Sony HVR-MRC1 - CF card recording for HDV cameras

Sony released the HVR-MRC1K in October as a separate product. This unit is included to Z5/7 units and can be attached directly onto the cameras. For other HDV cameras, there is an accessory, HVRA-CR1, which is a firewire and battery holder (using L series Sony batteries).

What is the significance of this unit? It can record HDV 1080/60/50i and the various PsF formats as well as DVCAM and DV onto CF cards on top of the camera using mini-DV tapes. The ability to have a 14 second cache recording means it records the last 14 seconds when you hit REC, so it will record what you missed.

With a 32GB CF card, it can record 140mins of HDV and this can be downloaded much faster into a computer than using HDV tape for editing.

Best of all, it's been tested record HDV from other manufacturers like the Canon XH series as well, with the limitation that you have to actuate the REC button on the unit itself as well.. With the CR1 attached the profile is pretty thick but it may fit in a few of the bigger housings with a small battery.

Sony released the HVR-MRC1K in October as a separate product. This unit is included to Z5/7 units and can be attached directly onto the cameras. For other HDV cameras, there is an accessory, HVRA-CR1, which is a firewire and battery holder (using L series Sony batteries).

What is the significance of this unit? It can record HDV 1080/60/50i and the various PsF formats as well as DVCAM and DV onto CF cards on top of the camera using mini-DV tapes. The ability to have a 14 second cache recording means it records the last 14 seconds when you hit REC, so it will record what you missed.

With a 32GB CF card, it can record 140mins of HDV and this can be downloaded much faster into a computer than using HDV tape for editing.

Best of all, it's been tested record HDV from other manufacturers like the Canon XH series as well, with the limitation that you have to actuate the REC button on the unit itself as well.. With the CR1 attached the profile is pretty thick but it may fit in a few of the bigger housings with a small battery.

I've posted a question on the SONY Vegas forums asking if this unit is compatible with any SONY HDV camera that has an iLink port on it.

The literature seems to indicate that it is, but then again, it is vague on an absolute answer.

I'm awaiting a response back on the Vegas forums.

It works with iLink cameras that don't have Ext REC control in FOLLOW mode, much like the DR60. I've tested it with the V1 and A1 as well as a PD150/170. There is a delay in recording that way, so it's not quick. Even with CACHE on, there is a delay of 0.5 secs in recording as iLink is strangely cutoff when REC is hit. Of course, there is the issue of the FAT32 curse of 4GB file limits, which means a new file is created every 20 minutes or so. The stupidity of interface transfer from Sony software is it requires the files/folders to be at desktop level BEFORE it will recognize and stitch files in FCP. You can of course copy the files/folders directly using PC mode but if you want to stitch the files, you have to either copy it back to the drive or create a disk image at desktop level with all the files. Note the Sony filing system will reuse the file numbers so beware of how you copy the files over.

Once the files are downloaded onto the desktop, there must be a reformat option before using it again. That would certainly be better than to just copy over previous files. With the Red One, for every new shoot I always reformated the HD before shooting.

Steve

I should clarify and expand on the filing system bug. The sony filing system will start with a name eg 100HDV in which the folder contains the clip info and clips. It continues as you record 102-XXX. Delete the files and the sequence starts again.

On the DR60, there was a bug I discovered when I formatted the disk and it hung. So it reset the counter but the older files were still there. What it did was overwrite the clip info files, but would record into the old clip files. So suddenly, if you record a 20sec clip, if the old clip was 40 sec, you'd get 20 sec new clip in a 40sec clip with 20 sec of the old clip. I don't have my DR60 here with me but I did manage to repeat the bug before.