Suggested Hard Drive for DVX Direct Capture?

[jat2124]

Hi,

I have a project which calls for a six to eight hour continuous shot. I plan on shooting on a DVX100A. Obviously, I need to record straight to an external hard disk through my 1.67ghz Powerbook.

Has anyone successfully recorded a single shot this long? What external hard drive would you recommend? I've also been looking into buying an enclosure and hard drive to save money. Any experience with that?

Many thanks,

Josh

[ovjamaica]

What kind of shoot requires a single shot (take?) for 6-8 hours? Sounds extreme to me. Good luck with whatever it is.

In terms of hard drives I've always had good luck with Seagate drives. Western Digital's have failed on me before (twice) so I'd stay away from those. Enclosures are fairly generic so I don't really have one to recommend.

[Noel Evans]

I dont know about the WD drives....... but certainly my seagates have never failed and I have been using them for a LONG time. Different drives of course but the same brand. I built a friends pc a few years ago and he opted for a Maxtor.. maybe they are good? But this one failed in a year.

[ryan brown]

Western Digital's have failed on me before (twice) so I'd stay away from those.

Same here. One pooped out after only 1 month.

Also curious as to what needs a continuous 6-8 hour shot. If it's for some sort of time lapse, you can always hide the interuptions with some sneaky editing... errr... even not so sneaky... a simple transition in the right spot.

[jat2124]

Thanks for all the advice. As for the project, it's going to be a video installation. It's set out in the woods, a guy passed out next to a camp fire, the fire slowly burning out. Just one scene. No camera movement, but the shoot is going to be rather crazy, hundreds of feet of extension cords.

[vocare]

Thanks for all the advice. As for the project, it's going to be a video installation. It's set out in the woods, a guy passed out next to a camp fire, the fire slowly burning out. Just one scene. No camera movement, but the shoot is going to be rather crazy, hundreds of feet of extension cords.

Do you have power supply ?

if you are capturing to 3.5 '' hardisk...should not be a problem when you have power supply.

if you are capturing on a laptop with 2.5''
that might be an issue, contionous with powerbook.
dont think that the powerbook battery will last long...
the most is 4 and less than.
For the external harddisk, try to get one with firewire
and additional powersupply from usb port from
laptop. This will help to reduce drop frame while capturing.

next solution, buy a firestore. think it will get cheaper
when there are more model and brand coming up.