Firewire out

[Noah Kadner]

Yes- this has been mentioned/confirmed quite a bit. In HD it’s also the only alternative to P2 recording. There is no DVCPRO50 or DVCPROHD to tape on the HVX200.

[Paul Ullah]

I have found some info on this but can’t find out why people want to do this. Don’t really see an advantage.

[Deleted User]

[paul ullah] “I have found some info on this but can’t find out why people want to do this. Don’t really see an advantage.”

One reason: $$$

There may be others.

All the best,

– Peter

Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!

[Paul Ullah]

I can’t imagine that it’s a quality issue but I could be wrong. Maybe it’s a way of avoiding wearing the heads?

[Noah Kadner]

There is no recording to the heads. In DVCPROHD and DVCPRO50 you can _only_ record to P2 or to hard drive with an HVX200. As P2 cards are very expensive and of limited capacity the hard drive becomes a more realistic option for long and inexpensive recording times. Hard drive recording quality is identical to P2. The HVX does not record to tape in the HiDef and DVCPRO50 modes because it would have created a more expensive tape unit that would not have fit into a prosumer shell. That is reserved for the VariCam.

Noah

[Deleted User]

[paul ullah] “I can’t imagine that it’s a quality issue but I could be wrong. Maybe it’s a way of avoiding wearing the heads?”

No, the quality of the recording on a harddisk drive based DVCPRO-HD system should be the same as on a P2 based system. And a HDD solution in much, much less expensive than P2 for the same recording capacity.

However, there are many advantages to the P2 approach, not the least of which (especially when compared to a HDD solution) is physical shock resistance. Even a well designed HDD device is sensitive to shock & vibration while in operation, whereas a P2 device is essentially immune to physical shock & vibration.

So, a HDD system might not actually record anything at all (because it failed completely) — or it may make an incomplete recording — due to getting knocked around, but a P2 system would probably work just fine.

Obviously a device which records without error is the one which produces the “best looking” video, yes?

All the best,

– Peter

Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!

[Paul Ullah]

…firewiring out to a deck but I didn’t really make it clear. That has helped a lot though. Thank you very much.

[Noah Kadner]

Sure you could Firewire DVCPROHD out to a 1200A but there’s something a bit off about running a $6,000 camera to a $25,000 deck. Better off just renting a VariCam.

Noah

[Toke]

If you have $31k you can buy hvx & deck, but no Varicam.

[Barry Green]

[Noah Kadner] “In HD it’s also the only alternative to P2 recording.”
Noah, I know what you meant, but I’d like to take a moment to point out that there are *many* alternatives to P2 recording. Not all are necessarily viable, but people should be aware of what’s possible.

First, anything that can capture the firewire stream can be used to record the straight DVCPRO-HD feed. That means you can plug in a DVCPRO-HD-aware FireStore hard disk recorder, or you could plug it into a computer and use HD Rack (my name for a forthcoming DVCPRO-HD-aware version of DV Rack). Or, a computer running Avid Express HD or Final Cut Pro HD. It’s possible that Canopus Edius will also support direct capture, but I don’t know for sure.

Or, as mentioned, you can also record straight to tape — you can plug the firewire output into an AJ-HD1200A firewire-enabled DVCPRO-HD deck and shoot straight to tape.

Any of those methods will let you capture the full, unmodified, native DVCPRO-HD signal at full resolution and full quality.

Also, there’s the potential of recording directly from the analog component outputs. You could plug into an HDCAM deck, for example. Or HD-D5. You could use an HD-SDI conversion and record uncompressed high-def on anything that has an HD-SDI input (a computer, a tape deck, a hard disk recorder, etc).

In other words, there are many ways that you’ll be able to record HD without ever going near a P2 card. I think they’re all much less practical and more limiting, but they are there.

—————–
Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available at https://www.dvxuser.com/articles/dvxbook/ and at Amazon (https://tinyurl.com/54u4a)