Recording to the macbook pro

Hi all.

Hopefully this question won't appear dumb or make me seem lazy for not finding the answer elsewhere...however:

Is it possible to record straight from my DVX to my new macbook without recording to tape? (granted recording to tape is a good backup but im doing something in my home I don't want to waste my heads)...

Thanks!

Waste your tape heads? That is what the camera is designed for, recording to tape.

BUT...you can do this if you set your device control to UNCONTROLLED DEVICE. And it would be best to capture to an external firewire drive...which may prove difficult as the computer only has one FW port. You will have to daisy chain your drive and camera, and this very often causes dropped frames. Test the setup before you shoot for real.

Ill try that. I recorded (to tape as well) and then after a few seconds the computer says it reache d the end of the tape AND that the audio rate doesn't match....

non controlle ddevice worked..but i still get that audio error...

Just record to tape first. It's not worth the headache. Buying a camera and worrying about "wasting the (video) heads" is like buying a car and not driving it because you're worried about wearing the engine out.

I would normally completely agree with you. This is just a unique situation where I have to produce a lot of short videos in an extremely short amount of time and any time saving devices must be used...

Is that the client speaking? If so, you might just have to tell them that it's unrealistic, unwieldy and risky to try to capture and shoot at the same time. Having the camera interface with an editing program while it's shooting may cause problems on both the editing and shooting ends.

People want things faster and faster now, and there comes a point when we have to bring them back down onto Sanity Land. Hard.

<<< computer says it reache d the end of the tape>>>

If the computer knows where the end of the tape is, that means you didn't select "Uncontrolled Device" in the capture prefererences.

If you get video/audio errors, disconnect the FireWire drive and capture directly to the internal System Drive. That's how Apple intended it to work. You need to make very sure that drive never gets fuller than 80% or 90% or some very nasty and unstable things will start to happen.

Koz

I've done this for quick turn arounds (on older powerbook) and it worked fine with setting to DV/NonControlable device....and daisy chained devices.....it was a switched event where we tapped into pool feed....ran through a DV stand alone deck (one of the older panasonic decks) then firewire out of deck into portable hard drive daisy chained to computer and run through FCP. We needed to do a quick turn around for a news story...and this worked like a charm....problem is no time code reference to find things quickly...we solved that by setting a stopwatch when we started recording....since it generates 00:00:00 start timecode with non controlable device....we could find things quickly....and were ready to edit the instant the event was over.

Andy

Most LaCie drives also offer the "triple interface". I've had very good results recording from a GL-1(connected firewire) to a 60 Gb iPod (connected USB) on a PowerBook G4 12". If you have the option, why not give your USB the job of interfacing with the hard drive.

Alburn

If you're capturing at DV quality, USB ain't gonna swing it.

USB 2.0 is just as fast as Firwire 400 in bursts. DV only requires 25Mbs/sec. USB 2.0 can more than handle that.

If I could capture DV to my iPod with USB. You can do it with a faster hardrive for sure.

I was also able to play two streams of DV from the iPod. When I added a third I started getting dropped frames.



Post Edited (07-14-06 18:52)

USB will not sustain playback with multiple tracks. It may also fail during capture. The format is not supported by Apple for use with any of its video applications.



All the best,

Tom