Awesome news for canon users
 

Today at work I tried the memory card recording unit that ships with the Z7U on my canon A1 and it works perfectly! At every frame rate! Tapeless to compact flash was so awesome to use, you have no idea how happy I am.

I never for the life of me thought it would be Sony that delievered the perfect solution for tapeless capture to people that already owned cameras. I played back the footage in both mpeg streamclip and VLC and it was glorious.
The sony rep told me the HVR-MRC1 is gonna be available for sale (in canada) in a couple of months. I have no idea what the price is gonna be but I can't wait to buy it.

The only thing is obivously you need the a sony L battery to power it, but what the hell, beats buying a new cam.

I know I am being thick but would you mind explaining a little bit more about what this is eg will bolt onto the A1, what capacity does it have and how much does the media cost.

Actually, why are you so excited about it. Am I missing something?

that's nice, did you happen to hear a price on the standalone unit...affordability would make it even nicer!

tapeless to CF in a portable form factor is very good news indeed....

Upon doing some research, the only HDV format will be M2T which sucks for us Mac users.
http://www.dvwonline.com/content/view/615/646/
(See bottom of page)

Thanks for the news Evan. Saw that CF recorder last week and am very interested in it. Do you have to start and stop it manually, or does it sync to the XH-A1 record button?

Richard

Exactly why is the M2T file format a problem for Mac users?

-gb-

I too find this very interesting. If it's affordable, I'm probably going to get one. Now I'll need to stack up on 16 GB CF cards too. Oh, well. I can use them for my photography too. Wonder if it can handle larger capacities than 16 GB?

Going solid state has also a lot of disadvantages.

When filming on tape, you've got the perfect back-up, for once and forever. Whatever goes wrong during you're editing process, the tape is still there as fall back. Even AFTER YEARS !!!

It may be more expensive, but I still prefer to have "hard media" in place instead of files, wandering around on systems. One glitch destroys them all.

In a purely digital workflow, you have to rely on the back-ups of your system. Assuming you make them frequently - any back-up ANY backup might bring you something back you didn't expect.

Even tapeless, you're not going to work for free...how much is your Sont device costing? One high-spec 16GB card? How many will you need of them, to be safe?

You just made my day Evan! I wonder when and how much this unit will be available and go for.

FCP doesn't recognize M2T format. That's Premier.

I'm not a FCP user, so what do I know? :) But you might be able to either simply rename a m2t file to mpg... or use something like Streamclip to convert to a QT file or whatever.

True enough if the choice is one or the other.

But what sets using this device apart from such as an HVX200 or an EX1 is that you can have your cake and eat it, it's solid state (and cheap Compact Flash at that) *AND* tape recording at the same time. The tapeless recording may be much easier download and work with, the tape it's backup and archive for no extra work.

Can something like that be purchased seperatly? Or is it only included in the kit?

Hey Guys
If this can be purchase separately from the camera and the price is reasonable I be lining up to buy one too.

How did you connect it to the canon? Via Firewire?

Also what would happen if you call sony and asked to purchase the unit (as if u broke or lost your)

The unit connects to the back of the Z7 via a special plug that provides signal and power connections. If you want to use it with a different camera, there is also an adaptor plate which allows you to fit a Sony battery and a firewire cable.

I would expect Sony to make this available for purchase, otherwise there would have been no real need to make an adaptor plate for it. The question is - how much will they charge for it?

Richard

do you have any pictures of this?

Do you think you could post pictures of it attached to the XH A1 or at least hooked up to it?

No, I don't have one, I just saw it at the Z7 product launch. Maybe Evan can post something?

Richard

Here's the Z7 brochure, it has a small picture of the flash recording unit inside. Doesn't show a Canon XH-A1 though. :)

Richard

http://www.advance-pro.com/downloads...270_z7_m35.pdf

Yea I saw that. Do you think it supports 32gig CF cards? Cause that would make it 144mins of recording time.

On monday i will call sony and pretend like i lost the cf recorder and if i could buy another one and see what they say. Do you think sony will fall for it? Or just tell me they dont sell it...?

I can't imagine Sony would give a damn as to why you wanted to buy the unit.

But they would probably say that they couldn't be responsible for any problems you had hooking it to a different camera. And if it failed to work for any reason, they'd say it was your fault.

I also have a Sony HVR A1e, which has a bottom-loading cassette. That's a real pain - taking the camera off the tripod and then taking off the tripod plate just to change the tape, so this CF unit looks like a good idea for me to get anyway.

Edit - just had a closer read of that brochure - and on page 13 it says

The Memory Recording Unit can be used as an external recording
unit, just like the HVR-DR60, by attaching the supplied cradle that
has an i.LINK connector, battery attachment, and DC power
input. When the Memory Recording Unit is connected to a PC
via i.LINK, it is recognized as an external drive and can be used to
access files. When connected to a video device (such as a VTR or
NLE system) via i.LINK, it can be used to input/output a
HDV/DVCAM/DV stream.

Looks good?

Why Compact Flash instead of SD? SD memory seems to be cheaper. Are there any advantages to CF over SD?

On a practical note, in cold or damp weather, it's easier to handle the larger, more solid-feeling CF card than a small, fiddly SD one. In terms of quality and longevity, some say one is better, some say the other.

The fastest SD I've seen is 20MBs (such as Sandisk ExtremeIII), whereas CF seems to be available in much faster speeds, 40-45MBs or maybe higher. CF also seems to be generally available in larger sizes, and for professional use I agree with Annie - the size is easier to handle, and just seems more robust.

For small consumer cameras, SD makes a lot of sense though.

Anyone have any prices on this yet?

This thread went quiet all of a sudden. I was hoping to see some follow up on the Sony HVR-MRC1. If anybody has any news I would certainly love to know.

all the threads im intrested in do this =( maybe im cursed, i know it happened with this one and the image flip lcd for the A1!

Tried to look up this unit on Sony's site, but the information cannot be found. Maybe they pulled it?

Brian
Richard posted this link
http://www.advance-pro.com/downloads...270_z7_m35.pdf
and it has pictures and information. I email them early today hopefully they respond during this week, I let you know if I get any answer from them.

I don't know why everyone is getting all excited over this Sony unit. I'm quite sure other manufacturers will come out with their own CF unit that will most probably be less expensive than most all Sony overpriced stuff :)

Bill
I can speak for myself only. I want the convenience of tapeless, it will make my work flow faster without having to use my camera as a tape deck. Use tape only as a back up and also save the camera from all that unnecessary wear and tear.
I know someone else will eventually make a cheaper one, but by then I will most likely have a tapeless camera.

It's definitely a cool thing, but I'm wondering why this is such a big deal with 40GB, 60GB and 100GB FireStores readily available at good prices now. And you can record to tape and the FireStore at the same time.

?

From my point of view, it would be portability. A firestore is quite a large item when you're following wildlife into awkward places - especially places where I'm doing infra-red with my Sony A1. And as I'm often doing video stuff for research and survey rather than just for making films, it is useful to be able to look at specific clips quickly on a laptop rather than run the tape back and forth trying to find the right places.

Brandon I got to see one of these first hand last night at our Video Showcase, where a Sony rep had the Z7 camera and accessories.

The CF recording unit is so much smaller nad lighter than any hard drive based unit I have seen.

Also, the advantage of the CF card is that they are small and easy to swap out, even dump on a laptop (insert a USB care reader into your laptop and drag and drop) if you have one on site with you.

Here you simply need to sway out to a new card. Or get back to the office and dump your footage on your server or system to start editing immediately.

And a big thing for me with the CF cards compared to hard drives, is that there are no moving parts like a hard drive has. Which is better for all working environments.

Wait.
Are you guys saying this will work with an A1?
If you are...
(sound of celebrating)

very cool.


David

Found this review
 

about the device - of course it's connected to a Sony, but you get the idea...

Web-address for the review is http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hd...01/index2.html

and there's a picture of the beast.

Peter in Denmark

....................................

Z7/S270 offers two choices of recording media for 1440×1080 HDV. The familiar option is tape, MiniDV, or standard DV (S270 only). The unfamiliar option (unless you're a pro still photographer) is CompactFlash (CF). And here, the Z7/S270 platform veers into wholly new territory, because it records to CF cards using a detachable 4oz. module about the size of the original iPod that, like a mini external drive, is capable of independently downloading video files to an NLE via IEEE 1394. Actually, “deck” is the better analogy, because it has a full set of play and record buttons for independent playback and recording. Sony calls it the HVR-MRC1 memory recording unit (supplied only with the Z7 or S270).


HVR-MRC1 Memory Recording Unit at rear of HVR-Z7U.
There will be much digital ink spilled over this innovation, and I'll merely sketch its outlines here. The MRC1 piggybacks to the rear of the Z7 and attaches to the side of the S270 opposite the operator. To be precise, it docks to a multi-pin connector and powers up from the camcorder, making cables unnecessary. (When detached, it fits a cradle that accepts an InfoLithium L battery on its backside. Sony says the little F570 will run it for 6.5 hours; the fat F970, 20.5 hours.) A CF status check is available in the viewfinder of both camcorders.


When docked to the Z7 or S270, the MRC1 records in response to the camcorder's record start and stop, capturing the same audio/video signals and timecodes on tape and CF — if desired. Why qualify this statement? Because there is a matrix of choices. You can choose to record only tape. You can choose to record only CF, making the Z7/S270 a true tapeless camcorder. You can record to both, saving the tape for your archives and using the CF for transfer to your NLE. You can record HD to tape and, simultaneously, downconvert SD to CF. You can record in “relay mode” so that after tape runs out, recording to CF continues without a break. There are other permutations, too. Needless to say, these novel production and post opportunities require a thinking cap. Consider this: two “time remaining” warnings to wax anxious about while recording to two media with mismatched capacities. Dummies be warned.

Ah, yes, I had forgotten this advantage.

Interesting. I hope that either Canon comes out with something like this for the XH series of cameras or Sony comes out with something that will work with it.

Or, both! Competition is always good. :)

Michaels covered several advantages over the Firestore, but there are even more.

Power consumption - the Sony unit will run for hours off an Info-Lithium battery, the Firestore's quite power hungry.

Noise - when the Firestore warms up, it needs a fan to kick in to cool it, and this can be unacceptably noisy in a quiet location. The problem disappears with the Sony unit. (Cooling issues also mean vents in the Firestore, and potential problems for use in bad weather - again not an issue with the CF unit.)

Boot up time. The Firestore takes quite a long time from initial power up to "record ready". A lot of that is due to the use of a hard drive for recording, solid state significantly reduces boot up time.

Combined (as Michael has said) with the big size/weight advantage, and the ability to swap CF cards (so edit with card1 whilst the unit can still be recording with card 2), the unit has overwhelming advantages over a Firestore, whilst maintaining the tape/tapeless workflow possibilities.