How to dump footage?

mainstreetprod

mainstreetprod

Veteran
I just finished a weekend of shooting while dumping, for the first time,
all the footage to a PC laptop after each use of the P2 card. Now I need to get the footage into my Imac to edit. As discussed in another thread, I bought a firewire drive for editing, but the laptop has no firewire port - so I need to get the footage either straight into the Imac or into my old USB drive for now. Problem is, when plugged into the laptop, it does not show up under the drive list. According to some threads I found on this, re numbering the drive can solve the problem (because an existing drive has the number it wants) but I have been unable to change the number. Is there a way to send to footage via USB straight into the Mac? Or, since both computers are running on the same wireless internet , can they somehow be networked that way? Thanks!
 
It might take a while (depending on the speed of the machines) but I think you might be able to send everything across the wireless connection. I had to do this in an aemergency once and it did work. I guess it boils down to how many gig's you're talking about.

Another option is a Mac -> PC cross-over cable to get the 2 machines to talk to one another. That could also be very tricky and more involved than getting the USB drive to show up.

Try dragging over one of the media files and see if it works (and how long it takes). Good luck!
 
You'll have to configure a LAN network between the two. Ethernet is Ethernet wether cabled or wireless.

You don't change drive numbers with USB and Firewire. Not sure what that's all about.
 
This is beyond frustrating. All my mxf files from 3 days of shooting are on this laptop. I'm sitting here staring at them , unable to move them anywhere. The USB drive I originally planned on using is "unrecognized". I had no firewire port to hook my editing firewire drive, so I bought a PCI adaptor. Eureka! the drive showed up. I started a transfer - then - BLUESCREEN. 3 different times. The laptop cannot seem to handle this PCI adaptor without a serious error at some point. I can't burn to a DVD because the files are too huge. I could try double layer dvds, but elected to buy the PCI adaptor instead of those, as they are $60 for a stack of 25.
I have no idea how to configure a wireless LAN network , and I think it would be agonizingly slow anyway. THere must be a way to get the laptop to recognize tthis USB drive. I went PC for this laptop rather then Mac as everyone assured me the instability I remembered from several years ago with 98 were gone. As Charlie Brown would say.....AUUUUGGGGHHH!
 
Is the USB drive formatted for mac or PC? You could format the drive as FAT32 which can be recognosed on mac and pc.
 
That's more than likely what the problem is - however, if I format, I lose all the previous files stored on the USB drive- - guess i could move them to the new firewire drive - hmmmmm.... how do I format for Fat32 if I can't get the PC to recognize it?
 
mainstreetprod said:
I have no idea how to configure a wireless LAN network , and I think it would be agonizingly slow anyway.
Click to expand...

Nope, faster than you think. And there are tons of on-line tutorials in how to set up a LAN between the two, it's pretty easy.
 
There must be some inherent problem with trying to transfer files this size- I have been able to easily transfer the smaller files to the firewire drive- but trying to send the whole contents folder crashes the system. So right now, I am moving the individual MXF files one by one and keeping my fingers crossed.
 
I was finally able to set up the LAN and start transferring over the wireless
network. Each contents folder is going to take 8 hours - but that is better than nothing.
RE: update to more reliable system - I thought I was doing that. Bought a brand new dual core laptop with 2 gig memory and a new 160 gig firewarie drive. Everyone on the HVX board seems to be using PC laptops without a hitch to dump footage from P2 cards. Maybe my mistake was using the internal HD to store it instead of external.
 
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