[Matthew Romanis]

Hi Michael,
The HVX Can apparently control a 1394 Firewire drive for file copying purpose’s only. It can not use it as a surrogate live record drive, without the host control of something like a Firestore. From what I know of ipod, it uses a USB connection and thus cannot be controlled by the HVX. To use it as a file store you would still need to use a laptop as an intermediary. The write speed to ipod is quite slow compared to other dedicated storage devices.
I don’t know yet if the firewire capabilities from the HVX include powering the smaller 40-80g drives through the firewire cable. I have a couple of CUTIE drives from SAROTECH that would be great for for this purpose, if the HVX provided power through the 1394 cable.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hi John,
The original question is about HD-SDI out of the camera though. Have you seen embedded TC in that output? If it is there do you know a way to get it to RS 422. In the PRO 50 world I have seen it pass through a VTR but delay was introduced as the signal came out on RS 422, and sometimes it refused to cycle.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hi Barry,
Can you direct me to weight and dimension info on the HVX. All the info I have, white paper, PDF brochure, and relative doc’s do not specify any specs such as these.
I have made the assumption that the camera is a bit on the large size in comparison by looking at the brochure shots with hands and recognisable tripods in the same frame, not exactly technical I know but that’s all we have to work with here in Australia. Some of my colleagues jokingly refer to the HVX 200 at the moment as “Vapour-ware”.
It’s going to be good to eventually see one of the six engineering models doing the world tour appear down here. I simply couldn’t justify a $2500.00 (AUD) airfare to go and sample it at IBC.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hello fellow Matt,
Re the 8-bit -10-bit argument, people will always say bigger is better, and most times they are right. In the automotive industry they say there is no substitute for cubic inches, mind you engineers with turbo chargers, multi valve heads, and variable compression have shown you can make a convincing argument against.
If anything there may be a little banding with 8-bit if the green is very flat, but that is the layer that will get replaced and the banding represents a very low threshold to most keyers. If you have the space go for 10 bit.
I remember seeing a rack mount device from Sony some years ago that translated the audio type TC signal VCR’s and Cameras produce into RS 422 data. Some one here may know what that device is called. Something like this would allow you to simply roll the camera and know that time-code is going to your NLE. I don’t know if there is a delay or not, and if there would be any loss of the flagged frame info, though with some recent tests I have done with a 1200a, I’m not sure if the card is actually looking for flagged frames or if it is working on a set algorithm that pulls out the order of frames to make the 24-fps capture. If it is the latter it would mean the card always has to start the process on the 0 frame of every second.
It’s very important you do some tests before shooting, the info that you read here on cow will get you off in the right direction.

[Matthew Romanis]

I agree that external expansion is a good option, but I have just come back from a 6hr shoot reality Tv style where I was using my 709 D’Beta on my shoulderfor almost all that time, it sure hurts now. Just thinking about using the HVX with an additional device on it without a shoulder mount, well my wrist and elbow have just left the room!!! The camera is already rather large in comparison to Z-1 and such, though I believe Canon HD XL will big too.
Re the CF card comparison, data rate is going to be the factor that dictates size. The fact that the P2 card is 8G and has the data rate to handle HD100 already makes it 6 times the 4g CF card for data transfer rates. You’re right though, it’s not all about armour, it’s about making the data pipe bigger.
With all this doubt around though, I am still extremely keen to get my hands on the HVX and explore all the possible options for archiving, file transferring, and transport for rental customers.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hello fellow Matt,
Just a correction to what I posted above. You can use the 10bit capture option as long as the HD-SDI PB/EE switch in the audio panel is set to provide the 10 bit stream from the camera head.

[Matthew Romanis]

Hello fellow Matt,
I haven’t seem results from the test yet as the client took the drive away to their own facility, but I believe it is all well.
The HD-SDI signal does not embed TC, and I can’t answer about the audio from the camera as it was not in our test protocol. If you are using FCP for ingest you will need to disable the default 12 channel audio setting in capture as this results in renders. 4 channel seems to work OK.
In our case, because we use the Black magic card the codec for the 25/24 settings is looking for the 25/24 flagged frames in the 60fps stream. So yes, with the correct equipment and settings the footage will be 24fps. If you are using Black Magic HD the new drivers have dedicated Varicam setups, you would need the 720p@24fps 8 bit setting. It will pull out of the 60fps stream the 24 flagged frames for each second, thus giving you the 720p@24fps look you are after.
By the way are you using a true 24fps time line or an NTSC derived one at 23.97fps?

[Matthew Romanis]

There is always an upper limit to storage before the hardware itself needs to altered to accommadate the new storage parameters. Some times these changes to hardware result in new reader/writers having to be used, eg DVD-R to DVD+r and DVD rw, then dual layer.
64g out of current cards may be improbable.
I guess the question that needs to be asked of the Camera manufacturers is that now they are making devices along the same lines as the IT industry, are they going to make it as simple to embrace new technology by making the current drives and devices swappable? Will I be able at some future date tale the P2 drive out of the camera and replace it with a P3 unit ? (???doesn’t exist, but for example).
My guess, through 20 years of experience with broadcast manufacturers and how they engineer products, is no.
To their credit the products don’t crash, and rarely have bugs.

[Matthew Romanis]

We recently did a test for the same reason, and yes it works but you must use the 8bit capture setting, and only the HD-SDI on the side of the camera offered a usable signal.

[Matthew Romanis]

In addition to the post above, the same card in the 1200 does the same job for 24fps down conversion. In a test I did last night I had the Varicam set to flag all frames for shooting at 60 fps, setting the 1200 to 25sd or 24 sd down conversion with this footage resulted in true 25fps or 24fps SD capture into FCP through the BM card even though the Varicam is flagging all 60 frames for 60fps playback. This is all with the 1200 system frequency set to 60/24 hz and setting the system replay to either 25sd or 24sd depending on what setting I’m capturing with in FCP.
In the next week I intend to see if recording material back onto the 1200a in 720@60p and then turning that vision back around through the SD down converter results in usable 25/24fps SD footage.