HVX200 Portable Hard Drive Issues

K

karlgent

Member
Hi all,

I recently purchased an HVX200 along with two 8Gb P2 cards. Since I can't afford more P2 cards or a Firestore at the moment, and also don't have my Macbook/Laptop at present, I was looking to buy a portable hard drive so I could offload footage in the field, format the cards and hereby shoot for more than 16 minutes (@1080) in a days shoot.

After reading up a bit on portable hard drives and issues, I confused myself more, so I was hoping that you good people here could help me out with some queries - bearing in mind that I don't have a laptop or workflow alternative for the shoot.

1 - It seems that with a portable hard drive, the power must be supplied from a source other than the 1394 bus (am I correct?). Does this mean that the following would be no good for direct offloading of P2 files if I didn't have a laptop to power it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digi.../dp/B0038MU7V4

2 - Is this the case with USB portable hard drives also - will these work with the HVX without a laptop or source of external power? Can you even use USB hard drives to offload footage directly?

3 - It states in the user manual that the HVX will automatically format any hard drive connected to it. If I offloaded both my P2 cards (16Gb total) to a portable hard drive, formatted the cards, shot another 16 minutes and repeated the offloading. Would this format the original 16 minutes on the hard drive or can I repeat this process as many times as possible (i.e. offload multiple times)?

I hope this makes sense, and I apologize if I'm asking simple questions. I have only ever worked with a Firestore or captured direct to FCP whilst still studying and am totally new to this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need any clarification on the above, please let me know.


Thanks again for any help,

Scott
 
a used fire store is around 250-300 on ebay. That would be my first recommendation. Unfortunately these limit mobility and increase the chance of damaging the fire wire port on your cam.

1- It needs to be plugged in to an ac outlet or battery powered if they make such a thing. It can't be powered by a laptop and still plugged into the cam. Most fire wire drives plug into an ac outlet as wel as the computer/camera.

2- If you want to go USB, you need to use an onthego drive or something like that. A usb drive with a sync/back up button. No external drives aside from a firstore can record directly. They require you to stop, offload, continue.

3-I believe you can do this multiple times, but check the hvx book by barry green. It has a huge section on this.

Lastly, my company Richter Video Equipment rents p2 pretty cheap. Our website is being remodeled and is under construction, but feel free to PM me if you want more info. We may be able to help you out if you have nay longer shoots.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, really appreciate it.

I thought so for a Firewire drive - I had a desktop firewire drive (with AC power) in the past I captured directly to via FCP and my Macbook, but this was only good for indoor shoots and limited the ability to move whilst shooting.

With regard to question 2. I wasn't looking to record directly to the USB drive, I was just looking to offload once both P2 cards were full and repeat this process. Do you know if a cheap portable USB drive such as this would do the job:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/80gb-power-freakz-portable-hard-drive-511310

I will need to check out Barry Green's book, I see it mentioned a lot so it could be helpful since I'm starting out. Unfortunately I'm based in Scotland, so equipment rental is always tricky unless I'm in the city. I will be State side in the future so I will keep your company in mind.

Thanks again
 
Hi karlgent,

If you want to go the usb route, it has to have the sync feature thingy. i think its called onthego or live sync or something like that. (Can you help me out here Barry...whats it called?) The usb drive needs to have a button to initiate the sync. The camera can not control the usb drive but usb drives with that feature can pull data off the camera. Most cheap Usb drives do not have this feature including the linked one.

I know your on a budget, but barry's book is worth every penny and has an in depth how to for exactly what you need to do.
 
Richter Video Equipment said:
a used fire store is around 250-300 on ebay. That would be my first recommendation. Unfortunately these limit mobility and increase the chance of damaging the fire wire port on your cam.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree, I HATE FIRESTORES... They are asking for dropped frames and other issues. I have never had an expirence with a firestore that was not a major pain in the ass. In fact, after a couple issues on multi-cam gigs with operators who used them (who owned them themselves and assured me they never had an issue), I no longer hire ops who use firestores. I know some people have had good experiences with them, but IMHO, the liability is too high for paid work. 4 years ago when P2 cards were on a whole different scale of price, they made sense, but when you can grab 8GB cards for $100 used nowadays, the risk is not worth it.

As for HDs for offloading, I used to and still do that ALOT. It is one of my favorite HVX/HPX features. I always kept a HD dedicated for that in a pelican case, and just plug it in to a wall and start offloading. I used a 300GB maxtor one-touch II, though it does not really matter the brand. Remember you can only fit 16 partitions on a drive, so anything over 16x your largest card of space is wasted. Also, I have found some cheaper new firewire drives don't work with the HPX, dont know why, but my older Firewire drives that are now too small and have been replaced by larger drives do great for a camera offload drive.
 
Richter - I will look into the sync/on-the-go drives as that seems the most appropriate for my current situation. If you have any links or if Barry could expand on this, that would be great. Thanks again for all the info. I'll hopefully pick up Barry's book within the month.

Oliver - I don't have the budget for a Firestore at the moment, although if I did see one for $250-300, I would snap it up because they are double that here in the UK usually. I worked with them during film school and although I never experienced any dropped frames, it did wreck the HVX's firewire port on my last day of shooting. I have a WD Studio Desktop hard drive which is similar to the firewire drives you mention, but I'm looking for something portable so I can offload in the field without a laptop or external power source. Thanks for the info and letting me know of the partitions - means that I could get 16 times my 8Gb P2 card (128 Gb) so I should buy a smaller Hard Drive at the moment.

Cheers folks
 
karlgent said:
Richter - I will look into the sync/on-the-go drives as that seems the most appropriate for my current situation. If you have any links or if Barry could expand on this, that would be great. Thanks again for all the info. I'll hopefully pick up Barry's book within the month.

Oliver - I don't have the budget for a Firestore at the moment, although if I did see one for $250-300, I would snap it up because they are double that here in the UK usually. I worked with them during film school and although I never experienced any dropped frames, it did wreck the HVX's firewire port on my last day of shooting. I have a WD Studio Desktop hard drive which is similar to the firewire drives you mention, but I'm looking for something portable so I can offload in the field without a laptop or external power source. Thanks for the info and letting me know of the partitions - means that I could get 16 times my 8Gb P2 card (128 Gb) so I should buy a smaller Hard Drive at the moment.

Cheers folks
Click to expand...

Be careful with some firewire drives... I had a cheap portable firewire enclosure I bought and a 120gb HD and a USB power adapter to supply power to it. The drive worked with everything but the HPX for some reason. I dont know why, and I never tested it further as I delived some footage to a client on that drive and never got it back. But something to be aware of. Also, double check on the # of partitions. I am 99% sure it is 16, but that is from memory.
 
Oliver - I would only use a firewire drive indoors due to the requirement of an external power source so that's no problem. even if it is 16, that will be more than enough for a day of shooting. I can always format and repeat the next day.

Richter - Been scouring the net looking for an on-the-go/livesync portable drive but can't find anything. Any idea where I could find one?

Thanks again
 
According to google its called On-the-go, although you will have much better results abbreviating and looking for a drive that supports OTG.

To all Firestore haters (lol jk): I found the latest firmware makes a huge difference. I never had any dropped frames. I norm just use it as a back up. If i use it for long shoots (a few hours) i put p2 int he cam on loop mode so if the drive stops i have at least 30 min to fix it before loosing footage. But yes, p2 is better, if on a budget the firestore isn't bad IMO. That being said, since it is a less reliable platter drive it should have some sort of back up .
 
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That should work, can't guarantee it, but it should work. I might try and find one in the US. I t would be nice to use my existing external. Of course panny has yet to let us plugg in an usb drive directly and record right to it.
 
So my Belkin USB OTG Adapter arrived and I went out and purchased an iomega 500 Gb USB Select Portable Hard Drive to go with it. I locked my P2 card and set the camera to PC Mode, I connected the camera to my OTG adapter (which is battery powered) and it flashed on the camera's LCD - "TURN POWER OFF" and the red camera light flashed also. I didn't even get to connect the USB drive to the other end of the adapter.

I therefore unlocked the P2 card and tried the same again. The camera connected fine, but the hard drive refused to connect (as shown by lights on the adapter) - I think this was due to the battery power in the adapter being insufficient however - but regardless of this, when I went into shooting mode again, it said "P2 FORMAT ERROR" and all the clips had been deleted. Even when I powered the USB adapter via the mains, the same thing happens.

Does anyone know how I can use this USB portable hard drive with the Belkin On-The-Go adapter to offload P2 cards in the field?

Any help could prove a great money solution for anyone using P2

Cheers
 
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