OT: Portable Self-Powered HDV-Firewire Drives

Nathan_Shane wrote on 6/13/2007, 1:51 PM
Okay, I'm behind the times in not realizing that there are external, portable, self-powered (rechargable battery), firewire drives that can be used for recording HDV via firewire on the camera and not having to record to tape (or actually doing both at the same time).

I found a review of the Shining Technology CitiDISK which sells for $950.00. But that seems far too expensive. Are there any cheaper alternatives? Do any of you use a portable / battery powered drive for video capture? Or perhaps there are some home-made ideas that would work equally as well. I like the idea of recording straight to disk (outside of the camera and outside of a computer).

Comments

farss wrote on 6/13/2007, 2:30 PM
The Citidisk I've heard has many problems. The only unit we've found to work well is the Sony HVR DR60 but that's at least twice the price. You could look at the Firestore but I don't know where they're at with HDV. Still considerably more expensive than the CitiDisk.
john-beale wrote on 6/13/2007, 3:37 PM
So far, by far the cheapest direct-to-disc option is a cheap laptop with firewire port, plus HDVSplit software or equivalent. You would think a simple dedicated hard drive + DV/HDV firewire interface electronics would be cheaper, but so far, it is not.

I've been recording live with a laptop for a few years now. It works OK but it is annoying due to the setuptime required at each venue to make sure the laptop is working ok (so many things can go wrong with a Windows system). I'd love to get a dedicated HDV recorder but so far they're all too expensive IMHO.
rmack350 wrote on 6/13/2007, 5:53 PM
Usually these types of things run off embedded Linux so there's a bit of programming involved, and I supposed that electronics only really get cheap when you're making thousands and thousands of them.

Where these units should really pay off is in ingest time after the shoot. We had bid on a week-long conference a few years back that would have had 3 cameras running 8 hours a day for 5 days. There wasn't much editing in the job but the ingest time (120 hours!) was a killer. What's 120 hours of deck time worth?

Rob Mack
DJPadre wrote on 6/14/2007, 1:57 AM
i woudlnt touch an FS4 if my life depended on it..

back then there were 2 version.. the normal one and the pro, which captured in avid OMF format.. let me tell you that the $2500 for each of the 4 units we bought went back within a week...

Used on DVX100's PD170's and PDX10's these units were useless, unreliable and it was a saving grace that i thought to use tape as well "just in case"

The FS3 wiorks flawlessly with the DSR570 we had, and the unit itself was rock solid, drives were reliable and could even be upgraded as needed... sadly it was sold along iwth the camera, but unitl Focus get it right, i aint bothering with DTD recording...
Solid state is another issue so im holding my breath now for the XDCam EX... the HVX, as good as a camera that it is, jsut doesnt cut it for long form in regard to P2 cost vs size vs workflow