Capture directly to Hard Drive?

"Log and Capture" would seem to allow me to capture directly from my HDV cameras using the "Capture [Now]" button. However this only works if there is a tape in the camera (else the capture only lasts for a fraction of a second).
Is it possible to capture from an HDV camera directly onto a Mac's hard drive, thus not having capture durations limited by the length of a video tape?

hbars, thanks for pointing out internal drive too slow and may drop frames. that is good to know.
i've previously captured direct to HD on a Dell laptop with a typical 7200 RPM internal drive. it may be my HDV does not have a particularly fast bitrate... it is still about 13 MB/sec of MPEG-2 (is only 720p).
since picking up a MacBook I'd like to try the exact same thing on the Mac. Sync may certainly be an issue, but I'm trying this because some live performances last longer than 60 (or 90) minutes. to switch tapes i lose coverage from this angle.
so I've found with a PC this approach seems to work, no lost frames, no sync issue. and I expect FCP can do it too, I just haven't found to proper settings. even if it drops frames and is out of sync, I would be very curious to see how many frames drop and how far out of sync things get.
if someone could verify that yes, they themselves have captured HDV from a camera direct to their Mac without using any tape then at least I'd know I'm not chasing the impossible.

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How can I capture live HD video direct to hard drive?

Hello,
My goal is to be able to capture 1080p video from a camcorder direct to the hard drive of a mac. Space is a concern, so ideally this would capture directly to a Mac Mini, but if the only option is to upgrade to a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro (for Thunderbolt), I may be able to work with that. What I know about so far are the offerings from Black Magic:
1) The H.264 pro recorder: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/h264prorecorder/
2) and the Ultra Studio 3D: http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrastudio3d/
With the first option, I'm worried about the quality. Ultra Studio 3D is very expensive ($1000) and would require upgrading to a MacBook Pro for Thunderbolt, but I'm open to that if it is the only way to get full 1080p quality.
I also have read about an app in the Firewire SDK called DHS cap. I haven't been able to try this since the cameras I have access do not have Firewire, but if people have had success with that, then I can purchase a camera that can connect through Firewire.
The last thing I've read about is Capture Magic HD. I would like to test this as well, but it appears the developers are out of business (their website is down), and i cannot find the software anywhere.
Any advice about the best way to go about this would be greatly appreciated. I've been googling away and searching forums for days now.

Really? You've never opened up the capture window?
Never since about CS2.
I have had a tapeless workflow for ever... so never had reason to even take a look at the Capture Window in later versions of Premiere.

Capturing Video Direct to hard drive with FCS

I am using a Canon HX A1 and I am wondering if there is any way of capturing video directly to a hard drive while shooting without using Adobe On Location. Does FC have any functionality in this area or is there any other MAC friendly apps that do this?

You can capture a live feed with FCE, FCP, QT Pro and several other applications. Connect your camera via Firewire, in FCP, set Device Control to ":Non-Controllable Device" and use Capture Now.
NOTE: whenever using a Canon device for capturing of any type, it would be best to make sure that the Canon device is on it's own Firewire bus. You can achieve this by adding a Firewire card (thereby creating a new FW bus) or by capturing only to an internal hard drive.
-DH

Capturing to External Hard Drive

I am editing my video on a MacBook Pro with a 120GB hard drive which is not anywhere near big enough. However I have an external hard drive that is 500GB that I am trying to capture the video to. I set it up in the Final Cut system preferences but when I go to capture now it says allocating disk space and then freezes. I think the problem is that I am connecting to the drive via USB as opposed to firewire. But if Im importing video at the same time through the only firewire port how do I avoid this? Thanks.

Re: External HD ports: eject the drive, power off, switch the cable to the adjacent port, power up the drive then see if the computer recognises the drive. If it does both ports work. If it doesn't...
If ports are okay (it seems cables are fine as both camera and drive are currently recognised via firewire aren't they?). Shutdown laptop. power everything off and then power all back on and then startup. Make sure camera is in right mode and startup FCE.
If that doesn't work just out of curiosity you could open up iMovie and see if your camera is recognised through the HD there.
You could try connecting the camera directly via firewire to the computer and reminding us that it works that way (you were using USB earlier were you not?)
Keep us posted.
(ps I'm off to bed!)
M.

Logging and capturing from a hard drive camera

I recently bought a jvc hard drive camera. It saves the video to 2 files a .mod file and a .moi file and when I try to use these in FCP it does not recognize these file types. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi:
Has your camera a firewire port? To use Log and Capture you must use such port. What model is it?
Alberto

Run GAME CD/DVD direct from hard drive

How do I load and run my kid's games directly from the hard drive on their MAC? My kids are young but pretty good with their MAC. However they are brutal on the CD/DVDs (scratch them, etc.) I would love to run the games from the hard drive via icon from desktop. Just like the game demos in the Apple store!
Thanks in advance!
Kevin
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

You can sometimes create an image with Disk Utility. But some games are copy protected preventing that. I found that to be the case with Simcity 4.
P.S. Mac is not an acronym. Please read this tip:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=503342&tstart=0

How do I create a folder directly on hard drive?

I recently installed Avid Media Composer on my iMac running 10.8.2 and I need to create a folder directly on the hard drive, not in Music or Documents or anything. I need it to be on the most superior level of the hard drive, if that makes sense. Thank you!

Open Finder and select the Macintosh HD link on the left hand side. On the right hand pane Right click and select New Folder. you can also do that from the File menu item or Shift+Command+n. Type in a name and hit the enter key.

Recording direct to hard drive.

Note: I did search the archives first.
How can I record video direct from a camera to the hard drive? I have both iMovie 08 and iMovie HD 06. Assuming that I can does a miniDV tape (in my case) still need to be used in the camera?
Thank you.

Hi Geoff - you will probably find that to establish the connection between your camera and iMovie, you will need to have a tape temporarily installed. Once connection has been made, the tape can be removed and the direct recording can then proceed.

Dropping frames capturing to external hard drive

When I attempt to capture video from my Powerbook G4 using my Lacie External drive as my Scratch Disk, I get the 'dropped frames' error message. However, when I capture through my IMac Desktop G5 onto the very same Lacie External drive I have no problems. Both the Powerbook G4 and the IMac Desktop G5 have about 20G of free space on each of their 80G Hard Drives. Any suggestions? Many Thanks!

There is a good chance that your problem is caused by
using the HD in USB 2 mode.
Most people consider USB 2 is unsuitable for video
editing.
DV needs a drive capable of a consistent high speed
that can only be provided by FW.
Although the claimed speeds of USB 2 appear to be as
high, they are not because they are the MAXIMUM
speeds achieved and are not sustained. In the real
world USB 2 is barely half the speed of FW.
When using your PowerBook you could try
daisy-chaining your camera to the HD to the computer
- by FW of course.
Ian.
Thanks! Great Advice!

Does Elements 9 or 10 allow direct to hard drive recording

Could someone please tell me if Premiere Elements 9 or 10 allows one to hook up a mini dv camera, such as a Canon GL2, and record direct to the hard drive of a Mac?
Thank you

If I understand what you are looking to do - real time recording to the computer's HDD, with a direct feed from the camera (not going to tape, or flash memory), then I think that you will need PrPro with the included OnLocation program.
Now, if I have misunderstood exactly what you want, please ignore the above suggestion.
Good luck,
Hunt

Capture to System Hard Drive

Hi all,
I've not visited this topic for many years so I thought I'd check back and get the general consensus at this time. Is it still not recommended to capture to the same hard drive that the system is run on?
Jared

Nothing has changed in that respect.

17" MacBook Pro freezes after Capture to external hard drive!!!!!! HELP!!

Ok, so i just got my new MacBook Pro and Final Cut Studio last week, and i was so excited, until this happened. I was trying to log and capture a clip to my 500GB LaCie Big Disk and everything seemed to be going fine until the clip got to the end of it's alloted time and then the computer just froze. When I closed the lid and let the laptop sleep and opened it again the clip is in place and everything seems fine. I tried capturing then w/ the LaCie plugged into the FW8oo port and my miniDV Deck plugged into the FW4oo, and it froze again after capture and then worked fine after closing the lid. Thinking I was crowding my Fire Wire bus I hooked up an external USB 2.0 drive and my deck to the fire wire , but the same thing happened. So then I tried capturing to my internal and it worked fine. I've captured to an external on my 17" iMac G5 w/ Final Cut HD for years and never had a problem. Any tips? This closing the lid thing just isn't going to work.
MacBook Pro 17" Mac OS X (10.4.6)

nope, david is right on the mark. powermacs with one firewire bus choke like this. i can't understand why apple continues to design with one firewire bus but i'm not a designer. anyone, ANYONE who uses firewire harddrives and firewire tape machines/cameras for editing NEEDS to invest in a seperate sort of firewire card (pick your flavor) and then we'd see this behavior go away. then there will be those that will whine "this never happened before!" it's happening now, firewire cards a cheap insurance against these issues.

Sound out of sync when capturing to External Hard Drive

I've been trying to capture my short film footage (5 - 60 min. mini dv tapes) on FCP without the audio getting WAY out of sync. All the footage is off. Any ideas? Here's some more info: I capture the whole 60 minutes of the tape at once. (And then I was gonna split it up later.) It all looks fine through the LCD monitor as it plays, but when I look at the footage after capturing, it's way off. I have a G-Raid, 500 gig ex. h/d that is empty. I have a PowerBook G4.
Can you capture it on your external h/d without this happening? Or do you have to capture on your internal? (which I believe, I don't have enough memory there.
Help, please, please, please.
- Michael

The best solution would be to use a DV capture utility and then import the resulting file(s) into final cut.
Aplle itself offers capture utilities, which can be found in the Developer Firewire SDK:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=305924
You need a free Developer account and to download the SDK there. After installation you will find a new folder on your harddrive called "Developer"
There are several capture utilities in the program section of the SDK. You want to use the one called "VirtualDV". It´s very simple, but powerful though. It does capture without sync loss, compared to capturing via the Quicktime framework, like Final Cut and iMovie do. It simply grabs the raw DV stream coming from the Firewire interface.
After the capturing you have a Quicktime readable raw DV file, which easily can be imported to be worked with in any DV capable software.

IMac Media Server, or External Hard Drive Connected to Airport Extreme?

I would like to create a central repository for all of my movies/music which I would like to stream to an apple tv. For now, it is all iTunes compatible stuff. At the same time, i want to be able to access those media files from my iPad, iPhone, and other Mac machines throughout my house.
I currently have an iMac that is not often used. I had an idea to use it as a media server through which I could stream all of my media to the apple tv. The plan would be to buy a 3 or 4 TB hard drive, and connect the hard drive directly to the iMac (ideally via firewire), and then upload all of my movies/music to the hard drive, while keeping the libraries intact on the iMac. In addition, I would like to keep the library on my MBP, but direct the hard drive to utilize the media files on that same hard drive (so, essentially, using one set of media files, in two iTunes libraries). This way (I'm thinking), I should be able to stream my media from either library on my Apple TV (but in reality, the media is all on the one hard drive) and to my iDevices in my home.
The other option I have come up with is to connect a hard drive on the network, directly to the airport extreme (probably via USB, unless someone knows of a GE drive that is not a pre-formatted NAS server). Then I would hope to link the media libraries on both computers through to the media files stored on the hard drive.
So the questions I have are:
Which is the better set up for home streaming? Will one be faster than the other?
Is there a better way of doing this?
If I downloaded the Plex Media server to the iMac in the first option, would I be able to access all of the media on my Smart TV w/o the Apple TV?
Thanks in advance for your input.

Which is the better set up for home streaming? Will one be faster than the other?
Both will be about the same. The issue I would be sure to look at is how well the external hard drive's wake from sleep mode works. It is annoying if the drive sometimes goes to sleep and will not wake up without you waking over to the computer.
The direct connect via firewire is a slightly faster more reliable option, but not really something you will notice given the ATV would only need a fraction of the bandwith either have.
The more important thing for performace woudl be to use eithernet instead of WiFi. You will make your life a lot easer if you do not try to do streaming HD video over WiFi.
If I downloaded the Plex Media server to the iMac in the first option, would I be able to access all of the media on my Smart TV w/o the Apple TV?
No. ATV can only see content that is in your local iTunes setup or in iCloud. So in of these setups you will need the content on these drives to be added to iTunes.

How to configure iPhoto in my setup with external hard drive

Hi there,
I've been digging around for answers but I'm still not clear on what the right path is.
I have a new MacBook Air. For the obvious reason (space) I don't want to keep my photos on it. I have a functioning MacBook with a dead backlit screen. I can run it easily with an extended monitor. I have a new 2 Terrabyte Seagate Go Flex Home external drive that is my Time Machine backup.
I'm thinking that I should be able to have all my photos on the external hard drive and access them from my MacBook Air. But I don't know what the "best" or "easiest" or good route is to follow.
1) Can I move the my current MacBook iphoto library to the external Seagate Go Flex HD? ? There's an issue of the right formatting, yes? How would I know?
2) Should I skip using Iphoto and simply store photos? I don't love that idea.
3) Should I keep my old photos on the MacBook and access them from my Macbook Air? I have a 500 gig drive on that machine. If so, I need to make sure it never goes to sleep, yes?
4) If I do that can I set up the Air so that the photos go tot he MacBook?
4) Macbook has iPhoto '08. The Air has iPhoto '11. Is that an issue?
Is this all easier than I'm thinking? Or is is complicated?
THanks for your help,

You can move your iPhoto library to any directly connected hard drive that is formatted Mac OS extended (Journaled)
You can NOT share a single volume between a Time Machine backup and any other dynamic files ike the iPhoto library - TM continues to fill the drive until it is full and at that time iPhoto would quit working
You can not share a library with different versions of iPhoto
IMHO using a MBP as the drive for a MBA wouod not work well and might cause problems
My suggestion is to move your liberary to a new external drive -
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
And create a new library on your MBA for protable use and for current photos and use iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - to move photos between the iPhoto library on the EHD and the MBA
LN

Capture directly to Hard Drive?

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