P2 offloading

[sodotoguwangus]

When I'm on location, I plan to use a laptop and an external HDD for P2 offloading.

I have a question. Actually, it's a two part question:

1. Why would I want a fire-wire HDD vs a USB 2.0 HDD?

My understanding is that a fire-wire external HDD allows you to offload to the HDD without the use of a laptop, and with this method, the HDD will be partitioned up to 15 times, and then you must reformat it to keep using it. The benefit is that you do not need to use a laptop. Correct?

With a USB 2.0 external HDD I will be able to dump my P2 cards through a laptop and into the external HDD. With this method will I still face the 15 partition limitation?

2. My laptop is a PC (for field capturing), my desktop is a Mac (for actual editing). What kind of external HDD do I need to purchase to ensure that the P2 video files will be accessabe by both computers?

[for_mlove]

Assuming you plan to insert the P2 card into the PCMCIA slot of your laptop, you could use either a FW HDD or a USB 2.0 HDD. I've done both with success. Theoretically, FW should have a higher sustained data rate than USB 2.0, but in reality that isn't always true. At least not in my experience. If you are using this method, or even if you are using the camera as your card reader, you will not be limited to how many cards you can put on the drive. Only by the amount of space you have. When the HVX dumps to a HDD directly it creates a new partition for each card, which leads to the limitation. Using your laptop you will be able to put all the cards on one partition. I usually create folders in advance "Card 1-" "Card 2-" etc. and then copy the entire contents of the card into the appropriate folder. After using the folder I just delete the "-" after the number so I know which are empty.

On the second question, haven't experienced this, but I've heard others state that as long as you use FAT32 for your formatting, you'll be fine.

Hope that helps

[P2metoo]

The external HDD need the power for offloading and yes you can offload the card without removing the cards from the camera using firewire cable on to a HDD provided it has power. The cool thing is camera can actually format the drive for you to.

[Barry_Green]

You can use USB for offloading without a computer as long as your drive complies with USB On-The-Go architecture. Most enclosures don't, many do.

The main advantage to firewire for offloading is that the camera controls the drive and provides for a verification step, so you can be assured that your data copied properly. The main drawback to firewire for offloading is that battery-powered firewire enclosures are currently extremely rare; I've only ever found one, and its battery only lasts long enough for five cards.

Battery-powered USB-OTG enclosures are much more prevalent. However, there's no "verify" step, and so far my USB experience has been a lot slower offloading than my firewire experience.

In all cases a laptop computer is vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly superior to either direct-to-drive offload option. If there's any way at all to have a laptop for offloading, it's far preferable.

[sodotoguwangus]

Anyone have the answer?

My laptop is a PC (for field capturing), my desktop is a Mac (for actual editing). What kind of external HDD do I need to purchase to ensure that the P2 video files will be accessabe by both computers? Will FAT 32 suffice?

[Barry_Green]

Any hard disk will work, just make sure it's formatted FAT32.

[ullanta]

In all cases a laptop computer is vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly superior to either direct-to-drive offload option. If there's any way at all to have a laptop for offloading, it's far preferable.

The one question is: can verification be performed this way?

And, is it necessary? We don't verify 99+% of HD to HD data transfers, and that includes executable code that would really tend to puke on a problem. Major issues will be caught by the copy process itself. So, what's the deal? Just extreme caution with precious footage in case of solar flares? Or is there something in the P2 transfer that makes it more fragile than a normal copy operation? I'd guess not...

[Barry_Green]

For verification I play the clips in the P2 Viewer. As long as the files open and start playing, that's been good enough for me.

There's nothing fragile in the p2 transfer, it's just that after you transfer you're gonna format your card, so -- well, double-checking seems like a good idea...

[Mike@AF]

For verification I play the clips in the P2 Viewer. As long as the files open and start playing, that's been good enough for me.

There's nothing fragile in the p2 transfer, it's just that after you transfer you're gonna format your card, so -- well, double-checking seems like a good idea...

Did I read that you can't play the P2 clips on Mac without converting in FCP first? Any way at all to play those clips on a MacBook Pro without having to run FCP?

Also, how long would it take to offload 1 or 2 P2 cards from the camera to the MacBook Pro?

[Barry_Green]

Not yet, but hopefully a 3rd party P2 viewer for the Mac will be forthcoming soon.