HVX200 & Mac Combo - Who's Taking that Route?

[Sergio Perez]

I own a powermac g5 dual 2.7ghz. This still uses pci-x, doesn't it? So there's no way for me to go for the Kona 3, right? I also own a 1.65 ghz Powerbook. I'm currently having some problems with it, maybe because I've limewire instaled. My DV playback only works in "medium" quality setting in FCP. When I select "better, it struggles and I can't get realtime. The same can be said about dvcprohd footage that I've downloaded. The Powerbook is struggling to view those files in realtime.
Maybe this is a post for another category...

Anyway, just wanted to say I migrated from PC to Mac because of the HVX, too.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Rob McCardle

Hey guys - just my call on it and fwiw - don't be lured into the iMac - it always has been crippled for expansion.

atm - right now - the pb is it. <smack> I mean MacBook Pro or an "old" pb that still has fw 800 and pcmcia, or a G5 dualie or quad new or second hand.

I love the iMacs - great machines, great value - no good for us.
Ok for dv, you can get by with fw 400 and so are the iBooks - fine for dv.

For anything else other than dv - your goose is cooked and you cooked it.
NO EXPANSION ...

don't want to see you guys come over to the Mac and realise oopps, wrong choice ... that's an expensive introduction.

Because of MacBook lacking a PC-card slot, I looked into USB2 to PCcard reader, actually, I happened to have one by I/O Data, but it did not work with the Power Mac G5. I was going to recommend to buy MacBook anyway (anyway means wether you are going to wait for the desktop intelmac) so one can bring in contents from P2 card directly and quickly at site, but since I can't find USB2 to PCcard reader, it might not be a good idea. Idea on P2 card, should go directly to be transfered, so you would not waste time in copying....unless making copies assures the reasons for making duplicates for the safty reasons.

For now, I'm thinking the smallest powerbook g4 with card slot to take around. Because my powerbook g4 12 inch was not so usefull to take around since it does not have a card slot. So, I ended up just making the backups on my iPod.

My configuration would be upgraded to 15" Powerbook G4 with cardslot to take around with HVX200, PowerMac G5 Dual core with Kona 3 and Huge Fiber Raid. CinePorter or something similar for direct recording most of the time and one 8GB P2 card for quick transfering or testing purpose.

[Rob McCardle]

Hi Kaku -
I think that there will be pcmcia adapters for the express slot within a month or two as there will be pcmcia fw 800 adapters for the express slot.

But yeah - if you needed a Mac now, at this moment - it would be a hard choice - to say the least ... not so many options.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Rob McCardle

Hi Kaku -
I think that there will be pcmcia adapters for the express slot within a month or two as there will be pcmcia fw 800 adapters for the express slot.

But yeah - if you needed a Mac now, at this moment - it would be a hard choice - to say the least ... not so many options.

Rob,

Good, I did not have time to look around much, so nice to know that it is coming.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Originally Posted by Rob McCardle

Hey guys - just my call on it and fwiw - don't be lured into the iMac - it always has been crippled for expansion.

Good advice. Although, with the exception of the PC card slot (or Express34 on the MacBook), those systems are just as crippled for expansion. Depends on needs/uses too... I wouldn't be against buying a G5 iMac that can run FCP right now just to get up and running or even a Mac Mini for a real cheap solution. Expansion is a problem, but we're talking about using the iMac as a temporary solution... These are not expensive solutions and should retain their resale value to some degree. In my case, if I buy the iMac for a temporary fix, I can hand it down to my parents when I'm done with it. They need to replace their older computer anyway. :) I think an Intel iMac would be a better buy, even though it won't run FCP for another month or two. ...The new Intel systems seem more logical, just based on the thinking once a few more applications catch up to the new hardware, the G5 iMac's market value will land in the toilet. OTOH, buying a dual 2.7GHz G5 still may be the most sane choice. Sure, it will be superceded by the new Intel models sometime this year, but it will also be usable in itself for a couple years anyway.

[Rob McCardle]

2.7 or dp 2, 2.3, 2.5 refurb - would be a fair choice I think, Jeff. And yes, I think 1 or 2 years is a reasonable expectation for support ... more like 3 if the transition from OS 9 to X is anything to judge by.

Not to foretell doom but we are looking at new machines and a compile of the entire suite and OS ... Apple are good but any sane person would have to expect some teething issues.

From a productive standpoint some will choose to wait a while.
I could jump on the new stuff right now - but only because I've got backup systems.

edit: IMO, of course.
The only gotcha's I can see with a tower refurb is the additional investment in older tech - which may bite later on.
Don't under rate the current pb's as well - they offer the "middle of the road" approach.
Configure them with fw800 dual channel raid 0 and they can handle 720 easily, as well as easy p2 transfer and direct capture.
If you needed to buy RIGHT NOW it's tricky - I can sympathise.

[Jim Giberti]

I just think Mac has created a bit of a holding pattern for us...Man producers that is. And the same goes for my audio studio.

But the upside is that for so many users that want to jump on the new Intel wagon, there will be good deals on G5 towers and the 2.5 and 2.7 will make great HD FCP systems.

It seems logical to simply stay under the radar as far as the new Intel change over, cetainly no one wants to think about Rossetta in a professional environment.

I'd bet that we'll see the new Intel towers by this summer, but again, until all the supporting apps are as smooth as the current integration, why move. Especially if a last generation G5 will do everything you need.

As far as the iMac is concerned, I'd do the same thing. While expansion is a dead end, the fastest iMac is a very nice little system if you can live with a 20' monitor and the limited RAM. THey do in fact hold their value, and for someone just getting into Mac could be a good interim solution while waiting the next year for the Intel transition to be complete.

How many P2 cards are you guys getting and in what storage capacity?

What's your reasoning (if you don't mind me asking)?

I was thinking of one 4gig card, then I was thinking of two.

Now I'm thinking of 2 8gig cards because of the flexibility of shooting time that combo would allow. I'm still trying to decide though. And since I have time (since I don't know when I will actually take delivery of the HVX), I thought I'd see what everyone else was doing.

I have read in a few places and heard from the DVinfo.Net sponsor that I'm buying the camera from that the 8gig cards are sparse. If that's the case, I guess there's not much of a decision to make.

I look forward to hearing other opinions on this subject. Especially since the new Mac Laptop was introduced at MWSF and that is no longer an unknown factor. Thank you.

[Robert Lane]

Hi Derek,

I've selected (2) 8GB P2 cards to get the most un-interrupted shooting time possible. I would have preferred to use the Cineporter but it doesn't look like it's going to be available in time to use it for my project.

My workflow will be to fill up the P2 cards, transfer off to an external firewire drive, wipe the cards and keep shooting.

[Kaku Ito]

Originally Posted by Robert Lane

Hi Derek,

I've selected (2) 8GB P2 cards to get the most un-interrupted shooting time possible. I would have preferred to use the Cineporter but it doesn't look like it's going to be available in time to use it for my project.

My workflow will be to fill up the P2 cards, transfer off to an external firewire drive, wipe the cards and keep shooting.

Having 2 8GB P2 cards is great. Even after you get something like Cineporter, you have option to swap the cards.

[Kaku Ito]

I just began to process the 24p files to be real 24frame with the cinematool reverse telecine menu in the FCP5. It is very easy, just select the file and choose the menu. It converts the file to be real 24 frame. I believe this could be done with batch selection.

[Barry Green]

I'd recommend 4gb cards over 8gb if you can make it work. You definitely want more than one; I'd say two 4gb would be dramatically more useful than one 8gb. With just one card, as soon as it's full you have to shut down your production while offloading the contents. With two cards you can continue shooting while the other card is offloading. We did two days of dramatic narrative style shooting with just two 4gb cards and a laptop, and we never had to wait, the camera was always ready with a fresh card.

With just one card, I think you'll be not so happy.

As for pricing, 4gb's just make a lot more sense. At current pricing I think you can get two 4gb's and a P2 Store for less than the cost of two 8gb's. That's four times as much storage for less cash. Not that I'm necessarily recommending the P2 Store, but if I was considering the $10,000 pricetag of cam + 2 8gb's, I'd say the $9200 pricetag of the two 4gb's and the P2 Store is a much wiser way to spend the dough (plus it's less dough!)

There are two good cases to be made for going with the 8gb's. First, if you do long shots (maybe interviews) where you need to keep the camera rolling for a longer time, then yes the 8gb's make more sense than multiple 4gb's do. But, I'd say the FireStore would make more sense than either for that case, so...

The second case is in offloading to a firewire drive. Offloading to a firewire drive involves creating a new partition for each card, and the system limits you to 15 partitions. If you use the camera to control a firewire drive, it limits it to 15 partitions; so for 4gb cards, that means you can offload a max. of 60gb before it's done. With 8gb cards, presumably you could go to 120gb (I haven't tested that, I don't have any 8gb's, but it seems to make sense).

Of course, if you're using a laptop, these size restrictions go away, you can use the full capacity of terabyte drives if you want.

In short, the 4gb's provide much more storage for the dollar; I think you can get around six 4gb cards for the price of two 8gb's. I have two 4gb cards, and I think it's serviceable for any type of dramatic narrative production; obviously for other types of uses you may have to consider other alternatives.

[Steev Dinkins]

I waver back and forth on whether I should have purchased the HVX with (6) 4GB cards, but my order was placed and committed back in Oct. So, although the price is very steep, I had decided to go with the two 8GB card package.

My reasoning is, that it will be painful enough of a transition away from the 60 minute DV tape approach for me. And at 1080 res on the HVX200, we're talking *about* 4 minutes per 4GB card.

Documentary and run n' gun style eats time like crazy. With the two 8GB cards I can shoot 18 minutes worth of 1080 before offloading. Or per Barry's workflow suggestion, do the alternate card offload. So I could shoot 9 minutes worth on 1 card, remove, offload that, while shoooting 9 more on the other.

Finally, with 24PN, I like knowing the combined 16GB of the two cards will allow a little over 40 minutes of 720p recording without offload or card swap. Cut that in half for the 4GB cards.

So to save $$, and you don't need longer sustained recording, or no-offload-shooting style, I think the 4GB are definitely the way to go.

Maybe I'll buy some 4GB cards as well! :D :D

Originally Posted by Steev Dinkins

Finally, with 24PN, I like knowing the combined 16GB of the two cards will allow a little over 40 minutes of 720p recording without offload or card swap. Cut that in half for the 4GB cards.

That does look REALLY good. The 720/24pN is probably what I'll be doing most of my work in as well, and 40 minutes of shooting before having to do anything else is nice.

Another thing that I like about the 8GB cards is their long term usability. I know that none of us know the future of this technology, but I would imagine a year from now we'll be seeing 16GB (and higher) P2 cards become available and at the same time prices dropping. If that's the case, I don't know how many times you would reach for a 4GB card when you could use a 8GB or 16GB?

This forum is a great place to learn from others' experience and it sure does seem like in Kaku's experience of using the HVX in several settings, he likes the 8GB card(s).

Originally Posted by Kaku Ito

Having 2 8GB P2 cards is great. Even after you get something like Cineporter, you have option to swap the cards.

Then again, you have to remember that Barry's been using the HVX for probably the longest time of anyone here and he makes a good case for the 4GB cards as well. Decisions, decisions. (good ones though) :)