FireStore 4HD and DVC30

Well I finally got the FS4D last night and got tooling around with it.. The docs, like everything else tell you how to make settings changes but it doesn't tell you which setting would work best for your useage. I tried experimenting with various settings and wasn't getting what I needed or expected.

One of the settings I wanted to find out about is the recording format. It gives you RAW DV, AV1, AV2 and 'something else' (going by memory here).

What I need to this out before making a review kinda of statement because when I plug the SF4 to the PC, I'm supposed to be able to edit from the device instead of importing the video to the PC HDD. Unfortunately, either by design or by wrong settings, the preview mode in Premier 6.5 isn't really usable, it's jerky and pulsing. smooth, slows, speeds up.. gah. So I'm hoping it's just because of the settings not being the right ones.

Not bad in concept.. hook it up to the camera, press a button, and it mimics what the camera does (record, pause). But because it works with FAT32 it breaks your video down to 2G portions but without frame drop or loss.

Is anyone here using this FS with their DVC30? or know where I can find more info? I could spend a week trying this or that but wouldn't mind someone helping out if they already have this figured out.

Cheers

I was highly considering a firestore but I never got around to really setting aside the money and buying it. I really like the idea and it saves you heads. To my understanding I thought when you record through the camcorder, you record to the firestore automatically and when you want to upload it to the computer you just plug it in via firewire and import it as raw files. Then you just load them into whatever program your using.

I still like shooting directly to tape. For one the tape is your one and only back-up. Second you have the correct recording date and time codes on the tape, where as uploading from hard drive to tape will not correctly record time and date stamp it to the recorded footage. Third DV tape is a very cost effective storage for 13GB or 1 hour of footage, your could backup to DVD-R but it's a slow process. Forth magnetic tape media is still considered the most reliable for long term storage as all large firms backup servers and desktops on magnetic tape media too.

But the tread is moving away from tape to reduce costs and increase profits. A flash interface is much cheaper and a tape drive.

...Angelo

I still love and use tape but Its nice at times to have the ability of firestore.

I was highly considering a firestore but I never got around to really setting aside the money and buying it. I really like the idea and it saves you heads. To my understanding I thought when you record through the camcorder, you record to the firestore automatically and when you want to upload it to the computer you just plug it in via firewire and import it as raw files. Then you just load them into whatever program your using.

You're supposed to be able to edit right from the device, as if it was an external HDD. But because it's a FAT32 file system, it only caps 2G files, but without losing any frames. When you edit these into your video editor, it works fine, you don't see any drops or misses, it's seamless. My issue was that when I did a preview with Premier 6.5, it wasn't smooth and it was jerky.. But when I saved the edited file to the PC HDD the end result was OK. But the preview was bad enough that you couldn't see it well enough to make proper cuts and splices.. Annoying.

I'm still playing around with it, searching other forums, looking for info.. The concept is excellent, I just have to set it up right.. ; )

I still love and use tape but Its nice at times to have the ability of firestore.

I will be shooting with tape in the camera and to the FireStore at the same time. The tape is my archival raw footage backup while the Firestore is the working copy of the same shoot. You're supposed to be able to shoot without tape if the camera supports it but I can't find the settings that might allow me to do that.

Can you image shooting only to Firestore and not realize the cable came undone?! ouch.. that would suck! But fortunately, the supplied FireWire cables have very good positive connectors to them.. nice.

If you are capturing to tape to to Firestore at the same time, does it continue to capture to Firestore when the tape runs out? Can you just pop in a new tape, while it continues seemlessly to Firestore??

If you are capturing to tape to to Firestore at the same time, does it continue to capture to Firestore when the tape runs out? Can you just pop in a new tape, while it continues seemlessly to Firestore??

I've been using for a little while now.. I seldom shoot over 50 minutes of video at a time so that issue doesn't come up often. I did try it to find out though. When the tape runs out the camera stops recording thus signalling the FS to stop recording to it's HDD. However, knowing I wanted to shoot longer than the standard 60 mins, I put in a sacrifice tape and set it to record in LP (the longer 90 min mode). I'm supposed to be able to record up to 3-4 hours on the device but haven't been anywhere close to 60 mins total one shoot yet.

For production work, I yank the tape out and rewind it for archives while copying the AVi from FS to my working HDD. The work flow process took me a little while to get used to but seems to work. I don't use it as often as I thought I would, nor does it fully work as seemlessly as I had thought it would. But it's probably just getting used to it. Hook it up to the camera, set the camera to record stand by and the FS to Synchro.. as soon as you press the record button on the camera, the FS starts recording. Keep in mind that it's all in 2 gig bits but without any frame losses between clips.

Its proving usefull.