so i'm a filmmaker interested in new ways to acquire and store hd video. is there anyway to mod one or more ipods to be able accept hdsdi or a p2 stream, for use with a canon xl-h1 or panasonic hvx-200? they're tiny and can hold so much, i wander if they could be configured into a striped RAID. i know just enough to be dangerous. feel free to explain to me how this won't work, or hopefully how it can.
iPods in disk mode can be setup as a RAID with a USB hub, but you'd need a computer to make use of it. This is rather impractical I'm afraid. You might be able to use a single one, but you'd to use iPod Linux, build a hardware adaptor to take your camera output to a dock connector and then write the software to make it work.
Current iPods will top out at 480mbps, the speed of USB 2.0. This is only the max speed in bursts, it is not a sustained rate like firewire. The iPod Touch and iPhone have the highest pixel density of any Apple LCD ever shipped. They have 480x320 pixels and you cannot create any more than that I'm afraid. I suspect it will be a while before we see an iPod with an HD screen.
stoli, whats the point? Just buy yourself a 1.8" enclosure and a 1.8" hard drive and you are done... I wouldn't mess with an ipod if you are just looking for size and storage and speed.
actually i'm looking to get something like the firestore, but smaller and cheaper. i believe it needs a brain as well as storage and that's why i was thinking about modding an ipod. a firestore costs like 1500 and only holds 60 or 100 gb.
Looking at the cameras you mentioned spec they only list firewire(ieee1394) as interfaces. I also suspect (but no nothing about digital video so could be utterly wrong) that you can't just hook up a standard firewire hard disk and store video on it. As the modern larger ipods all use USB you are probably out of luck either way I'm afraid.