Focus Enhancements FS-5

DMN By Heath McKnight

For those still using tape-based cameras, this unit is perfect for you

The FS-5 Portable HD/SD DTE Recorder once again proves that Focus Enhancements is a leader in external, live-capture hard drives. Hook the FS-5 to your camera, and you'll have video files that are easily accessible and editable. Plus, there are a few more tricks up the FS-5's sleeve, including WiFi capability to log clips on devices such as the iPod Touch.

Hardware, Set-Up and Shooting
The FS-5 features a backlit screen to monitor timecodes, information, etc., and comes with either a 60GB or 100GB hard drive; plenty of space to record DV (AVI types 1 and 2 / 2 24p, Canopus AVI, and Matrox AVI) and HDV (720p24, 25, 30,50, 60; 1080i50/60.m2t, MXF, and QuickTime). If you're recording in HDV 1080i 24p, the camera uses a pulldown to package the 24p signal into a 60i stream, so it records to the FS-5 as 1080i60. You remove the pulldown in your nonlinear editor (NLE).

According to Focus Enhancements, editing can be done in Final Cut Pro (QuickTime files), Avid (Media Composer, News Cutter and Xpress Pro, native MXF files), Adobe Premiere Pro, and other programs, without any capturing, which is fantastic. For this review, I used the latest version of Final Cut Pro 6. Working with the FS-5 was a breeze, but it did take a little setting up. read more...