Barry Green
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5.0.4 has problems; try updating to the latest free update, 5.1.4.
Or if you want an effortless, crash-less, bug-free experience, get Raylight from http://www.dvfilm.com. It bypasses the import/conversion process entirely, letting you edit directly from the MXF files, and therefore any issues you have related to importing will simply disappear.
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It’s a well-known issue that’s been talked about and hashed to death. Yes we know it’s quite intermittent, etc., that’s made it hard to track down.
What we do know about it is: it only happens on Macs, it doesn’t affect the footage on the card, it isn’t precisely repeatable (i.e., glitched footage can be imported a second time and will either be glitch-free, or glitch in different places). And we *believe* it’s related to using an unprotected card in a Mac.
Panasonic and Apple both say that you should never put a card in a Mac without it being write-protected. They don’t explain why.
I don’t know quite what’s happening, but we think it’s related to how a Mac will write files to any new volume the first time that volume gets mounted (it writes at least a “trashes” and “recycled” directory to the card, and who knows what all else?) Perhaps somehow in that process, it does something or conflicts with something which introduces an instability in the handshaking? I don’t know.
What I do know is that we ran through something on the order of 2,000 cards’ worth of footage at the Iditarod, every one of them offloaded on Macs, with no dropouts whatsoever. But we strictly enforced the no-unprotected-cards rule.
Macs can be made to work, but the best I can tell you is this: there’s no way I would allow a card to be seen on a Mac without it being write-protected. Whatever it’s doing, it appears to prevent the problem. And both Panasonic and Apple have specified that you shouldn’t put a card in a Mac that’s unprotected.
As for Windows, Windows doesn’t need the cards to be protected. Windows (at least XP) doesn’t do any sort of intelligent mounting of drives, etc; there’s no directories written to a newly-mounted volume like the Mac does, so whatever the issue is, it doesn’t happen on Windows. Don’t know about Vista; Vista’s a lot more OSX-like so maybe Vista could have similar issues, but as far as WinXP goes I’ve offloaded hundreds, if not thousands, of cards and never had a single glitched frame. I still recommend write-protecting the card before getting it near the computer, but not for the same reason. There’s no reliability difference in transferring (between protected and not protected) on Windows, but it’s just good practice to have your full-of-footage card protected from user error until you’ve successfully archived the footage elsewhere.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
FCP, Avid, and EDIUS Broadcast all support DVCPRO50. Vegas and Premiere don’t.
All you really need is a codec and capture software; if your program doesn’t have the codec already you can download the Matrox codec. For capture software, Avid & FCP & EDIUS Broadcast all capture it; Premiere and Vegas won’t. For Premiere and Vegas you’d need to use something like DV Rack 2.0 HD (aka Adobe OnLocation).
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
The HDX900 can use an HD viewfinder (I believe the HPX500’s VF is SD) and it of course has a tape deck.
The HPX500 can do variable frame rates and standard-def, the HDX900 doesn’t do either.
The HDX900 is going to deliver a better picture, primarily less noise but maybe a tad sharper too.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
It’s now called Log & Transfer.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
The HDX900 has far more extensive menu controls and adjustability. They’re both 2/3″ cameras, with basically comparable sensitivity and sharpness. The difference is in the features and in the menu depth (plus the tape vs. p2, etc.)
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
Back up to a second hard disk. You should be able to execute copies to both hard disks simultaneously with little to no impact on speed (i.e., if it takes 4 minutes to copy a 4GB card to one drive, it should take like 4:15 to copy that same card simultaneously to two drives).
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
Yes. Don’t shoot 480/60i on an HVX.
Not being facetious, just calling it like it is. It’s a known issue. 480/24p looks fantastic, 480/30p is gorgeous, but 480/60i has a lot more stairstepping in it.
About the best you can do to minimize it is turn your detail level and v-detail-level down to -7.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
Of course it has a verify mode.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db) -
You could use that; I’ve got one. However, be aware that the battery is drained bone dry after only about 20GB of offloading. I find the product largely useless for offloading.
However, it’s one of only two battery-powered firewire enclosures that I know of. The other one is *much* better, much much much much much much better, insanely better. It’s the Nexto CF Ultra. It has internal battery capacity that supports offloading up to 40GB, and an included external battery that supports another 70GB, so you basically have enough battery to run 110GB of offloading. The Nexto also has USB and FireWire connections, and can be bus-powered from firewire (I don’t recall if it’s bus-powered with USB or not) and it also has an external DC battery input. And it has a little LCD readout and menu system if you want to use it for offloading compactflash cards — handy if you have a digital camera that uses CF. I find it appealing because it works well for the HVX/P2 offloading, but it’s also perfectly suited for use with a Red One when shooting CF.
The Nexto enclosure is a lot more expensive though — it’s $150.
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Get the most from your DVX camera. The DVX Book and DVX DVD are now available on ebay and at Amazon (https://www.fiftv.com/db)