Question with HVX & hard drive transfer rates

[Kevin McElroy]

I just ordered a HVX200a and I should be getting it within the next couple of days (very excited!). I've never worked with P2 tapeless recording before, so I am very new to this. Here is my situation:

I will be using only a 16gb P2 card, and I will be using my Macbook Pro transfering my footage when the card fills up (acctually planning on using an external hard drive to transfer the footage onto), so I would like to figure out if the different connections will indeed make a difference in transfer speed.

DVCPRO-HD supports data rates of up to 100Mbps

-USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of 400Mbps
-Firewire 400 has a transfer rate of 480Mbps
-Firewire 800 has a transfer rate of 800Mbps
-eSATA I has a transfer rate of 1.5GBps
-eSATA II has a transfer rate of 3GBps

Am I going to notice a difference in transfer speed between these if the camera only supports up to 100Mbps? Also do I need a hard drive with a power adapter, or will a bus-powered hard drive work just as well?

[Steve Laramie]

Bus powered will work as long as its internal.

[davbeisner]

I think you're mixing your technology a bit there...

The camera records at 100Mbps (i.e., that's the maximum bit-rate of your footage), but the cards can support much higher transfer speeds. Obviously esata2 is going to be your fastest drive interface speed, but you're bottleneck is likely to come where you off-load your card to the computer. Will you be using a PC with a PCMCIA slot or a Mac with a duel adapter? That's where your speed bottleneck is likely to come. I don't own the camera yet myself, but I've been doing a TON of research on it in the last six weeks and from what I've read, a PC with a PCMCIA slot is about 5 times faster than the Mac with duel adapter. I'm told you can dump a full 16GB card to a Mac in about 7 minutes while you can dump a full 16GB card to a PC with a PCMCIA slot in less than 2 minutes. Once you get inside your computer, the sky's the limit... actually, it's not... but you get my drift. I see you say you'll be using your MacBook Pro. Check out this article by Barry Green on the best way to transfer footage at high speeds to a Mac...
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137738

[FBAS]

(...) a PC with a PCMCIA slot is about 5 times faster than the Mac with duel adapter. I'm told you can dump a full 16GB card to a Mac in about 7 minutes while you can dump a full 16GB card to a PC with a PCMCIA slot in less than 2 minutes.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137738

Well, I don't know what PCMCIA slots you heard about, but the Windows laptop we used on our last short needed at least 10 minutes to get an 8GB card onto the HDD.
I don't know if it was the laptop's, the HDD's, or the PCMCIA slots' fault - but the laptop was a not too old Windows laptop running WinXP home, seemed pretty standard, nothing special (I didn't investigate further, I was busy lighting and DP'ing like all of the time).
I read somewhere that the USB/Firewire P2 readers from Panasonic are supposed to be a lot faster than built-in PCMCIA slots. However they are insanely expensive for a little plastic PCMCIA reader device.

[Kevin McElroy]

I think you're mixing your technology a bit there...

The camera records at 100Mbps (i.e., that's the maximum bit-rate of your footage), but the cards can support much higher transfer speeds. Obviously esata2 is going to be your fastest drive interface speed, but you're bottleneck is likely to come where you off-load your card to the computer. Will you be using a PC with a PCMCIA slot or a Mac with a duel adapter? That's where your speed bottleneck is likely to come. I don't own the camera yet myself, but I've been doing a TON of research on it in the last six weeks and from what I've read, a PC with a PCMCIA slot is about 5 times faster than the Mac with duel adapter. I'm told you can dump a full 16GB card to a Mac in about 7 minutes while you can dump a full 16GB card to a PC with a PCMCIA slot in less than 2 minutes. Once you get inside your computer, the sky's the limit... actually, it's not... but you get my drift. I see you say you'll be using your MacBook Pro. Check out this article by Barry Green on the best way to transfer footage at high speeds to a Mac...
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=137738

Dave thank you so much for clarifying that as well as the additional info, I really appreciate it. I thought there was something wrong with that picture, but I really wasn't sure. Thanks again!

[David Saraceno]

The duel adapter with our MBP transfers about twice RT.