GH3 GH3 and tablet transfer

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bravermanj

New member
I'll be backpacking for an extended period of time in Asia and I'll be taking along a GH3. I'm trying to bring as little gear as possible. What's the best way to transfer and store video files that I shoot during the trip? I was thinking of taking a tablet and small hard drive. Are there any inexpensive tablets that have a USB host? Is that even possible? I'll eventually be editing on FCP7.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
 
id just get a little netbook. my girlfriend has a little asus that isnt a lot bigger than an ipad.
(and probably just a little bit more than half the price)
 
Yeah tablets may be more a hassle. Consider a tablet usually has 16GB or 32GB of storage. Thats only 1 or 2 16GB SDHC cards. For the price you would honestly be better off just buying 10 16GB SDHC cards and a card wallet to store them in. The nice thing about SDHC is that the cards are pretty common all over the world so if you do run out it should be rather easy to buy a couple. A wallet holding 16 cards is still smaller then a portable hard drive.
 
@Thomas Smet, I'm realizing that does seem to be the best option. Do the SDHC cards have to be of a certain type to handle recording video from a GH3? Amazon has 32GB Ultra SDHC cards (30mb/sec) for $19.99. Is there a minimum speed for these? Would 20mb/sec work? Thanks!
 
yeah as Thomas Smet said 32GB storage wont go very far. video out of the GH3 will fill up cards/drives fast!

small notebook i'd go for with a couple small 1TB extrnal hard drives. i think the 1TB hard drives are all powered via the USB these days so no need to lug around a mains adapter and such.

id also pick up one of those roll down and clip watertight sacks that camping and adventure stores sell these days. good to keep tucked away in the bottom of your bag incase you get caught out in a storm, get all the goodies in there and you can get soaked to the bone with a confident smile :)
 
bravermanj said:
@Thomas Smet, I'm realizing that does seem to be the best option. Do the SDHC cards have to be of a certain type to handle recording video from a GH3? Amazon has 32GB Ultra SDHC cards (30mb/sec) for $19.99. Is there a minimum speed for these? Would 20mb/sec work? Thanks!
Click to expand...

If this is for the GH3 which is not hacked yet then you only have to worry about the 50mbit/s rate which should work very well on just about any class 10 you can find. I'm not 100% sure but even class 6 should be fine for that data rate. Have you checked out the SDHC requirements on the GH3 pages?
 
Thomas Smet said:
If this is for the GH3 which is not hacked yet then you only have to worry about the 50mbit/s rate which should work very well on just about any class 10 you can find. I'm not 100% sure but even class 6 should be fine for that data rate. Have you checked out the SDHC requirements on the GH3 pages?
Click to expand...

You really need class 10 for the higher bit rates according to Panasonic.
 
Looks like a lot of folks here are assuming tablet = iPad.

I'm not sure what you would consider "cheap" as far as tablets go, but the new Microsoft Surface offers both an SD slot and a USB to hook up your backup hard drive and start offloading footage. Its a pretty slick new OS that should be plenty capable and pretty sweet looking to boot.

On the more affordable front, no particular model comes to mind but there are plenty of Android tablets that offer SD and USB host ports. Find a nice cheap 7" one, and it should fit easily in your bag without taking up too much more space. Open up the file explorer, back up your media, slide it back into your bag.

Note that an iPad would be TERRIBLE for something like this (which is why I think a lot of folks are telling you not to bother), since they don't offer native USB ports or storage cards, and even then iOS does not have a file manager.

bravermanj said:
@Thomas Smet, I'm realizing that does seem to be the best option. Do the SDHC cards have to be of a certain type to handle recording video from a GH3? Amazon has 32GB Ultra SDHC cards (30mb/sec) for $19.99. Is there a minimum speed for these? Would 20mb/sec work? Thanks!
Click to expand...

I haven't had the pleasure of using a GH3 yet (most of us haven't), but I'd guess you should be relatively safe with anything class 10 (10MBs) and higher. With the GH2's crazy high bitrate hacks (Driftwood, etc), very high speed cards were necessary. But otherwise, you can get away with a class 6 on a stock GH2, and I've even used a class 4 in a pinch, which is a mere 4MBs. Unlike Canons, Panasonic's buffer is pretty good at making sure your card doesn't lag too far behind in my experience. I would assume the GH3 is the same way, but can't speak from personal experience until I've tried one.
 
in my experience a hyperdrive udma or nexto (for backup & location dumping) + a netbook (for quick review/culling and secondary backup) has proven a good traveling solution for me.
 
If you could afford it, a Macbook Air is a great solution. I use a netbook for dumping off files and then backing up, but you can't really cut anything on it, just too slow. The few times I've used an Air, it's been more than capable of editing as well, which may or may not be useful in your case.

If you don't need to log footage whilst your on the road, then as suggested, get a bunch of card and a good watertight wallet.
 
The new HyperDrive UDMA2 comes with a Wifi module allowing you to access all files you download on just about any tablet. The iPad is still not great in file handling - I would love to be able to browse RAW files directly and use it as my main method of review and culling images.

I have tried using the CCK on my 64gig iPad 3, to download files from my GH2 and GF3.

I just got a Seagate Goflex Satellite on sale, and I will be trying to copy files to my Goflex from my Hyperdrive (using a OTG USB adapter) and see how that works.
 
Yes, a tablet would be fine.

A lot of people here seem to be assuming you will be using the tablet for storage, when I believe what you want to do is use the tablet as an intermediary between the camera and the hard drive. If you can find a tablet with a full size USB port, that will most likely mean it has USB host support, and it will be perfect for your solution, as long as it has enough space on board to handle the files while you transfer them. If you use laptop hard drives (2.5" hard drive), you should be able to power them from the USB port itself if you get the right USB to SATA adapter.

I would suggest getting this one from thinkgeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e6d9/ it is a silicone case with a built in adapter and USB cable, and it is only $12, so you could pick up a few of them.
 
atarijedi said:
Yes, a tablet would be fine.

A lot of people here seem to be assuming you will be using the tablet for storage, when I believe what you want to do is use the tablet as an intermediary between the camera and the hard drive. If you can find a tablet with a full size USB port, that will most likely mean it has USB host support, and it will be perfect for your solution, as long as it has enough space on board to handle the files while you transfer them. If you use laptop hard drives (2.5" hard drive), you should be able to power them from the USB port itself if you get the right USB to SATA adapter.
Click to expand...

This is pretty much what I have been saying. However, I just realized that most Android-powered tablets use micro-SD slots instead of full sized cards. That means he'll probably need to run 2 concurrent USB ports, one for the HD and one full-sized SD card reader. Which is really a mess at the end of the day.

I'd go with something like the new MS Surface, or if you want to go more affordable, this seems EXTREMELY useful (although admittedly less sexy): http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=LATITUDE-ST-128-R&cat=TAB
 
I do exactly (I think) what you want to do with the Asus Transformer Prime (TF700) with the keyboard dock. I can put my SD cards in the keyboard and plug a rugged USB drive in the keyboard dock and transfer.

If anyone is interested, I can post shoot a little video showing my tablet transfer setup.

I do love my TF700. Much better than a netbook, but the netbook suggestion is also a good one.
 
ATL Media Group said:
Asus Transformer.... USB and full size SD slot, so you just copy from card to HDD... it's a tablet with a docking keyboard that ads a battery so it gets around 15 hours of up time with the keyboard dock.

I suggest the TF300 quad core.
http://www.asus.com/Tablet/Transformer_Pad/ASUS_Transformer_Pad_TF300T/
Click to expand...

I am familiar with the Transformer. But unless I am mistaken, it only has a microSD slot, with the full sized SD on the optional keyboard dock. I love the idea of the prime because it can lose the keyboard for easy travelling, and then add it when you want/need a more laptop-like device, but for what the OP is looking for it may be silly. I mean, he could just opt for an ultrabook or macbook air (arguably about the same size as a transformer w/ dock), but I think the idea is to travel light (ie. just a small cheap tablet).
 
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