Videoing HDV direct to a HardDiskDrive?

Has anyone come across a process of HD or HDV video capture direct to a HDD, effectively by-passing the tape phase?

Purpose I believe would be to avoid the high compression of HDV onto tape and subsequent editing issues (I know HD/HDV editing is a whole other area of angst)

I was just involved in a conversation with a colleague about this and he seemed to think this was the way to go, although he couldn't provide further details....

I know Plasma showrooms often have a DVI feed from a HiDef HDD server to show off their screens (thus convincing the public that DVDs would look that good!), but not sure if capture can be done the same way, or if there are smaller sized HDDs that would be more portable.

This may affect my choice of HDV/HD video source in due course. I'm investing in my editing capability up front (just got my QUAD G5 - sweet!) and will invest in a HD capable camera subsequently. Main objective is to eventually be able to produce HD-DVDs (or Blu-Ray DVDs) the most effective way. If I can bypass HDV tapes I'd be happy!

Most, if not all DV cameras (mine is a PD-150) output the compressed video through the Firewire port as well as writing it to tape. The compression process seems to be part of the CCD output rather that the tape write.

Someone was working on a true 4:4:4 direct output from the DVX100 a while back, but haven't heard lately.

I have experimented shooting a scene in my studio and capturing it via Capture Now, but you still get just DV.

I am hoping that the Panasonic AG-HVX200 is really all the camera that they claim. Using a PCMCIA card output to a disk capture unit will give you DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD capabilities.

John, Nick is referring to the new line of HDV cameras here I think, not a DV camera. Most of these cameras do provide a signal out of the camera via a component output before the DSP, which compresses it to mpeg 2 or HDV to fit it on the tape, which will allow you to capture to an external device. I'm not sure of the specs of the uncompressed footage but it will certainly be better than HDV. Anyway Nick here are a couple of articles on the subject.

[indiefilmlive.blogspot.com]
[www.cineform.com]

im shooting to a firestore fs4 (from an xl2) with no problems. but this is NOT going to solve the shortcommings of the HDV cameras. im told by the techie gurus here that the damage is done in the camera. and saving to a HDD isnt going to change that (or so we established here a few threads ago).

however, firestore is releasing i think its called a fx100 in march, that will be compatible with the hvx200 and will hold much more footage for fewer dollars than the p2 cards.

Wayne the HVX200 is NOT a HDV camera. It records in DVCPro HD. As for the HDV cameras doing "the damage" in camera, yes it is compressed by the DSP in the camera before printing to tape. The Canon XL-H1 for instance provides a HD-SDI output on a single BNC jack BEFORE the compression is applied to the signal, so therefore you could have a portable FCP rig and capture uncompressed HD from the XL-H1

This is excellent info, and exactly the thread I was hoping for, thanks guys.

I am not totally convinced about HDV because of the editing issues which is why I haven't made the investment in a camera yet. My ultimate goal is shoot HD material and burn HD DVDs (and possibly provide HD content to buyers in other formats eg tape). There are evidently other ways besides HDV to achieve this.

The Panasonic approach which avoids HDV altogether may be the way of the future, although the solid state chips seem incredibly expensive for short takes.

My challenge is going to be to get all this non-HDV equipment housed into an underwater case - with the commensurate size and budget issues. There is nothing on the market for the HVX200 yet. Amphibico have not mentioned anything, although Gates is apparently developing a housing for the HVX200 for shipment first quarter of 2006.

I'm going to continue to watch this space while I invest time and a little more money into my QUAD editing system - testing DVCPRO HD and HDV formats etc. It looks like there is still a long way to go at the semi-pro small-footprint level for HD cams, and any investment today at the leading edge may be hard to recoup later, especially if 'standards' change.

I'll stick to shooting DV meanwhile and wait out another 6 months or so - at least the DV NLE workflow is straigtforward, and very fast for me now!

frank, i never implied that the hvx was an hdv camera - i re-read my post and im not really sure where you got that impression...

im kinda curious about the uncompressed sdi out of the canon though, who the heck (other than in-studio settings) is going to have that kind of drive space in the field???

nick, if you do a search of the forum here, you will see that i as well am not convinced of the value of the hdv format. as far as im concerned it is of ZERO value to a multi-purpose filed shooter as there are a number of thinsg that the format just doesnt do well (and run and gun shooting is one of them). however, after having shot with the sony z1 and the jvc hd100 - EDITING in FCP was no problem at all (either native or with conversion software like hdvxdv or lumiere).

i was at a dealer in austin TX last week and he showed me some specs on the hvx200 and from what i read and what he told me about his experience with the camera, id bet on it being the pd170 of the lower end HD world.

Thanks Wayne, I've seen some of your comments re HDV, and am taking them on board. You are partly the reason for my reluctance

However, I'm glad that you have found that editing HDV was no issue in a suitably configured FCP system, because it is likely I'll be editing HDV in due course, even if it is not shot from my own cam.

I guess (now I've played more with FCP) that I can UP-RES any format to a broadcast quality HD format (with understood loss of some or a lot of quality depending on the source).

This is probably the start of another thread, but as long as my OUTPUT FORMAT is acceptable to broadcast and commercial operations, does it matter where the SOURCE comes from?

nope, not really... as long as your delivery format meets specs and is in the acceptable range on the scopes, everythinig should be fine

That's cool - I need to do some more research on acceptable commercial HD formats, but it seems that FCS can cope with just about everything - I really love this package.

Cheers, Nick

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Thanks Mike - I'll go to your website and look into this a little more. This is definitely along the lines that we were thinking of and looks well suited to land takes.

Now, maybe next you could come up with a smaller footprint device so we can stuff it into an underwater housing and run it on batteries