Recording video to iPod in real time

[cwright]

I'm shooting video of a high school musical this weekend and would like to record directly to hard drives rather than tapes to save time logging video and re-synching audio.

I have access to a powerbook but it doesnt have enough hard drive space. However, I have a 30GB iPod video that I'd like to record to. Since firewire has a higher sustained transfer rate, can I use my old firewire cable from my 3G ipod with the new one and record video to the iPod in real time from the camera?

I would need to record for 2–2.5 hours straight. Has anyone successfully done this?

 

[26139]

Nope

Can't be done...iPod's hard drive is waaaaay too slow.

 

[cwright]

Hmm, yea thats what I figured.

What about a 7200rpm IDE Hard Drive in a Firewire drive enclosure connected to the Powerbook?

 

[26139]

Hmmm...

That could work, but only if you have two dedicated firewire ports (ie, no daisy chaining). You will get frame drops everywhere if not.

 

[cwright]

I forgot about the powerbook only having 1 firewire port... so yea it would have to daisy chain.

What If I used a USB 2 hard drive... Firewire from the camera into the Powerbook and then USB 2 our to the hard drive... do you think that would support video capture without dropouts?

EDIT: scratch that, I'll plan on buying a Lacie triple interface drive, and go MiniDV to PB through FW400 and then out to the Hard Drive via FW800. I would need to order the drive tonight, so I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm that this does, in fact, work. Thanks!

 

[pdpfilms]

EDIT: scratch that, I'll plan on buying a Lacie triple interface drive, and go MiniDV to PB through FW400 and then out to the Hard Drive via FW800. I would need to order the drive tonight, so I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm that this does, in fact, work. Thanks!

before you purchase, get someone to verify that you can record directly to non-specialized disk, and using what app. I've heard of specialized HDD's that are made specifically for live recording via firewire, but were much more expensive. My guess is that they were much more expensive for a reason.... a reason that traditional firewire HDD's lack.

 

[cwright]

before you purchase, get someone to verify that you can record directly to non-specialized disk, and using what app. I've heard of specialized HDD's that are made specifically for live recording via firewire, but were much more expensive. My guess is that they were much more expensive for a reason.... a reason that traditional firewire HDD's lack.

Well I know it works... I just wanted to make sure that I wont have any dropouts due to lack of bandwith.
Yes the harddrives that record directly from the camera without a computer are very expensive, but all I'm doing is setting up an iMovie project that's saved on the external drive, and then using that iMovie project to capture in real time from the camera to the external drive. I've done this before, but so far I've only used the internal drive to record to.

 

[Rod Rod]

What you're talking about will work even with daisy chaining.

I've done it with my 12" PowerBook, connected to a Canon XL1s and an external FW hard drive, recording inside of Final Cut Pro using "capture now."

I haven't experimented with iMovie's equivalent of "capture now," but it seems that you have, so you won't have any problems with dropouts or anything.

The reason that direct-to-disk hard drive recorders are so expensive is mostly because they're so specialized, and you're paying for the convenience of not having a computer attached to the camera. If you've got a fixed camera position and power outlets available, there's no reason to waste your money on a Firestore or QuicktStream DV.

Back to the original question, not only is the iPod's hard drive too slow, but the current iPods (with video) can't get any data through FireWire.

 

[Kingsly]

It works with daisy chaining? Yay! No more log and capture!

 

[cwright]

What you're talking about will work even with daisy chaining.

Thanks for the confirmation.

And yea, I always use iMovie to capture since the laptops I'm using to capture video aren't mine and don't have FCP installed. It still captures DV clips just fine though, and I just drop them in to Final Cut later.

Nice to know it works through daisy chaining too. I bought a Lacie Triple-Interface with Firewire 800 anyway just to have extra options and I might as well make use of the FW800 port on my G5.

 

[Rod Rod]

daisy chaining

Kingsly, cwright, you're welcome.

I've had no dropped frames or any other problems in daisy chaining. FW400 has plenty of headroom left over even with daisy chaining a hard drive and a camera.

 

[redAPPLE]

That could work, but only if you have two dedicated firewire ports (ie, no daisy chaining). You will get frame drops everywhere if not.

how about using firewire hubs?

 

[Kelvin]

Direct to disk

Direct to disk dv firewire drives have been around for a while now. Don't waste your time with daisychain-1394 or USB2. The bandwidth for those setups is way too low.

 

[Rod Rod]

Direct to disk dv firewire drives have been around for a while now. Don't waste your time with daisychain-1394 or USB2. The bandwidth for those setups is way too low.

Okay, since other people's practical experience hasn't convinced you, let's do some math.

FW400 = 400mbps
a DV stream = 25mpbs

There's more than enough bandwidth to handle a DV stream going one way and the same stream being written to disk the other way.

If that doesn't convince you, I suggest you try it yourself.

 

[notjustjay]

Okay, since other people's practical experience hasn't convinced you, let's do some math.

FW400 = 400mbps
a DV stream = 25mpbs

There's more than enough bandwidth to handle a DV stream going one way and the same stream being written to disk the other way.

If that doesn't convince you, I suggest you try it yourself.

Right. But that's a sustained 25 mbps. I know for sure, for example, that my external USB2 drive (which was theoretically spec'd at 480 mbps), had lots of difficulty keeping up with my editing. I finally gave up and replaced it with an external Firewire enclosure, and it seems to work much better. The daisy-chaining works fine, by the way.

 

[Rod Rod]

Yup. For sustained data transfer and all around video (and I suppose audio) editing purposes FireWire is better than USB because FireWire doesn't tax your CPU resources whereas USB does.

 

[Laser47]

I just watched the new episode of indigital where they had coverage of CES and one of the products they were showing was a product where you plug the ipod into the back of the device and you could record video to it in real time.
Heres the link http://www.atollc.com/
At which quality it records the video in is unknown to me though.