interesting email this morning:

Question: Do you think the iPod could be programmed to record DV live from the camcorder, and then download in to a editing program such as FCP.

Probably not. It is theoretically possible, but the biggest immediate problem is that the iPod only has one FireWire port. Since the iPod currently has no software which understands a DV stream, a computer would have to be connected to act as the DV interpreter, with the iPod simply acting as an external hard drive. It might be possible if the computer had two FireWire ports, but those tend to be desktop machines which would seem to go completely against the goal of building a small direct-digital system.

I don’t know much about the iPod’s OS, but considering that there are no third-party applications which actually run on an iPod (I’ve been looking and would love to be wrong about that), it’s very unlikely that this will be happening anytime soon. Apple probably can’t open up the architecture to developers because the first thing someone would do is write an iPod-to-iPod sync tool. The RIAA would see this as a “Walking Napster” and immediately send it’s army of lawyers (and Sen Fritz Hollings) to Cupertino. So it’s probably better that Apple doesn’t release an iPod SDK, but I’m looking forward to the day someone reverse engineers it.

As for capturing live DV, I’m not sure if all cameras can do it or not. I am able to capture live from a PD-100a into Final Cut Pro without recording, the trick in Final Cut Pro is to disable device control in the Log & Capture window and then click Capture Now.

My 10Gb iPod’s hard drive seems capable of playing back DV clips with only a few dropped frames, but using an iPod as a storage device seems like a waste of money. Portable FireWire hard drives offer more than five times the space of the biggest iPod for about the same price. They’re also fast enough to use for DV, can be powered through the FireWire connection and, while not as small as the iPod, are quite rugged and portable.

Personally, I’d love to see a portable version of the FireStore. Ideally this would be battery-powered and sit inline between the camera and any standard FireWire storage device.