Double transfer rate when using USB ?

[Pellefotograf]

Hi there.

I have a 2008 iMac. And I have always used FW when offloading the P2 cards from my 171E camera (using the camcorder since I do not have any PCMCIA slot). And I have been unhappy with the time it takes to transfer files from my 2x32GB cards.

Today I timed the transfer, and when transfering a 720P/50P clip about 48 sec. long, it took about 1 min. and 5 sec.

I then changed to USB mode, and transfered the same clip via USB 2 (connected the camcorder to my keyboard on the iMac), and it transfered in 28 sec.

I thought that FW 400 would be faster in practical, and surtenly not only less than half the speed of USB2 ??!?

Btw: I am using Final Cut studio 2 "log and transfer".

[Cassius]

For whatever reason, the manual says that Apple users are best served with the USB connection. Based on that it might be platform specific, or driver + platform specific.

[DJDecay]

Firewire will serve you better when "Log and Capturing" from the DV deck. USB 2.0 for removable media seems faster on Mac OS. Most likely due to overhead in the cameras internal software doing Firewire Target Drive emulation, while the USB 2.0 framework just lets you read the card in the most direct way possible. One would infer that from the P2 card reader, which is also USB 2.0.

USB 1.0 however would most likeley be slower.

P.S. I've found it a good idea to copy the original P2 card image (not with the Disk Utility) but just the directories onto the computer, and then do Log and Transfer from disk to disk, this way if you need to work in PC land for some reason, you'll have the original. Since after capture DVCPROHD MOV files will not play on PC via quicktime, some odd difference in headers describing the codec.