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Straight-to-MacBook Pro with HVX200
Hi! I’m relatively new to the HVX200. In a few months time I’m shooting a 24minute independent film on this camera and investing in P2 cards is not something my budget can handle. Yesterday I spoke to another filmmaker who told me about the direct-to-laptop route via firewire. Does anyone have any experience with this that they could share? Also it would be nice if you could post links to guides/other posts that discuss this topic. I’ve tried searching for it without results.
Regards,
Helge -
3 Replies
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Yes, it works. We bought ourselves an Acer Aspire laptop with a large screen, Duo Core CPU and installed a 7200 rpm drive plus HDV-Rack from Serious Magic (now owned by Adobe). Apart from being our field monitor with all the instruments you’d normally just have in a studio, it can record straight to disk.
But we use it as a backup only, I wouldn’t feel safe with this as the only recording device. Apart from seriously impeding your ability to move the camera around, what happens when your laptop has a hiccup or a even full crash?
If P2 cards are too expensive, get a FireStore.Regards,
Uli
Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.
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If you want to save a few beans you can do the same thing with the regular MacBook. I bought the white one with the 13″ screen just for this purpose. Although not necessary for the purpose, I replaced the standard 5300rpm drive with an aftermarket 7200rpm drive and put the 5300 into an outboard USB/Firewire enclosure that is powered by the bus.
It all works great and the MacBook with all the additional capabilities of a computer was only $1440 versus the Firestore at much more cost with only 60gb of storage and “single use” capability.Brian FitzGerald
FitzVideo.com -
I put a 7200 rpm Hitachi in a black MacBook, and can capture through FCP to the internal and a USB bus powered drive.
Everything but native formats.
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