dumping to external hard drive in the field

L

lando

Active member
So from what I've read I should be able to dump my p2 cards directly to an external usb2 hard drive in the field without the use of a laptop. With that said is there certain hard drives that will work while others won't? It would obviously have to be battery powered but is there anything else I should be aware of before I go pick something up? Also if I were to dump the card, format it and fill it up again, then dump it a second time, would it just create a whole new folder on the hard drive or possibly write over the existing one? (Which of course I dont want!) Also is there any other options besides a cheap laptop or a P2 store that I should be aware of? Cheers.
 
Please, do tell! I was under the impression you had to do it via a laptop because you needed Panasonics P2 software to do the dump... if there's a way to do it with just a hard drive, I'd be all over that one!!!
 
you must have a firewire drive (not USB), and then put the camera in 1394 host mode. the camera partitions the drive. there's more info elsewhere in the forum.
 
I searched the forums and came across a post by barry green that said it will only work with a usb2 hard drive but couldn't find much more info than that, hence why I'm asking here.
 
No, it will only work with a firewire drive. And you have to supply power to the drive; the camera doesn't supply bus power.
 
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It's really not a good idea to try this. I personally don't feel safe unless I'm able to access the drive with a lap-top and triple check everything copied properly. For that matter, having to have your camera attached while copying is a pain in the butt. I find it's far easier just to find a laptop with a PCMCIA slot and cut/past the files. Your camera stays free for hot swapping and you can make sure the camera/loader double and triple checks it call came out.
 
Using the firewire offloading is perfectly safe, as long as you put the "verify" option "on". Of course, it takes time -- about 2 minutes per gigabyte. But it's free.

If you can find a way to bring a PCMCIA-enabled laptop instead, that's the vastly preferable workflow, because you can transfer footage about 4x as fast, as well as spot-check it, play it back, annotate it, organize it, etc. But there's nothing wrong with the host mode; as long as you use verify it should be perfectly safe. I've done it a few times and never lost a frame.
 
Barry_Green said:
... find a way to bring a PCMCIA-enabled laptop instead, that's the vastly preferable workflow, because you can transfer footage about 4x as fast, as well as spot-check it, play it back, annotate it, organize it, etc. But there's nothing wrong with the host mode; as long as you use verify it should be perfectly safe. I've done it a few times and never lost a frame.
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FWIW i recommend the laptop solution too. get an old g4 mac powerbook & use the p2 slot. very good in the field. Been getting by w/ my 2 8gb cards like that for a while now. very nice workflow transferring data onto a 1tb external. -bol
 
r_dahl said:
FWIW i recommend the laptop solution too. get an old g4 mac powerbook & use the p2 slot. very good in the field. Been getting by w/ my 2 8gb cards like that for a while now. very nice workflow transferring data onto a 1tb external. -bol
Click to expand...


I like the convenience of transferring straight to the drive when I'm on small shoots
and don't want to leave a laptop unattended when it's not always possible to lock it up someplace.

When you use your old G4 Powerbook, what do you use for a capture program to get to
your external drive?
 
There are programs, but I'm not sure that they write-verify. I've not had any problems with drag and drop. Write-protect the card prior to insert.

If you use a PC laptop vs Mac, then make sure you have defragmented the drive before your shoot if you plan on copying to the internal drive. MXF files are really big, so if your PC has to rearange the drive while copying, that takes lots of time.

In either case (Mac or PC laptop) I recommend to copy directly to a laptop-attached external USB or firewire drive instead of the internal drive. It should not slow the P2 card copy process...and then you can use the external drive to feed your editing computrer.

The Western Digital USB drive fits in your pocket and is great for Fedx'ing the huge P2 files. I also send edited HD projects using WD's.
 
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