Direct to Hard Drive

[Jeremy]

Has anyone tried the direct-to-harddrive options that exist for the DVX100A, like Quickstream ? It's supposed to bypass the compression that needs to be done to get it onto a tape, and I know there's a SFX heavy ad house here in KC that uses it, but I haven't had a chance to ask about it.

 

Anyone have any experiences with it. Does it look any different?

[John Schlater II]

I don't have a Pana 100B yet but I do shoot Direct to Hard Drive from a GL2...I use a NNovia Quik Capture.

 

I think it works fine. We did have to send it in at one point to update the Firmware but I think it works very well. it saves me a lot of time by not neededing to swap tapes out after 60 minutes or capturing projects from tape. I can download clips quickly to the desktop, import them into Final Cut Pro and start editing right away. I think capturing Direct to HD is worth it weight in Gold.Final Cut warns me that the file type would need to be converted to a more useable form of DV through Media Manager but I never do and it still looks fine.

 

Hope this helps.

 

JB

[Preston Herrick]

Going direct to HD (I do it now somewhat indirectly via DVRack) will not circumvent compression. HD systems like Quickstream create a DV file ready for use in your NLE - which would have DV compression already applied. The data that goes to tape and what comes out of the firewire connection are the same.