HVR-DR60: changing tapes

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I read the HVR-DR60 manual before purchasing the disk, and have a question I can't find the answer to in it: is it possible to record simultaneously to tape and DR60, and change tapes without disk recording interruption? I don't know if the tape door can be open, and the casette ejected, while the camera is in the REC mode...

Yes, there is the RELAY mode, but this is intented to just use the disk while changing tapes, and never actually record to both.

[Giroud Francois]

if you got a camera that is able to use the rec button independently of the tape (all pro models are like PD150, 170, DSR-300, Z1 etc...) the answer is yes. That means the rec button is functional even if no tape is in.
if the tape goes to the end , it does not send a stop signal to the harddisk.
or if you use the rec button on the hard disk.
this does not work with consumer model VX2000, 2100, FX1...
That was the way it worked on the previous model (DSR-DU1) and the way it is probably implemented on the new model.
Since you get the V1 and the disk is specially made for this cam, you get some feature not available on previous camera, so it should work fine.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Thanks for that, Giroud!

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

if you got a camera that is able to use the rec button independently of the tape (all pro models are like PD150, 170, DSR-300, Z1 etc...) the answer is yes. That means the rec button is functional even if no tape is in.
if the tape goes to the end , it does not send a stop signal to the harddisk.
or if you use the rec button on the hard disk.
this does not work with consumer model VX2000, 2100, FX1...
That was the way it worked on the previous model (DSR-DU1) and the way it is probably implemented on the new model.
Since you get the V1 and the disk is specially made for this cam, you get some feature not available on previous camera, so it should work fine.

I got my DR60 today. Fist off, it's indeed quite silent. However, I'm still uncertain about changing tapes while continuaosly recording to the drive. The manual doesn't say anything on this (except that in RELAY mode of V1, you can record to tape and when there's less than 5 mins left, the DR60 will start recording so that you can change tapes without loosing anything). With the new tape in, the drive will stop again.

Suppose Giroud is right saying that "if the tape goes to the end , it does not send a stop signal to the harddisk". So I assume I can change tapes with the disk still recording. But do I have to press the button for standby do do it? If I do, the disk will stop as well!

Further on this: suppose I want to change tapes before the current tape actually stops because of reaching the end; of course I cannot eject tapes without recording interruption! Again - once I go into standby, the disk also stops recording. So, it is not as simple as that...

I suppose that for uninterrupted disk recording and freely changing tapes, I should use the disk's own Record function (as opposed to the camera's record button), but I don't know how to do it and am afraid of experimenting, so would appreciate it if somebody gave me a hint. TIA!

[Bob Grant]

You'd have to use the units own record control and turn OFF Camlink.
I don't see how it could work any other way, if the unit is linked then either the Rec signal from the cam puts it into record or in Relay mode the EOT warning drives the unit into record while you change the tape.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Bob, basing on the manual (and the common sense), what you describe is the only way. I have yet to check if what Giroud said: "if the tape goes to the end , it does not send a stop signal to the harddisk" is true or not.

Theoretically, you don't need to press the camera rec button at the tape end - it just stops; but so does recording, so if the disk is in SYNCHRO mode, it probably will stop, as well. Then (provided the cam is on a tripod) it should be sufficient to press Camlink off and start recording on the disk alone (if something important is happening while changing tapes). With the new tape ready, the disk might need to be put into Camlink on mode again; then normal (SYNCHRO) recording to both media may be started in usual way (ie. from the camera).

I'd appreciate comments on this from anybody having experience with the DR60 unit.

[Wendell Alvero]

Hey Piotr, I hope this helps. I recently recorded a dance competition with the DR60 and I had it set to SYNCHRO (because I was also recording it to tape) when the tape ran out, it continued to record to the DR60 until I push the record button on the V1U to stop it. I inserted a new tape as the DR60 kept on recording, and when there was a break in between the dances, I proceeded to record to the new tape by pressing the REC button to stop it from recording to the DR60 first and then pressing it again to sync with the V1U. I hope this helped.

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Wendell Alvero

Hey Piotr, I hope this helps. I recently recorded a dance competition with the DR60 and I had it set to SYNCHRO (because I was also recording it to tape) when the tape ran out, it continued to record to the DR60 until I push the record button on the V1U to stop it. I inserted a new tape as the DR60 kept on recording, and when there was a break in between the dances, I proceeded to record to the new tape by pressing the REC button to stop it from recording to the DR60 first and then pressing it again to sync with the V1U. I hope this helped.

Thanks Wendell for that - looks like Giroud is right! So let me re-iterate, to make sure I got you correctly:

- I'm recording to both tape and DR60 in SYNCHRO mode
- at the tape end, the camera stops recording but the disk continues (that's what Giroud said, and nobody confirmed before Wendell)
- I'm changing tapes with the disk still recording
- at a convenient moment, I push the camera's REC button twice to re-synchronize, and continue with both media as before

Wendell, please confirm if I got you right!

[Wendell Alvero]

Yes, that's the way it worked for me:

- record in SYNCHRO mode
- at the end of the tape it will still record to DR60 until you stop it yourself.
- insert new tape and press camera's REC button twice to reconnect to DR60

Hope everything works out well for you! I was scared at first because I didn't know if it will still record to the DR60 while I changed tapes and this was my first event using the V1U and the DR60, but when I checked my footage during intermission, the DR60 had record everything else after the tape was full :)

[Piotr Wozniacki]

I'd appreciate some feedback from DR60 users on the transfer rates they achieve when copying files from the unit to their computers' hard drives. Myself, I barely can go down to some 50% of the real time capture speed, which is quite slow. I'm not sure whether I should blame the DR60 speed, or my firewire speed. For instance, a 1.2 GB m2t file takes some 3 mins to copy!

What are your speeds?

[Giroud Francois]

that was the speed of the old DSR-DU1.
Seems sony pack an old stuff into new box ?

[Piotr Wozniacki]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

that was the speed of the old DSR-DU1.
Seems sony pack an old stuff into new box ?

Yeah, I just found that in the DSR-DU1's specs (up to twice real-time)... The DR60 manual doesn't say anything about the speed. In theory, the i-Link (400 Mbps) speed should be available, but obviously is not. Does anyone know how other similrar solution (eg. FireStore) compare?

[Chris Medico]

I've found on my DR60 that copying speed is MUCH faster then injest speed.

If I injest directly into Liquid from the DR60 then its pretty slow (only about 3x real time). If I just copy it onto another drive its much faster.

As an example I copied about 3hrs of video onto an external USB RAID0 drive using my laptop in about 30 minutes.

Since Liquid does some examination of the files beyond just copying them over to the media drive, I expected the lower performance. If I'm downloading a LOT of video I first just copy the drive using the laptop onto the external drive then injest it later when I have some time on the desktop. This way I can send the DR60 back out to capture more video.

I also have some of the nNovia A2D mediapak setups. They are significantly faster than the DR60. I can download the 80gig drive in just a few minutes. Totally different class of drive though and the big difference should be expected between them.

On a side note.. Now that Toshiba has gotten the 1.8" drive to 100gig, increased performance, AND reduced the power requirement at the same time.. Who wants to be the first to hack into their DR60?

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/05/...es_hit_100_gb/

Chris

[Piotr Wozniacki]

CHris, if your information is correct, it means something is wrong with my firewire. I have a pretty fast PC, with two RAID 0's inside; a copy of a 1 GB file from one to the other is a blast, while the same file copied (not ingested with NLE) from DR60 takes 3 mins! Before I start checking my port, could you please confirm?

[Chris Medico]

Originally Posted by Piotr Wozniacki

CHris, if your information is correct, it means something is wrong with my firewire. I have a pretty fast PC, with two RAID 0's inside; a copy of a 1 GB file from one to the other is a blast, while the same file copied (not ingested with NLE) from DR60 takes 3 mins! Before I start checking my port, could you please confirm?

3min/gig. That is pretty slow. Mine is for sure faster. Hell, my 2gig USB flash card is faster than that.

It might not be the DR60 that is at complete fault. My desktop is slower than my laptop in transferring files with the DR60. Neither is as slow as you report though. I've been looking into the problem and it seems like there is some issues with the DR60 and some IEEE ports. I don't have enough info yet to say why. I am studying the problem on my end. I'm going to get an aftermarket IEEE card and see if that changes anything.

One thing I can tell you from recent personal experience is Sony has no idea what is causing the speed issues. They would neither confirm or deny there were others with slow connections. Now that I see what you have posted I suspect there are others having this problem too.

The nNovia drives are equally fast desktop or laptop.

Chris