PMW EX1/3: Use cheap USB Hard Disk Drives up 168GB! [Archive] - DVXuser.com -- The online community for filmmaking

deti

04-28-2009, 05:51 AM

I built an adapter from ExpressCard to USB. How does this work?

It's pretty easy: On an ExpressCard slot you can find USB data signals on pins 2 and 3. Additionally you need ground at pin 1. Unfortunately the ExpressCard slot does not supply 5 volts which are required for USB device operation.

I soldered a cable with connects a cable of an USB socket to the USB pins of the ExpressCard slot. To get a cheap ExpressCard connector I simply removed the PCB from a 9€ card reader (see pictures).

To get the required 5 volts for the USB I connected the ground and 5 volt cable from a normal USB connector to the USB socket. Now it is possible to use any cheap USB connector based power supply which can be found with AC adapter or internal batteries (see http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/b4b6/ for an example).

If you now connect any USB device to the self made USB socket the camera is able to recognize it. I tested some common devices with these results:

- USB hubs cause "Unknown Media" and cannot be used therefor,
- 4 of 5 USB 2.0 card readers work without any problems with SDHC or
CF cards (most probably even with Sony memory sticks etc.),
- USB sticks are usable directly,
- Hard disks with IDE or SATA adapters are working fine.

All of these USB based storage adapters need to support a write speed of at least 8.3Mbytes/s. Though the camera creates a maximum stream bandwidth of 4.4Mbytes/s (35Mbit/s) it does not write continuously to the storage medium which causes a data burst every 1 or 2 seconds. These bursts are of about 8.2Mbytes/s.

The original Sony hard disk PHU60K is based on a 60Gbyte 1,8" IDE hard disk connected to a IDE-USB adapter. If you connect a bigger hard disk it will be detected, partitioned and formatted by the camera. Currently there seems to be a hard limit of 84Gbytes (308min@35Mbit/s) which cannot be circumvented.

A quick look on the newly created file system shows a partition of 84Gbytes formatted as VFAT. The remaining capacity is not being used at all. An externally partitioned hard disk will not be used and is being repartitioned and formatted by the camera.

Despite this restriction this solution provides a maximum recording capacity of 2x84GB=168GB (716min@35Mbit/s) which is quite more than anything that can be reached by original Sony storage media.

Now it's up to you soldering your own USB adapter ;-)

And no, it is not possible to use the ExpressCard power rails for powering your hard disk drive! The maximum available power is 0.81W (3.3V@0.21A;1.5V@0.08A) which is not sufficient for any hard disk.

Deti

PS: I will not take any responsibility for failures or damages of your hardware!

PhantomVideo

04-28-2009, 06:03 AM

holy crap batman, thats full on kinda like the Cineporter for EX1

sadude

04-30-2009, 08:27 AM

these guys are selling this thing isnt it the same?

http://mxmexpress.com/images/side_adapt.png
http://mxmexpress.com/

Tom Roper

04-30-2009, 08:41 AM

Is this right?

1.) The ground wire (and shield) from the USB socket is soldered to the express card connector pin 1, and that same wire is tapped (spliced into) for the ground wire going to the USB connector.

2.) The +5V wire from the USB connector goes to the +5V wire of the USB socket, and thus does not connect to the express card connector.

Tom Roper

04-30-2009, 08:49 AM

these guys are selling this thing isnt it the same?

http://mxmexpress.com/images/side_adapt.png
http://mxmexpress.com/

That's not the same thing, wouldn't work because the express card contacts need to go inside the camera. In other words, the reader is connected to the wrong end.

Tom Roper

04-30-2009, 08:57 AM

One more question:

3.) Does the polarity of wires 2 and 3 matter?

Barry J. Anwender

04-30-2009, 10:06 AM

One more question:

3.) Does the polarity of wires 2 and 3 matter?

Hi Tom:

Yes it does from the ExpressCard specs

I'm thinking it does from the connector specifications:

PCI ExpressCard: Pin 2 =usb d- and Pin 3 =usb d+

USB Connector: Pin 2 = usb d- and Pin 3=usb d+

Makes sense for a serial data line.

Barry J. Anwender

04-30-2009, 10:08 AM

Hi Deti, what is the name of the VFAT 32 formating utility that you used. Did you arbitarly choose 160GB to set this limit? Thanks and a great discovery by the way!!

MitchLewis

04-30-2009, 10:15 AM

This is VERY exciting. Hopefully a third-party manufacture will produce something that we can all use. The ideal solution would be if you could connect a portable bus powered USB hard drive (so you wouldn't have to power it). But that's probably a dream. :) (I guess Sony offers that option right now, but in a small 60GB capacity)

DCSensui

04-30-2009, 12:11 PM

Get a patent!

Get compensated for your efforts!

Get insurance in case someone tries to sue! :-)

Tom Roper

04-30-2009, 12:35 PM

Hi Tom:

Yes it does from the ExpressCard specs

I'm thinking it does from the connector specifications:

PCI ExpressCard: Pin 2 =usb d- and Pin 3 =usb d+

USB Connector: Pin 2 = usb d- and Pin 3=usb d+

Makes sense for a serial data line.

Yes, this looks right to me as well. Moreover, the wire colors on the USB cables use standard color codes, so if you just solder it per deti's picture, should be good.

USB Connector:
Red = 1 = +5Vdc - no connection to express card, but does connect to USB socket
White = 2 = D-
Green = 3 = D+
Black = 4= Gnd

I'm ready to try this mod, will have to make an errand trip for parts.

Shimobe

04-30-2009, 01:17 PM

can the usb device be pulled without ejecting the card?? and then another card put in?
My guess is no, much like the sd cards in the expresscard, but would be sweet for running it to somewhere unreachable to eject cards readily.

Barry J. Anwender

04-30-2009, 03:11 PM

Good question. On the other hand with 160GB of recording time this should be a none issue.

If this actually works, I'm more interested about using over/under cranking on a USB 2.0 hard drive just to confirm if Sony has actually throttled the EX USB bus output.

deti

04-30-2009, 11:47 PM

Hi Deti, what is the name of the VFAT 32 formating utility that you used. Did you arbitarly choose 160GB to set this limit

Once again: The camera partitions and formats the connected medium up to 84GB. When using 2 USB mediums (one connected to each slot) you can use 168GB (2 x 84GB).

Whenever you will try to partition and format the medium outside the camera it will be re-partitioned and re-formatted by the camera. IMHO there is absolutely no way to make the camera use a smaller or bigger partition of the medium.

I was using the Linux based fdisk, mkfs and parted utilities.

can the usb device be pulled without ejecting the card?? and then another card put in?
My guess is no, much like the sd cards in the expresscard, but would be sweet for running it to somewhere unreachable to eject cards readily.

When the card is being ejected the USB gets disconnected and the device is no longer available. It does not make any difference if you pull the USB connector of the medium out of the USB socket or if you disconnect the USB power source. As soon as reinserting the ExpressCard, reconnecting power or simply the USB medium it get's recognized again (it's much simpler than changing a SDHC card).

Deti

Barry J. Anwender

05-01-2009, 08:28 AM

Thanks Deit, I was wondering if you were using the two slots. It also makes sense that the camera would re-format any media whose format it cannot recognize.

Very very early this morning, I completed the electrical mods to an ExpressCard. The wires and solder hoes are very tiny and so it was like trying to thread a needle a metre away. Much patience is required to solder the wires in place. Anyway, it fits into my EX3 as epxected and all the electrical connections going to the proper USB pins. I must go into the city this morning and pick up a USB adaptor before connecting to the hard drive. I have to admit, that feel a little squimish to test it out in such an expensive camera. However, as an electronics engineer my head is telling it should work as you have discovered Deti. Hopefully sometime this afternoon, I will be ready to connect the hard drive. "Fingers crossed"

Thanks Deti for sharing your discovery and your pictures!!! Innovation at its finest :-)

Tom Roper

05-01-2009, 09:09 AM

I'm going to do this too, I'm lacking an express card adapter and usb socket.

golf_bht

05-01-2009, 01:14 PM

I am interested to go this route too. what card should I buy. or I could get any card since this mod will interface the HDD directly to the camera's bus.

Barry J. Anwender

05-01-2009, 07:09 PM

I finished the mods to the ExpressCard reader very early this morning, then spent the rest of the day rounding up the adaptors to work with some smaller spare hard drives. The old Fujitsu 4200rpm, 40GB hard drive retired from my AppleTV formatted in the blink of an eye - much faster than my 16GB SanDisk Extreme III's.

So far only preliminary recording tests and it does indeed allow me to unplug the USB cord from the EX3 and move it over to the MacPro where clips appear and play as expected.

This is unbelievably simple to do. Mind you soldering the three wires into place on the ExpressCard daughterboard is like threading a needle that is 1m away from your eyes. Truly a test of patience but with rewarding results.

I have many more ideas to work out, such as seeing how over/under cranking works. If nothing else, but to verify my intuitions or prove them wrong about the EX USB throughput. Secondly, I am aiming for SSD drives for the final implementation of 168GB of glorious EX storage.

I have taken pictures along the process but do not know if they are of sufficient quality to post. If they turned out, I will share all. Deti - much thanks for your discovery :-):love4:

Update:
1- Over cranking results: Same as SDHC cards. 720/24p set to 48fps with no media errors. I cycled the record button on/off several times at various times while the hardrive filled up - no media errors. I also moved the harddrive around during recording at these rates as well as giving the drive a gentle tap during recording, again no "media errors". Anyway, no surprises because the 48fps USB limit has been previously verified by others.

2 - Camera Slot Recognition/Switching: The USB harddrive works in both the A and B slot of the camera. It also works with an the harddrive in one slot and a SXS/KXS/MXR card in the second slot, again it does not matter which slot combination. There is a caveat. The USB harddrive power must be cycled when it is moved to the other slot. Once the camera knows which slot the USB hard drive is in, then slot switching works like it is supposed to.

3 - USB Hard drive Recognition: The hard drive power needs to be cycled off and then on for the camera to recognized it's presence. Some extra circuity inside the hacked ExpressCard will be needed for send a proper CPUSB signal response to the camera's PCExpress Card bus on Pin-4. The CPUSB signal is toggled to indicate that there is presence/absence of a USB device. So more work to sort this out in order for the camera to automatically detect the USB hard drive without cycling it's power.

Total time spent about 8 hours.
Total cost was $7.00 for USB coupler.
Fujitsu Harddrive MHW2040AT (retired from Apple TV now at 320GB)
Rest came from my old parts box - excluding the EX3 of course :-)

Tom Roper

05-02-2009, 12:07 PM

I've got a couple thoughts on this. I slightly prefer deti's harness because it uses a female socket for the USB hard drive, as opposed to the coupler pictured. And because you didn't connect a ground for a power supply at the harness, you can't use a USB powered hard drive. (Your ground is coming from the ide adapter.)

A thought I had, was to pull +3.3Vdc from express card #12 to USB #1 and use USB flash memory sticks. As deti noted, if you did that you can't budget enough power for a USB hard drive. It looks like the reason the power has to be cycled is because a USB-exclusive interface lacks the wakeup circuit of the expresscard which uses #12 (+3.3Vdc always on output) and #14,#15 (+3.3Vdc confirmation inputs). So in other words, even with a USB flash drive, I suspect it would be necessary to remove and reinsert each time the camera is rebooted.

That also makes me wonder if the notorious power drain of the EX is caused by the always-on power to the express cards. It would be interesting to pull the cards and see how long it takes the EX battery to discharge.

Update:

Express Card Pin #12 cannot budget enough power (up to 500ma) required for USB flash drives.

Barry J. Anwender

05-02-2009, 12:39 PM

The ground is there it didn't show up to good at the angle this picture was taken. Like Deti, I soldered the USB cable black wire and the shield strand to ground.

I used the male USB end on the cable, anticipating it will plug into a harddrive/battery enclosure. Hence the USB coupler is only needed for this rough prototyping. Deit's USB cable has both male and female connectors allowing him to experiment with USB hubs and FlashCard Readers.

As you conclude, the 3.3v primary voltage sources Pins 14 & 15 as well as the 3.3 Auxilary voltage source do not have enough current to power a USB drive. Obviously enough to power a flash memory card.

If we knew what state Pin 4 (CPUSB) needs to be when the USB cable is connected and what on state voltage, then the camera should detect the presence/absence of the USB drive.

As Deti mentions, you don't need to physically pull the USB ExpressCard out of the camera and then reinsert it so that the camera will recognize the presence of the harddrive. All that needs to be done is remove the power to the drive and then turn it on again. As the drive initalizes, it also initiates dialogue down the USB chain to the camera which then responds knowing that there is a harddrive connected.

Let us know how you make out Tom as you no doubt will have further insights.

Barry J. Anwender

05-02-2009, 08:23 PM

My experimenting has progressed to an actual field configuration. The proof-of-concept revealed some issues around the EX3 recognizing the presence/absence of the external harddrive. So I decided to take another go with an simple store bought notebook drive that is USB powered and self contained. In this case:

Western Digital My Passport 250GB USB 2.0 powered
Modified the USB cord to supply 5 volts to the Passport unit

Surprise-surprise! The Western Digital Passport firmware and USB interface is very robust to initiate dialog with whatever it is connected to. The camera has no problems at all with recognizing the presence/absence of the Passport drive. Moreover, the slot switching between A/B also works just like it does with SXS/KXS/MXR memory cards. NO need to cycle the Passport power inorder to be recognized by the camera.

All work like one would expect it to. The camera formatted the Passport drive its maximum of 80GB or 308 minutes. I repeated all of the various recording tests at 720/24P and 48fps overcranking. "No media errors"

All that remains now is to come up with a portable 5 volt supply to power the Passport and a simple mount for the hot-shoe on the back of the EX3. Then it should be ready for the field.

Total cost for the WD Passport & Modified ExpressCard =$125.00

Tom Roper

05-03-2009, 12:37 AM

That's great but I've opened up two express cards, one an adapter and the other a memory card. The problem for me, is neither is like the BroadTek card that has the detachable daughter board.

The connector pins are soldered to the main board, which is populated with components. I had to cut the pins from the board, leaving them as long as possible, then pulled them out of the connector one by one so I could solder pigtails to the nubs. I reinserted the pins into the connector but the spacing is so tight, the solder beads might touch, and I just can't take a chance of shorting the EX through that connector.

And before I even did that, I dremeled through the circuit board just in front of the components, and was going to attach the pigtails to where the connector pins were soldered to that board, because there is room there. The problem, is that the board is about 6-multi layered, and the dremel homogenized the layers at the edge. Again, I can't take the chance that pins would be shorted to each other, so I had to cut the pins away from the board altogether leaving me only the shortest of stubs to attach to. It's possible, but the solder beads are so close there's not room to put a piece of paper between them.

I need that BroadTek card or one like it that has an unpopulated daughter board that I can attach to.

I've got to find another express card adapter or a better way.

Steve Shovlar

05-03-2009, 06:25 AM

All that remains now is to come up with a portable 5 volt supply to power the Passport and a simple mount for the hot-shoe on the back of the EX3. Then it should be ready for the field.

Total cost for the WD Passport & Modified ExpressCard =$125.00

I would suggest something like the Mypower battery, which is power switchable between 1 and 15 volts. they are well made and would probably power the Western Digital Passport drive all day and then some.

http://www.tekkeon.com/products-mypowerall.html

Iudex

05-03-2009, 07:16 AM

I have a Delkin that didn't work with my sdhc cards, could I do this trick???

This thread and the SDHC thread are clear proofs that our economy values money over efficiency :D

Barry J. Anwender

05-03-2009, 07:52 AM

I need that BroadTek card or one like it that has an unpopulated daughter board that I can attach to.

I've got to find another express card adapter or a better way.

Hi Tom, I know what you mean about the solder beading up. It is delicate work even with a circuit board clamp and magnifying glass. I checked an double checked my connections with an Ohm Meter to ensure there were no shorts and for continuity out to the USB cable. Thankfully there are only two data pins to solder and the ground is much easier.

I lucked out with the BroadTek card on my first try and it came from my old parts box. I guess it will take some trial and error as folks try different cards before discovering which cards have the daughterboard.

This morning I woke up with image of the EX1/3 mini USB port on the camera in my head. I wondered if by chance it might have 5volts of USB power. Tested it out and no-go as Sony has engineered it to be powered down until a computer is plugged in to the camera's port - at which point a menu prompt appears to enable the port.

It appears that the WD Passport drive requires about 40ma at 5 volts. So now its time to brainstorm a solution for this.

Happy hunting Tom and cheers!

Dana Kupper

05-03-2009, 07:59 AM

GuyB

05-03-2009, 08:03 AM

a bit of both really.

Tom Roper

05-03-2009, 10:24 AM

golf_bht

05-03-2009, 12:31 PM

Oh well, may my dumb ass suggest the gurus a bit? I think that you might want to try Lithium polymer battery. you can get those cheaply from any R/C store near you. you could get power regulator transistor from digikey. the 5V rated @ 1 amp is a common stock on their website.

you feed what ever voltage and get 5V for usb use.

sadude

05-03-2009, 01:15 PM

All respect intended, I feel like I'm missing something. If someone would be so kind as to explain what the advantage is here, please do. Am I understanding that the goal is to have a hard drive attached to the camera so one can have 10 hours of filming without changing cards? Is this necessary? Wouldn't this be a dangly (sp?) cabley mess? Or is this just one of those "look at this cool thing we can do with our beautiful EX3s!", which is awesome in its own geeky way? Thanks!

i think the ability to record straight onto a hard drive in the field or even in studio is a brilliant concept. imagine doing a full day of filming on your own with no assistant to help transfer files from card to hard drive through a laptop. this concept has removed the need for a laptop and removed the need for an assistant and also its removed the need for expensive sXs cards(although i think everyone here most probably knows about using SDHC cards with an adaptor.

the possibility exists now to film straight onto a hard drive and give it to the client to walk away with at the end of the day.

And lets be frank, when sony looks at this and sees how easy it is for us to make an adaptor for this they will have to release some sort of card capable of doing this at a very cheap rate.

nsoltz

05-03-2009, 01:15 PM

arkay

05-03-2009, 01:27 PM

Barry J. Anwender

05-03-2009, 02:01 PM

And lets be frank, when sony looks at this and sees how easy it is for us to make an adaptor for this they will have to release some sort of card capable of doing this at a very cheap rate.

This is a very good point as Sony's very own "Professional" PHU-60K 60GB (260 minutes) Hard Disk Unit for the EX1/3 camera costs $1000 US. It turned out to be lame duck for many users because they kept getting "Media Errors/Restore" issues. I now think that their 1.8inch harddrive is the problem, it just cannot handle the EX video data rate. Whereas the 2.5 inch market seems to be sweet spot in terms of sufficient performance for dirt cheap.

Sony's selling point "increased capacity, you can shoot over 4 hours of uninterrupted footage." Then the real kicker - they charge 10 times the actual cost of making it. Let's face it there was no serious engineering involved here. What the market will bear - i guess.

Sony could take a hint from RED who provide a cable adapter from their video camera to provide a SATAII output. This makes it possible to easily talk to harddrives and I'm pretty sure RED has SSD's in mind. If Sony would provide an Express Card adaptor that works of the EX's PCExpress bus with a SATAII cable output, now that would be progressive. And if they provided an SSD of sufficient size, that would sell.

Barry J. Anwender

05-03-2009, 02:09 PM

The excitement of all of this is, IMHO, because we can... and some of us love to tinker.

I am thrilled at the prospect of so many hours of footage.

But I need to remind myself of my own advice-- hard drive storage is scary. Hard drives crash. Maybe not with great frequency. But they do.

Ned, the really scary part is that one can purchase cheap portable RAID-1 mirrored USB/SATA disk arrays for notebooks. Cannot be mounted on the camera but with allowable USB cable lengths, one could have reliability and flexibility for the situations/events needing lengthy record times. So another tool when needed.

GuyB

05-03-2009, 05:55 PM

Lets face it, this solution is for studio & static camera locations and most likley within reach of AC power. I've seen a few USB power supply options on the market, you know, plug pack to USB plug to charge USB devices away from a computer (http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/9124/?cpg=ab) . There are also cigarette lighter USB power supplies so you could use Dolgins EX-V plate & an U30 to power a USB HDD & one of these type of things (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12928).

With the poor connection quality of many USB plugs (especially mini ones) I would not want to move the HDD while recording even if it is a Solid state drive.

GuyB

05-03-2009, 07:03 PM

I thought I would have a look inside some of my less fortunate SD card readers tried during testing of XxS solutions some time back. The first one I opened again was a Sandisk one which was not recognised by the EX1.

I opened it and found a pleasant suprise, the design is just what you would want, a Express Card connector with a PCB soldered to the connector which can be removed.

While I will get to that a bit later, I thought I'd post this as those really keen to try this at least know one adaptor that is probably a good starting point.

A litle ironic that Sandisk do it for us again :Drogar-Happy(DBG):

Tom Roper

05-03-2009, 10:15 PM

Thank you Guy.

- BroadTek
- Sandisk

deti

05-04-2009, 12:38 AM

Hi Guy,

as you can see your SanDisk reader is the same model as any other cheap GL827 based reader thingy. Besides using it as an USB port adapter you can make it work as a normal SD card reader for an EX1/3 by cutting pin 17 of the ExpressCard slot leading to pin 1 of the daughter board connector (refer to http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=169614).

In the meantime I tried a 100GB Toshiba 1.8" HDD with a no name chinese 2000mAh USB iPod power supply from ebay. All together can be attached easily by a velcro strip to the BP-U60 at the back of the camera. It operates app. 8h which should be enough for a netto recording time of ~5h. IMHO this is a very portable solution which runs ages. Will take some photos later.

Deti

GuyB

05-04-2009, 03:11 AM

Hi Deti,

Yes I thought of that however this adaptor sticks the card out of the reader a long way anyway so I wouldn't want to use it as XxS anyway, it is much better for me to try this with XxU (Xx(USB)) lol

Cheers

Guy

Kenny_G

05-04-2009, 06:41 AM

I have the Sony hard drive with the adapter. I made an extension cable because the mini-usb plug of the Sony has a notch that blocks you from using it on a standard usb device.
With this extension cable a can use any usb drive available. Limitations are the 80 GB boundary and the external 5 volt to the drive, but of course it works.

arkay

05-04-2009, 07:41 AM

Guy - how do you open the SanDisk adapter? I have one but can't see a seam or tab anywhere.

GuyB

05-04-2009, 08:02 AM

The top side wraps around both edges and onto the bottom. I used a small knife to leaver one side out and around , then the top comes off easy from the other side as the top falls away.

Clear as mud?

nsoltz

05-04-2009, 08:06 AM

I just opened a Sonnet adapter yesterday and I am certain that the procedure should be the same.

Using needle-nosed pliers, I carefully pulled on the black plastic end cap on the SD-card side. There are two locking tabs on either side of the cap so that as soon as the cap begins to loosen, use something like a thin screwdriver blade to depress the tabs. The top metal housing fits under the upper rim of the lower. Again, there are two small tabs. Then remove the entire PCB assembly from the botton housing. The locking tabs are now visible. Remove the daughter card by carefully cutting (I used very small screwdriver blade) the solder connections.

That's as far as I've gotten as I need to buy a new soldering iron this AM and a USB adapter (my enclosure has the square USB plug).

I'll report on success or failure later.

Ned

GuyB

05-04-2009, 08:07 AM

I tried tonight but it wouldn't work for me yet, I think it is my powering option.

I was hoping a self powered external USB drive would work without any USB 5v power but either it doesn't (ie the drive uses it to sense a connection and start talking USB) or my connections are wrong.

While I used the opposite side connections to Deti, a continuity test shows the same points have the same connections...

I tries one of those double adaptor USB cables for an external USB 2.5" HDD with the data plugged into my adaptor and the secondary power plugged into the USB of a PC but it still didn't work :-(

arkay

05-04-2009, 09:09 AM

Got it thanks.

Barry J. Anwender

05-04-2009, 09:11 AM

Guy, a self (bus) powered drive will need to a supply of USB power. A couple of points:

In ExpressCard, the Black wire is USB ground. Solder this with the USB stranded sheath to the ExpressCard ground Pin1. Cut the red wire off (USB +5 volts), it does not get connected anything inside the ExpressCard.

The USB cable to the bus powered drive needs to modified into a Y-cable. On one end of the "Y" only connect the Red (+5v), the Black (GND) and the Sheath. This latter will the power source cable that can come from you PC's USB or from a powered USB Hub.

I have attached the USB Connector Pinout so that you can verify that the power and data signals are going to the right place. Good luck!

golf_bht

05-04-2009, 08:08 PM

:) I wish i could buy camera without sxs cards and save.

nsoltz

05-04-2009, 10:01 PM

No success on my first attempt. I suspect I may have shorted out or otherwise damaged the card. All of my connections seem soldered in the correct place but camera does not recognize drive.

deti

05-05-2009, 12:33 AM

When you are not using the small daughter board of this GL827 based card reader you have to connect pin 4 of the ExpressCard slot to ground. This pin indicates to the host system (camera) that the USB pins are being used (see http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/PCI_Express_Card_and_PCI_Express_Mini_Card).

Never connect pin 17 (like some card readers do) - otherwise the card will be treated as a PCIe storage card though USB is connected properly.

Deti

GuyB

05-05-2009, 01:02 AM

Guy, a self (bus) powered drive will need to a supply of USB power.
When I said self powered, I meant it powers itself (ag AC adaptor) rather than drawing power from the USB bus :-)

GuyB

05-05-2009, 01:27 AM

I added power through another connector now
Now I am getting 'unknown media please change'

This is a 20GB 2.5" HDD in a Welland USB enclosure

UPdate: A 80GB 3.5" HDD in one of those docking chassis (where you just shove a raw HDD in) worked & formatted.

deti

05-05-2009, 01:54 AM

To avoid 'unknown media please change' make sure the hard disk has only one partition. If you are not sure, use the disk tool of your operating system to remove any existing partitions.

Deti

GuyB

05-05-2009, 01:57 AM

yep, there was only one partition. I am repartioning/formating on a PC again now anyway then will try again. I am just using the 'default' cluster size with the FAT32 format, or should I just partition & not format in the computer?

GuyB

05-05-2009, 02:10 AM

THere you go, a clean repartition/format on the PC brought up the 'format media' option in camera & got the HDD functional.

In this case 20GB only gives 71min but its more about testing of course.

At least now there is good use for all those 80GB hard drives & new 80GB SSDs out there!

golf_bht

05-05-2009, 04:14 AM

I could see the EX's world moving this way. would anyone interested in a rod attachment for HDD + power regulator which you can put any 12-20V power source to power up your HDD. all for about $80 + your DIY xpress card adaptor and HDD.

nsoltz

05-05-2009, 07:27 AM

Barry J. Anwender

05-05-2009, 07:49 AM

Yes. I had connected black+insulation to pin 4 but no joy.

Have no idea what went wrong, so I simply suspect I trashed the card somehow.

Ned, Pin4 is for the CPUSB signal to detect the presence/absence of a USB device. It is not a Ground.

The Black wire (USB ground) and the sheath need to be connected to Pin1 which is ground. You will also see the ground traces/plane leading to Pins 20, 23 & 28 all of which are gound in the ExpressCard Connector specs.

Hang in there and good luck. Cheers!

GuyB

05-05-2009, 07:51 AM

I'd be interested in seeing Marek or Ross going back to their Express Card manufacturer & making a more elegant solution. Something properly manufactured with an integrated powering option in the cable etc I shouldn't be that expensive as the adaptor itself has litteraly no circuit. They could design a 12v to 5v power supply into the card though, and just have a power input in the cable somewhere... It shouldnt really need to be any more expensive than a MxM/MxR card.

On the EX3 you would mount it on the rear cold shoe, on the EX1, well, anyway you can think.

GuyB

05-05-2009, 07:59 AM

I demoed this solution at the end of our video producers associations monthly meeting tonight. It was rather well recieved given only a few of them actually shoot with EX's.

nsoltz

05-05-2009, 08:55 AM

Ned, Pin4 is for the CPUSB signal to detect the presence/absence of a USB device. It is not a Ground.

The Black wire (USB ground) and the sheath need to be connected to Pin1 which is ground. You will also see the ground traces/plane leading to Pins 20, 23 & 28 all of which are gound in the ExpressCard Connector specs.

Hang in there and good luck. Cheers!

Think I confused my pin numbering. I connected black+sheath to the far right connector which I assumed to be pin 4. I followed the visual in the first post of the thread. I'll just go buy another adapter and try again. Don't want to trash any of my precious Kensingtons.

Ned

Dana Kupper

05-05-2009, 09:31 AM

I have a MxR adapter that stopped working for some reason - if anyone wants it I could drop it in the mail for you. Let me know!

golf_bht

05-05-2009, 08:50 PM

Yes I want

Shimobe

05-06-2009, 01:05 AM

i sent him a pm earlier but never heard back... i think it's gone.

golf_bht

05-06-2009, 09:08 AM

yes its gone

asafb

05-06-2009, 11:47 AM

This is an excellent invention.

GuyB

05-16-2009, 12:51 AM

I have started writing this up into a new web page on http://www.xdcamexinfo.com (http://www.xdcamexinfo.com/). Its a work in progress.

I shot with this solution no problem. 3 hours of contineous recording, not a flintch out of it at all. So easy, I just kept recording I had so much capacity.

Anyway, check it out if you want:
http://www.xdcamexinfo.com/UxX

Barry J. Anwender

05-16-2009, 08:58 AM

Nice work Guy for documenting this and indeed it does work. The only caution I'd add when choosing a USB/SATA harddrive is to remember that as it fills up the data transfer rate is reduced to half. This must be a consideration for some SATA hard drives on the market which still have slower data transfer rates.

Solid State drives, particularly those using 1st and some 2nd generation controllers have some inherent issues such as power consumption, white space fragmentation and sputtering data transfers that would prevent them from being usable for video applications involving the the EX cameras. The SSD's just emerging into the market place seem to have corrected these issues.

Your main point is spot-on, SSD's are still expensive when compared to traditional hard drives, however they are much cheaper than Sony's SxS memory cards.

GuyB

05-16-2009, 09:35 AM

In theory the drives only need to be able to sustain 4.5MBps write which is pretty low. In reality the camera does a write every 2 seconds which means it does a burst write of about 9MB (in HQ mode). Certainly that burst needs to be written within the 2 seconds before the next burst comes along, but what is not clear is what the acceptable time to the firmware is too write that 9MB. Can it be pushed out to near 2sec or does it cut of earlier with a media error? I'll have to experiment with some overcranking to see what it can tell us.

With my external hard drive, it takes about half a second to write that 9MB + whatever overheads there are (I did time it once, and will do that again to more accuraty note what is achieved).

xort

05-17-2009, 07:38 AM

Here's another hottrodding idea I'd love to see implemented...

Get both slots to record the same file at the same time.

This would be great for instant back ups. Shooting to two cards simultaniously means you can record to 2 SDHC cards or you can record to one of these new HDD's and to an SxS or SDHC card at the same time.

Instant backup!!! Send one off to the edit and hang on to the other for safety.

EIREHotspur

05-17-2009, 01:06 PM

Thats a great idea....I am surprised they never implimented it as an option.

Maybe on the Ex5.

GuyB

05-17-2009, 05:10 PM

Agreed, but that would take a firmware revision and may not even be possible if the writing hardware is somehow limited to interfacing with only one slot at a time. Not to mention if the USB limitation is such that it wouldn't have the bandwidth to write the 70Mbps reliably anyway (OC 24p only just makes 48fps sometimes, its borderline).

Stevet

05-17-2009, 07:46 PM

This is great news for long event footage.

GuyB

05-17-2009, 09:24 PM

It also shows the potential for developing internal PCI Express devices. In effect, all they need to do is not have the PCI Express interface pin connected and support connecting as a generic USB Mass strorage device. I wonder if any manufacture would take this knowledge and develop a half decent 80odd GB version of the likes of the Lexar SSD.

kbatman99

07-28-2009, 10:38 PM

Hello !
I have built the interface and it is operating in a pc and in the ex3.
When I insert it, the camera searches an wants to format the drive ( it is preformated with FAT32 )
It starts to format and then says : Cannot format please change.
Can anybody help me ?
Thank you !

GuyB

07-29-2009, 06:07 AM

I had some trouble formatting when I first tried as well, check back though the thread to see if I posted how I got it working.

PaulTV

07-29-2009, 06:50 AM

The beauty of using an external SSD (esata2) is the download times, 5 hours from the drive to a raid0 laptop or PC in 14 minutes, whereas utilising usb is seriously slow, especialy if you are running a multi camera set up, and recording to loads of cards.

Paul

GuyB

07-29-2009, 06:55 AM

if only there wasn't an 84GB limit. Not so much for a single record limit, but just the economy of drives. Means wasted space on a 128G SSD etc...

PaulTV

07-29-2009, 07:03 AM

I agree Guy, but I'm using both 64GB and 128's and I must say that 2 64's gives 8 hours of recording, which is fine, and also pretty good for the cost, as the 128's are pretty pricey,

Also, the 64's give a faster offload speed, all in all it works pretty well.

I've tried so many ways to cheat the partition size, preformatting the drive as FAT32 128gb, and the Sony says NO. Maybe it needs divisible partitions, more detailed and messy. I've tested putting the BPAV folder onto a FAT 32 large partition, doesn't work either - more fiddling to do yet.

Anyway, watch this space for a fab new piece of kit just around the corner!

Paul

Carl Marxx

08-11-2009, 09:48 AM

Does anyone out ther have the SATA data cable pin-outs, there's gota be a way to get a SATA drive on to this camera?

damonwill

08-11-2009, 12:59 PM

OK, I've got the final question. Who wants to build me a dual drive system? I have CASH (paypal) in hand. email me directly with how much you want for two systems (one for each slot) shipped.

I have an EX3 and I don't know anything about soldering. I was about to buy sony's external system, but these seem like the way to go. And Sony already got $8G from me for the camera.

damon
Damonwill@yahoo.com

ClarkPeters

08-11-2009, 06:21 PM

Damon, try this (http://e-films.com.au/shoppingcart/pages/e%252dHDR-%28Hard-Disk-Recorder%29.html).

damonwill

08-12-2009, 07:02 AM

Thanks for the link. I got a guy that has Emailed me that is building units that have an internal rechargable battery and mounts to the camera shoe. Plus can run off an external power.

adolgin

08-12-2009, 10:27 AM

Damon, FYI we are getting setup to become a stocking US distributor for e-films. If you are in US, it might be advantageous for you to be able to get delivery from here instead of dealing with shipping from AU.

damonwill

08-12-2009, 01:20 PM

I'm in the states. And so is the guy I'm buying it from. He's offering a cheaper HDD and higher priced SSD version. the HDD requires an AC power supply but the SSD can use a build in battery pack or AC pwer supply. He's getting all his stuff together to start offering it for retail sale at somepoint. But Dealing with people direct for now. I just want to be able to film a bunch and not pay a butt load for chips.

chrisearls

08-14-2009, 08:58 AM

I have just seen something that is a one piece solution. Its an SSD drive that attaches to the camera and is powered by the sony battery and there are even extra power taps out.

http://whitewatermedia.net/EXSSD/

Chris

Kenny_G

09-24-2009, 08:32 AM

PHU-120K

The PHU-120K offers approx. 400 min of HD recording to enhance the XDCAM EX workflow capabilities.
This new drive unit has a 120gb drive.
Does it mean that the 80gb limit is not manifest anymore?

Carl Marxx

09-24-2009, 04:24 PM

Kingston has a 64gig. SSD for $149.00 found at Fry's electronics. I tested the write and read at 88mb/ps and 114.5mb/ps respectively. This will give you 3hrs. and 50some minutes at HQ. The 80Gig. SSD is $399.00. In time, the price should be under $200.00. You don't what to know what the 128Gig. SSD are going for! Carl

Kenny_G

09-25-2009, 07:11 AM

I have tested the PHU-60K interface with a 160 GB usb-harddisk unit and it worked. The only thing was that I couldn't format the drive to its full capacity. It formatted only 80 GB.
There is one big question with the Sony Express card-USB adapter. Were there should be 5 volts, there is only 3.x volts. IMO the PHU-60K unit is using this 3.x volt as a reference, because, if I only disconnect the 3.x volt, the PHU doesn't communicate with the camera.
I opened the PHU and I found that Sony is using a Toshiba 60 GB 1.8 “ Zif drive.
It must be possible to replace this drive with a 1.8" SSD zif drive, to get rid of the restore errors. And now I wonder if the 80 GB barrier is gone now with the introduction of the 120 GB PHU unit. Probably with the new firmware; who can tell?? Sony won't tell us I guess.
http://www.memoryc.com/products/description/64GB_KingSpec_1_8-ZIF_40_pin_SSD_Solid_State_Disk-MLC_/index.html (http://www.memoryc.com/products/description/64GB_KingSpec_1_8-ZIF_40_pin_SSD_Solid_State_Disk-MLC_/index.html)

Carl Marxx

09-26-2009, 12:14 PM

I've had this issue before replacing hard drives on DVD video recorders; you can replace a H/D unit with a larger drive, but the unit only sees X#s of Gigs. regardless of capacity since the "table" on the recording unit, be it desk top or camera, can only address what is programed to address per partition. In the case of the EX-1&3s, it is limited to 80Gig. (per slot) max I believe for now. Trying to get more by connecting a larger drive (with a single partition) to it is like trying to get blood out of a turnip! It's gotta be true 'cuz I asked Grommet and he concurs. -- Carl