Feb. 17, 2006 - Using the FS-4 Firestore
At NAB 2005, my dad and I got two FS-4 Firestore units from Focus Enhancements for our production company, Lawrence Multimedia. The Firestores are basically 40GB hard drives that you hook up to your camera and record your video onto. You then hook up the unit to your computer, copy the files onto your main hard drive, and start editing, bypassing the capture process, and saving your camera or capture deck from excessive wear. The FS-4’s have a 40GB, or three hours of video, capacity, and the FS-4 Pro units have an 80GB, or six hour, capacity.
After getting the Firestores, we did video coverage for an entrepreneur conference in
When we got home, we looked over the Firestores and tried to figure out what happened. In order to record, you press the record button on the FS-4 once to enter “Record-Pause” mode. You then press the record button again to begin recording. Well, when we did this, the record symbol showed up on the screen of the unit, but the timecode indicator remained at 00:00:00;00! After seeing that nothing happened, we resolved to call Focus Enhancement’s tech support and see what was wrong. Unfortunately, we are terrible procrastinators, so it never got done. A few weeks later, we tried again, and lo and behold, the units worked! We figured it must have been a momentary glitch. So we took the XL2 and the Firestores to a family reunion and tried to use them there, but suddenly, we had the same problem as before: the units wouldn’t record! WE took them home and tested them again, and sure enough, they worked like a charm.
Needless to say, we were getting a little frustrated, and very confused. So this last week, we did one last test before calling tech support. The units worked again, so I figured we didn’t have a problem. But as I was putting the equipment away, I got to thinking: I had been using our Canon GL-2 to test the Firestores. Thinking back, whenever I had tested the units after experiencing problems, I had been using our GL-2, but when we had the problems, we had been using the XL2. This led to the conclusion that it must be something to do with the XL!
We called tech support and told them the problem and my discovery. They suggested we download the Firmware update on their website. Well, we had done that when we had first purchased the units. I called tech support back to get an RMA number so we could send the units in to be checked out. I spoke with a different representative this time and explained the problem to him. He said that he had heard of this problem before, and had walked several people through the process of fixing it. He asked if I had “DV Control” set to “on” on the camera. I thought I did, so I told him yes. He then went on to explain how other people who had similar problems had checked to see if DV control was turned on. It almost always wasn’t, and when they turned it on, the problem was solved! Well, this got me thinking, so as he was telling me this, I got out our XL2, turned it on, and looked through the camera menu to see if I could find the DV Control setting. When I found it, guess what? Yep, it was off. I turned it on, hooked up the Firestore, and the very words that countless people before had uttered passed from my lips.
“Hey! It’s working now!”
So, the moral of this story is: If you get a Firestore, number one: always run backup tapes even when using the unit just in case, and two: make sure the DV Control is turned on!
In Christ,
Zack
Comments
Feb. 19, 2006 - Wow...
Posted by Anonymous
Isn't it annoying how a little thing like that can cause you so much trouble? And what exactly does the DV control switch do? Anyhow, good to hear you got that resolved.
Sean
aka Shadow-Lander
