Next week at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show in Las Vegas, ADS Technologies, a company that specializes in consumer video editing solutions, will introduce a digital video solution for DV direct-to-disc storage in the field: the PYRO DV Drive.
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The drive will enable videographers to capture digital video files directly from their DV camcorder to its hard drive via FireWire without having to connect to a computer — although you can interface the drive and your Mac if you wish. The PYRO DV Drive packs a 20GB hard drive and a built-in rechargeable battery into a silver and charcoal grey case about the size of a PDA.
It features a 2.5-inch IDE hard drive and the Oxford 911 chipset from Oxford Semiconductor. With a record/stop button, users can transfer digital video to the drive while the DV camcorder is either in record or playback mode. This simplifies the process and eliminates the need for software-based video capture, according to ADS Technologies President Mike McCoy. It can accommodate up to one hour and 40 minutes of digital video, which can be imported via FireWire to any non-linear editor for Mac or Wintel systems.
When connected to your computer, the PYRO drive is detected as a drive volume and can also be used as a portable external storage device or data back-up system. The rechargeable built-in lithium ion battery can be charged through the FireWire bus or through an included power supply.
The PYRO DV Drive also comes with a six pin-to-four pin FireWire cable, six pin-to-six pin FireWire cable, and belt clip. It’s slated for a June release at an estimated street price of US$499.
Also, ADS Technologies has announced that the PYRO 2.5-inch Drive Kit is now shipping. It’s an external enclosure that converts notebook hard drives to external FireWire storage devices. The PYRO 2.5-inch Drive Kit is completely bus powered through a FireWire port. For non-powered, 4-pin IEEE 1394/FireWire port connections, it includes a USB power cable in addition to the FireWire cables. The PYRO 2.5- Drive Kit is compatible with all FireWire-enabled Macs.
The drive kit features the Oxford 911 chip for ATA 100/66/33 hard disk drives to deliver maximum transfer rates of up to 400 Mb/sec. It also has two FireWire ports so that the second port can be used to daisy chain additional PYRO Drive Kits. It has an estimated street price of $120.