Record to memory card via firewire port?

[poflynn]

I seem to have bad luck with camcorders - I now have 3 broken miniDV camcorders. The things is, each of them has something broken relating to the tape, all of them can be connected to my PC and capture video just fine that way. It occurred to me this w/e that it would be awesome if I could attach a little board to them that has a firewire port & a memory card port or similar and then simply record the video that way and bypass the tape entirely. Ok, I highly doubt anything like this exists off the shelf but might be a nice little side project.

I'm sure there are a lot of folks out there who buy new camcorders simply because they are tired of dealing with tapes, the above might be a handy gadget...

Would this cost $100s? How small could it be? Thoughts?

Paul

[aedipuss]

no. DVavi can already be captured to a computer without a tape. just hook the cam up via firewire and start winDV. besides DVavi cams and format are long past their time. no new consumer ones are even sold.

[Cornucopia]

DV can still come in handy now and then. HD is not for everyone. It's certainly a LOT harder to edit than DV. And if you haven't upgraded your PC recently, you may not be able to handle HD, but you could handle DV. If it ain't broke...(although in this case, it IS broke).

Focus Enhancements (aka Focus Systems or Focus) has a whole series of Hard Drive or Flash Drive versions that do just what you're looking for. However, they're geared towards the pro market so they cost $$$. Website: http://www.focusinfo.com/

Scott

[poflynn]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough - I was thinking of some h/w that I can hook to my camcorder's firewire port that would allow me to record video to a memory card or similar. Then my 'dead' camcorders could still be used to video events etc. I think it's possible in theory to make something small enough to be portable etc but I guess nothing like that exists off the shelf and it's probably not practical to build yourself...

[edDV]

Maybe I wasn't clear enough - I was thinking of some h/w that I can hook to my camcorder's firewire port that would allow me to record video to a memory card or similar. Then my 'dead' camcorders could still be used to video events etc. I think it's possible in theory to make something small enough to be portable etc but I guess nothing like that exists off the shelf and it's probably not practical to build yourself...

Re-read Cornucopia.

A DV camcorder is a "dumb"ish device that can output a live DV stream (the pitcher) but the receiving device (the catcher) needs to be smart and control the capture. Normally this is a computer.

The Focus Firestore is such a device but reads the stream and records to hard drives not flash RAM. If you think you can reverse engineer or license the Focus code, you can build a similar device that records to flash RAM.

BTW, Sony also made similar devices.
Here is a more recent model that also records either DV or HDV.
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-HVRDR60/

A cheaper alternative is a laptop with an IEEE-1394 port. I do this frequently for long recordings direct to the laptop hard drive.

[Cornucopia]

edDV,
Focus has many models. The FS-H200, for example (http://www.focusinfo.com/fsh200.asp), IS a Flash device.

Scott

[edDV]

Those guys have been busy.

[poflynn]

Hmmm, good info, thanks folks. Apologies for the confusion; I posted these msgs last night after 4 days in the California wilderness (literally) and was pretty tired.

[magillagorilla]

Easy, just glue your MiniDV camcorder to a laptop with a firewire and SD port. You can use WinDV to capture directly to the SD drive. Problem solved.

Is your MiniDV some kind of top of the line model with killer optics? If not, spend $155 on a 3 generations old Standard Def camera which uses SD like this one http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLU-DCR-SX44-FB-R&cpc=SCH

[poflynn]

Thx - I think you're right, my lowly cameras aren't worth the investment. I could use a good quality IP camera tho, my next research project...