DR-HD100 Portable DTE Recorder

The station that I work for has bought/is buying these things and I've heard nothing but bad things from people I've talked to.

Has anyone actually been able to use them for ENG successfully? Without them failing a few weeks after buying them?
 

jim sitton

PRO user
5 out of 30

My station bought about 30 of them. 2 for each photographer. We've had them about 6 months and mine are still working great.
I've heard about 5 of the others had to be sent back and replaced.
 
work flow

My station bought about 30 of them. 2 for each photographer. We've had them about 6 months and mine are still working great.
I've heard about 5 of the others had to be sent back and replaced.
What is your work flow like? Do you just roll on everything and sort through it later or do you shoot to edit and have a bunch of different clips? Do you still roll on tape as a backup?
 

jim sitton

PRO user
C y a!

What is your work flow like? Do you just roll on everything and sort through it later or do you shoot to edit and have a bunch of different clips? Do you still roll on tape as a backup?
In the beginning I always rolled tape as a back up. Now, only on really important stuff. I've never needed it but why not be safe?

I shoot just like I did using tape. I end up with lots of clips but they upload into final cut quickly. Then I delete the bad takes and label the sots and st ups so the reporters don't whine about having to actually look at the b-roll.
The best thing is, you can set the DTE to start recording before you hit the record button. Imagine a perp walk that you missed the guy coming out the door. You didn't hit the record button until he was halfway to the car. Well, because you had the DTE set for a 10 second pre roll it saves the 10 secs BEFORE you hit the record button so your a$$ is saved. I LOVE that!
 

lbvp

Member
Jim has some great suggestions.
Matt just curious what problems were you / others having ?

which camera are you shooting with ( I've got the 200)

John
 

ian515

Well-known member
I have the HD100, and the DR100 to go with it. it seems to me that the majority of people complaining about the hard drive are matching it with some other camera. the DR HD100 was built for the JVC cameras. the FS versions are for everything else. some people get that confused.

I havent had a single problem. I love having it, it makes deadlines feel a little less problematic. when you shoot an hour of video and it only takes you 10 minutes to get it into the NLE, thats 50 extra minutes of editing time....whats not to like? i know some people hate the multi clip thing. I usually prefer to have it all as one clip, and sort it out from there, but I have gotten used to it, and it is actually easier to find your SOTs and various b-roll shots when they are allready broken down, ya know?

and between its battery, and pulling power from the camera battery, I can shoot for a full day before it gets low on power, which is nice as well.
 
issues

We only have 1 to try out before we get the rest, but I haven't had a shot at it yet. It's a JVC camera, I don't remember the model though.

I used to work for a production company and we would use them to shoot things like plays and graduations. We would roll for an hour+ and it was a crap shoot on if it was going to work properly. Sometimes they would stop rolling, after a few minutes the audio and video would get off sync, then after a few weeks they firewire port failed on 1.

Don't get me wrong, they've got a lot of nice features, it's the bad ones that I'm worried about. I need to know if there's a way around some of them or if I can live with it.

Anyone have any problems with weather? Like them getting too hot or using it in the rain?
 

lbvp

Member
I havent heard of the losing sync issue before, but firewire issues are a problem but it usually apeared to be issues on the camera side, and to me more related to mac side issues.

I would suggest making sure camera/ computer and HD100 are both powered down before connecting / disconnecting the firewire and look at getting the pigtail I mentioned before to help decrease the chance of stray voltage blowing out a port.

with the JVC's check out the forum at dv info
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/jvc-pro-hd-acquisition-systems/

some good info on the JVC's are posted there and there are some color settings that can be downloaded and loaded into the camera
 
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