc would be a lot cheaper than the flash cards.

Could it be that- the blue ray DVD is Sony technology, and they aren't sharing?

Or the data rate isnt fast enough for the camera (although some newer cameras -IMX etc. are using it).

With Moore's law and all, it'll be a long wait until I can afford those flash cards.

Jeff Patnaude

Barry Schmetter · April 19th, 2005, 07:32 PM

Just musing here, but if one of the issues is buffer overruns with slower hard drives, maybe they could utilize the the on-board SD card. The SD card is designed for storing scene files, but what if you loaded a 1GB or 2 GB SD card? It would be interesting if that SD memory could be used to buffer the datastream going to the hard drive. Of course the camera may already be hardwired so that's impossible, but that SD slot is sort of interesting to me.

Jeff Kilgroe · April 19th, 2005, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barry Schmetter

Just musing here, but if one of the issues is buffer overruns with slower hard drives, maybe they could utilize the the on-board SD card. The SD card is designed for storing scene files, but what if you loaded a 1GB or 2 GB SD card? It would be interesting if that SD memory could be used to buffer the datastream going to the hard drive. Of course the camera may already be hardwired so that's impossible, but that SD slot is sort of interesting to me.

No reason it couldn't record/buffer to the P2 card and then stream to the HDD. Seems like a natural extension given some of the other pre-record and loop record features already announced. IMO, if Panasonic chooses to not allow recording of the video to HDD (only the ability to offload P2 data to a drive), then it won't be for any real technical reasons, but rather for business motivated reasons on their end to satisfy their P2 push and/or their licensed partners bringing companion products.

Jack Barker · April 19th, 2005, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Kilgroe

No reason it couldn't record/buffer to the P2 card and then stream to the HDD.

Then that just makes the P2 card an expensive buffer and defeats the purpose of wanting to record to cheap, off the shelf, HDD's.

Jesse Bekas · April 20th, 2005, 12:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Barker

Then that just makes the P2 card an expensive buffer and defeats the purpose of wanting to record to cheap, off the shelf, HDD's.

Not necessarily. It would still eliminate off-loading time, allow you to only use (read: buy) one P2 card, and helps allow you to use the camera in long take scenarios such as performances, weddings, or documentary shooting.

Jack Barker · April 20th, 2005, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse Bekas

- If you need a hand wih a project in the NY/NJ area, email me!

BTW Jesse, I tried to email/IM you here, but you've got your accept emails turned off in the user CP. I was actually going to offer you my help.

Jesse Bekas · April 20th, 2005, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jack Barker

BTW Jesse, I tried to email/IM you here, but you've got your accept emails turned off in the user CP. I was actually going to offer you my help.

Yikes! I'll turn that on!

...my email is phatkodiak at aol.com

I'm free on the weekends right now, and my semester is over in 2 weeks (freeing up more days).

Guy Bruner · April 20th, 2005, 01:32 PM

I spoke to Jan at length yesterday about real time video streams over Firewire. She said they all would be present on Firewire and any capture app that supported DVCPROHD could capture the stream to hard disk. So, use of a laptop is a possibility. Focus Enhancements and Jan told me they were discussing a portable; however, the FS-4 drives don't have the horsepower yet to manage the data stream plus they would have to design the electronics to support the codec. Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap.

Kevin Dooley · April 20th, 2005, 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Bruner

Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap.

Which is why I've already emailed Focus Enhancements and told them my opinion... PLEASE SUPPORT IT!

Ashley Cooper · April 27th, 2005, 11:53 PM

"Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap."

Now that is nutty to me. Support for the JVC would be worth doing some research as it might be a harder sell. But EVERYONE is talking about the HVX200. This does not require research, they should be all over it. Even loyal Vegas users, who I'm one of and can attest to how aggresively loyal we can be, are all up in arms b/c Sony owns Vegas now and it's not clear if DVCPro HD is ever going to happen for us. Scores of Vegas users are now ready to jump ship to FCP to be able to use this camera. Never thought I'd see the day, but b/c Vegas is so in bed with HDV...

Michael Maier · April 28th, 2005, 03:38 AM

Why not just chnage to Avid Xpress Pro instead of FCP? At least they wouldn't need to change plataforms.

Peter Jefferson · April 28th, 2005, 06:00 AM

i dont understand what the panic is all about.. :(

eventually units like this

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

will come with PCMCIA adapters to plug straight into a laptop and run as an external drive, these same plug (adapated PCMCIA) , could theoretically be used as a mobile storage device.. personally id prefer to record to P2, and xfer to a lapto.. at least id be able to see my clips and make sure that i didnt have a HDD failure.. all these mobile HDD units seem to be having issues..

Ryan Marr · April 28th, 2005, 09:04 PM

PCMCIA to IDE adapters do exist, I dont see any reason why we couldn't trick the camera into thinking that a 250 gig ide/ata hard drive is a P2 card, they're both simple storage devices, the camera has firmware which is automating the file writing process to the P2 card.

April 19th, 2005, 03:19 PM	#61
Aaron Koolen Trustee Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 1,727	Ahh OK. I think I misread, I was reading it as "realtime" capture to HD. That's still up in the air right? Aaron __________________ My Website Meat Free Media

April 28th, 2005, 09:04 PM	#75
Ryan Marr Tourist Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 2	PCMCIA to IDE PCMCIA to IDE adapters do exist, I dont see any reason why we couldn't trick the camera into thinking that a 250 gig ide/ata hard drive is a P2 card, they're both simple storage devices, the camera has firmware which is automating the file writing process to the P2 card.

April 19th, 2005, 07:30 PM	#63
Jeff Patnaude Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Duluth, Georgia Posts: 248	Why hasn't Panny considered using the new blue ray DVD burner for a record medium? 23 gigs (and some change) on a Disc would be a lot cheaper than the flash cards. Could it be that- the blue ray DVD is Sony technology, and they aren't sharing? Or the data rate isnt fast enough for the camera (although some newer cameras -IMX etc. are using it). With Moore's law and all, it'll be a long wait until I can afford those flash cards. Jeff Patnaude

April 19th, 2005, 07:32 PM	#64
Barry Schmetter Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Washington DC Posts: 38	Just musing here, but if one of the issues is buffer overruns with slower hard drives, maybe they could utilize the the on-board SD card. The SD card is designed for storing scene files, but what if you loaded a 1GB or 2 GB SD card? It would be interesting if that SD memory could be used to buffer the datastream going to the hard drive. Of course the camera may already be hardwired so that's impossible, but that SD slot is sort of interesting to me.

April 20th, 2005, 01:32 PM	#70
Guy Bruner Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Ashford, AL Posts: 937	I spoke to Jan at length yesterday about real time video streams over Firewire. She said they all would be present on Firewire and any capture app that supported DVCPROHD could capture the stream to hard disk. So, use of a laptop is a possibility. Focus Enhancements and Jan told me they were discussing a portable; however, the FS-4 drives don't have the horsepower yet to manage the data stream plus they would have to design the electronics to support the codec. Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap.

April 27th, 2005, 11:53 PM	#72
Ashley Cooper Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Birmingham, AL Posts: 85	"Focus Enhancements is trying to gauge the market before they leap." Now that is nutty to me. Support for the JVC would be worth doing some research as it might be a harder sell. But EVERYONE is talking about the HVX200. This does not require research, they should be all over it. Even loyal Vegas users, who I'm one of and can attest to how aggresively loyal we can be, are all up in arms b/c Sony owns Vegas now and it's not clear if DVCPro HD is ever going to happen for us. Scores of Vegas users are now ready to jump ship to FCP to be able to use this camera. Never thought I'd see the day, but b/c Vegas is so in bed with HDV...

April 28th, 2005, 03:38 AM	#73
Michael Maier Trustee Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 1,269	Why not just chnage to Avid Xpress Pro instead of FCP? At least they wouldn't need to change plataforms.

April 28th, 2005, 06:00 AM	#74
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	i dont understand what the panic is all about.. :( eventually units like this http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....MEWA%3AIT&rd=1 will come with PCMCIA adapters to plug straight into a laptop and run as an external drive, these same plug (adapated PCMCIA) , could theoretically be used as a mobile storage device.. personally id prefer to record to P2, and xfer to a lapto.. at least id be able to see my clips and make sure that i didnt have a HDD failure.. all these mobile HDD units seem to be having issues..