Barry- is this the OTG you mean?

Yes that would work, but that's really expensive. I got that exact same enclosure from www.mwave.com for I think $30. Then you need to put a hard disk in it; I believe mwave sells it with a 60gb drive for a combined $99.00.
 
Barry,
Thanks.
It seems these would be a great option for those shooting to P2 in the middle of no where with no chance of getting to a computer to offload. Take a half dozen or so into the field with you... make duplicate copies for protection and your good to go. They are almost disposable they are so inexpensive.

Jim
 
I am about to purchase the HVX200 and considering all the extra options.
Am I to understand we can use a cheap OTG drive to dump footage off the camera?
I was going to buy the Panasonic portable data store- but if I can use an OTG- what's the point of the Pana Storage?
Thanks.
 
Barry_Green said:
Yes that would work, but that's really expensive. I got that exact same enclosure from www.mwave.com for I think $30. Then you need to put a hard disk in it; I believe mwave sells it with a 60gb drive for a combined $99.00.
Click to expand...

So you have used this drive combination for offloads, and it has worked? What was the offload time? I have been offloading to an old Firewire drive and it has worked well, albeit a little slow. I was hoping to find something more portable. Was it up to your expectations?
 
I have the exact same enclosure (currently with a cheapo 20gb drive, until my larger drive is delivered). I love it. It does take quite a while to transfer an entire card (around 7.5 min. for a 4gb card, if I recall), but it is certainly acceptable. The battery is also nice to have.

One question: what's the largest size drive anyone has used with this enclosure? I tried my perfectly working 100gb drive, and it won't work. The drive spins up, but when plugged into my Windows 2000 machine, the mass storage device driver refuses to install, giving a "function not specified" error, or something like that. Putting the drive in my non OTG USB enclosure, it works just fine. And the enclosure works well with the 20gb drive installed, albeit slowly. Hmmm...
 
Bokes said:
I am about to purchase the HVX200 and considering all the extra options.
Am I to understand we can use a cheap OTG drive to dump footage off the camera?
I was going to buy the Panasonic portable data store- but if I can use an OTG- what's the point of the Pana Storage?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

The Panny's probably faster; but I agree if you don't mind waiting a few more minutes.
 
Cam-Ra said:
I have the exact same enclosure (currently with a cheapo 20gb drive, until my larger drive is delivered). I love it. It does take quite a while to transfer an entire card (around 7.5 min. for a 4gb card, if I recall), but it is certainly acceptable. The battery is also nice to have.

One question: what's the largest size drive anyone has used with this enclosure? I tried my perfectly working 100gb drive, and it won't work. The drive spins up, but when plugged into my Windows 2000 machine, the mass storage device driver refuses to install, giving a "function not specified" error, or something like that. Putting the drive in my non OTG USB enclosure, it works just fine. And the enclosure works well with the 20gb drive installed, albeit slowly. Hmmm...
Click to expand...

I am thinking of getting one with an 80GB Toshiba drive in it, and I'll let you know if it works.

When offloading, what did you do different compared to a firewire transfer?
 
Bokes said:
Am I to understand we can use a cheap OTG drive to dump footage off the camera?
Click to expand...
Yes, you can. It's a limited solution but it does work.

I was going to buy the Panasonic portable data store- but if I can use an OTG- what's the point of the Pana Storage?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
It's a night-and-day difference. The P2 store is a lot faster, it has the ability to verify the data, it can be used as a slot pass-thru for direct reading of cards on computers that don't have PCMCIA slots...

The OTG drives are cheap one-button-press copy devices. There's no way to verify that your footage was accurately copied, and there's no slot on them for PCMCIA cards. They are cheap however. They're slow, about 7:45 to copy a 4GB card, but hey, it's cheap and battery-powered...
 
Dermfellow said:
So you have used this drive combination for offloads, and it has worked?
Click to expand...
Yes.
What was the offload time?
Click to expand...
Slow; a little less than 8 minutes for a 4gb card.

Was it up to your expectations?
Click to expand...
Eh. I went and bought the fastest laptop drive I could find, hoping that it would cut down the transfer time, but it doesn't. Even with a Hitachi TravelStar 7K100 drive in it, it's still 7:45. Going straight to a firewire enclosure I can get transfer times of around 4 minutes, so I wish the USB-OTG was faster. It's very slow so I don't use it often; I normally offload to a laptop.
 
Dermfellow said:
When offloading, what did you do different compared to a firewire transfer?
Click to expand...
In firewire, the camera is the host. In USB-OTG, the drive is the host. So for firewire you have the menus to go through and can see the progress bar and can verify and all that stuff. With USB it's not like that; you put the cam in USB DEVICE mode, go to PC/DUB mode, and then press the button on the USB-OTG enclosure and it'll start copying off the contents of your card slots.

There's no feedback other than a beep when it's done.
 
Barry_Green said:
In firewire, the camera is the host. In USB-OTG, the drive is the host. So for firewire you have the menus to go through and can see the progress bar and can verify and all that stuff. With USB it's not like that; you put the cam in USB DEVICE mode, go to PC/DUB mode, and then press the button on the USB-OTG enclosure and it'll start copying off the contents of your card slots.

There's no feedback other than a beep when it's done.
Click to expand...
Well, some feedback is better than none.

Like I thought, this isn't an inexpensive fix-all, but it has it's place, and it is a cheap alternative if there is time to spare. Still, I guess we all want a Cineporter at a Walmart price. But its not going to happen anytime soon, and like a lot of things, you get what you pay for.

Thanks for the info. I was also going to ask what you thought of the CineForm products (if you use them).

Regards,

Dermfellow
 
I have this same device with the Hitachi 80g 7200 Drive. My times seem to be better for some reason (around 6:30-7min for full 4g card) I use it pretty often and though I sweat it and check it ASAP on a computer it has not faied me yet. Check the way you format it and erase it, you may not be optimizing performance.
Everyone should have something like this for emergency, probably not as primary. I have sent mine off with the client to the edit suite a few times already. It was well worth it.
 
It came, and offloads just fine. Does take about 7-8 minutes, but it has worked well for what I'm using it for. I am not sure I would trust it for important footage, but it sure has been handy since I got it.
 
A couple extra notes based on topics raised in this thread...

-A friend just installed a 160 gig drive in this enclosure, so big drives works fine. Formatted on the Mac as Fat32.

-CompuApp's SwissKnife on the PC produces a "faster" drive than standard windows formatting, and gives you full capacity without the 32gig limit.

-Actual speed of the drive/enclosure combo is 22 MB/sec write and 28 MB/sec read when connected as a normal USB drive (with a 5400rpm drive). So the slow transfer is bottlenecked by either the USB-TO-GO protocol or the camera itself.

-Feedback when transferring... there's more to go on than just the "beep" at the end. During the transfer process the camera LCD/viewfinder says "USB CONNECT". When done, it says "USB DISCONNECT". So, if you've wandered off during the transfer, come back and wonder what's going on, this is a pretty good clue.

-Finally, I keep hearing people say, "It works, but I wouldn't trust it...". I don't understand this. I've never heard anyone come forward who's lost data with this technique. I've done 40 or so backups, all flawless. This is an excellent way to backup on a budget. You simply can't beat what a hundred bucks will buy you (enclosure and drive). A laptop is preferable, but this is more practical in one-man and off-the-grid situations by far.

Your data is NEVER safe, but this is no more half-baked than any other scheme. The moment I get a failure, I'll be glad to come on the forum and shout it from the rooftops. Until then, I trust it as much as I trust anything associated with this process.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
And of course, you have to put the cam in the download mode to offload. With the p2 store, you just eject the card, and download from there.
 
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