Focus Enhancements FS-5

Metadata on multiple FS-5s can be synced in the field to enable multicamera edits. Price: $999 (60GB, street)

While some hail solid-state storage as the best thing to happen to field recording, there are still plenty of good reasons to use the compact, portable drive technology that's come out over the past few years. A good price-performance ratio is just one of the reasons to consider this proven technology.

At NAB Show 2009, Focus Enhancements, one of the pioneers here, introduces the latest iteration of its top-of-the-line FS-5 portable DTE recorder. The unit allows for audio, video, timecode, and control information to be passed through a single FireWire cable, so users can enjoy longer record times with either the standard 60GB or optional 100GB hard drive.

While the FS-5 hardware was introduced at last year's NAB, version 2.0 of the software delivers capabilities users have been asking for, according to Matt McEwen, director of product development at Focus Enhancements. "We've followed up on users' requests and now allow you to play back clips on the unit's LCD display," says McEwen. Another new feature, the ability to directly export an MPEG-4 proxy clip of the video, could prove useful for covering news and documentaries because the resulting smaller file would be faster to email or post on a website.

The upgraded software also automatically creates thumbnails of the first frame of each clip, enabling improved workflows. "If you have an iPod touch, a Wi-Fi connection would allow an assistant to log clips as they are recorded," McEwen says.

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