Maxell IVDR VC102 system

[Stephen Mann]

[Joe Mantaratz] “Has anyone used these hard drive recording system and NOT experienced frame drops in HD?”

I went tapeless with the Sony HVR-DR60 Hard Disk Recorder years ago and have never had a problem. And I’ll never go back to tape.

You might get more response to the question if the subject line wasn’t so cryptic.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Joe Mantaratz]

Changed the subject to try and be a bit clearer.

Been a long week of frustration trying to get the correct answers from Maxell and that did not happen so today no choice but to rent another company’s unit.

I’ve used a few others such as the one you suggested and they work fine I just prefer to use a HD based system for the obvious benefits. Some of my shoots are hours and swapping cards is not the best option for me.

Take a moment and Google the system and you wont find anything that supports their 3rd party solution. So I thought perhaps my go to source community might have had some experience or another Hard Drive based system suggestion.

Not happy about being an unpaid beta tester for yet another company.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Your HDR system Stephen is only for Sony products as no doubt you already know and I have an array of Cameras. But thanks for the mention anyway…

[Stephen Mann]

Your HDR system Stephen is only for Sony products as no doubt you already know and I have an array of Cameras. But thanks for the mention anyway…

The Sony HVR-DR60 Hard Disk Recorder may be designed for LANC control by Sony products, but it works on any camera that puts video on the FireWire port. You just have to manually start recording.

It sounds like the recording unit can’t keep up with the data from the camera (the classic description of dropped frames). Certainly an intolerable condition as it makes the unit less useful than a brick. At least you know when the brick isn’t recording.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Joe Mantaratz]

That is what I thought as well but the answer seems to lie elsewhere. Simple File Joiner as suggested by Maxell does work and recaptures the lost frames somehow but it requires long processing, which is a waste.

So not sure where the exact answer is here but will wait on Maxell Product support yet again.

Question? Don’t you lose the timecode with your unit if you do not utilize the record from the camera as opposed to the unit? Thought this was the case since TimeCode comes from the camera. (As I was told)

Thanks again

[Stephen Mann]

[Joe Mantaratz] ” Simple File Joiner as suggested by Maxell does work and recaptures the lost frames somehow but it requires long processing, which is a waste.”

I use the Record Unit Utility from Sony to get the HDV files from my record units. Since the hard drive unit is running Linux, the drive is formatted in FAT32, which is in 4GB chunks. I’ve never tried just copying the chunks from the drive, though I could. The Sony utility copies the HDV files and reassembles them int0 a single M2V files.

[Joe Mantaratz] “Question? Don’t you lose the timecode with your unit if you do not utilize the record from the camera as opposed to the unit? Thought this was the case since TimeCode comes from the camera. (As I was told)”

I’ve never paid attention to the camera timecode since my cameras have no way to jam timecode or synch during the shooting. I only have two or threee other camras to sync on the timeline, and PluralEyes does it very well.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com