HPX250: USB copy from hpx250?
- Thread starter firehawk
- Start date
Barry_Green
Moderator
Yes, it's possible, but it's not quite that easy -- you should only do this with a hard drive that doesn't have anything else on it. If it's a hard drive that you can dedicate solely to the purpose of copying P2 cards onto, then yes it's that easy.
Barry_Green
Moderator
The HPX250 actually supports bus power and host mode on its USB port, so yes you can use just most USB hard drives. Obviously it should be a low-power-draw portable drive, and I think there's a restriction that says it won't work with drives that are 2TB or larger, but other than that, yeah, the HPX250 is pretty flexible when it comes to being able to offload footage to an external hard drive.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Doesn't need OTG. Any external portable drive should work (although I think the manual says that not all drives are guaranteed to work).
mburkefilms
Member
Has anyone experienced a significant difference between 5400 and 7200 drives when unloading directly from the camera?
Mike Warren
Well-known member
The bottleneck will be in the USB data stream so I doubt it would make any difference, all other things being equal.
I use this all the time now and *knocking on wood* never had a problem so far. Get any 2.5" mobile USB drive that runs with USB power and let the HPX format it. Only hiccup for me: each backup creates a new disk image, so when I offloaded 8 cards twice, the disc is divided into 16 disk-images which clutter the desktop screen. But other than that its one of the best features ever! Finally I dont have to lug a laptop with me anymore.
It is essentially the same function as the old P2 Store, just MUCH less expensive and MUCH more flexible. The P2 card stays in the camera so obvioulsy you can't use the camera for shooting during offloading. It's not blazing fast so have something else to do it you're offloading large amounts of data. I keep a 500GB Sagate GoFlex in may camera case - it's about the size of a smart phone - for those times when the 64GB P2 card fills up (rarely, for me).
lonewolf2koc@hotmail.com
Well-known member
Looks like a good alternative to the $2.5 K AG-MSU10 but more a bit more flexible because it allows to offload all two P2 cards vs only 1 on the MSU10. Has most of the offload functionality, including verification via Type S partition. This is extremely important for me as I never trust the fragile USB bus board that interfaces to the hd. And yes, it does preserve all of the original P2 time and date stamp. So if you shot on June 30, 2012 and offload on July 2, 2012, it will show the original June 30, 2012. Shot Put Pro for Windows WILL NOT preserve this. Shot Put Pro for Mac, does however, after many requests. Why cares? It matters because if you're doing chronological documentary and need the original time stamp, it's crucial to have it otherwise you wouldn't know when it was shot or what time of the date.
The largest single 2.5" hd now is 1 Tb. Real world tests show that USB bus powered is 80% reliable. I have a USB drive w bus power that will work at one moment and the other moment, won't. The only way to assure this is to supply the bus power to the USB-mini cable. Most vendors supply you with a dual USB connector. The 2nd one is mostly to supply stable power power.
This is a very simple and near bullet proof way of offloading. When using Type S, the HPX250 will make a dedicated P2 FAT32 partition based out of the capacity of the P2 card. If a 64 Gb card is used, it will make a dedicated 64 Gb partition. Unfortunately if you only shot 4 of 64 Gb, then the whole 60 Gb is wasted. A 1 Tb 2.5" HD will allow about fourteen 64 Gb P2 cards flat. No greater or smaller if all you have are 64 Gb P2s. This may be limiting because I often only shoot 50% of the 64 Gb and change to a different P2 card for different type of scene/location. Only solution to this is simply get more 2.5" ext USB hds.
The most annoying is the "NO NAME" P2 formatted in the camera (HPX250 or any other 2/3" P2 cam). Workaround is simply load it on a Mac or PC and rename it properly prior to final P2 archival destination. The good news is that it allow for "NO NAME" to be the same on all of the 14 partitions. Most OS will not allow duplicate partition name.
I don't see it's too practical during mid shoot. More of letting it offload all the P2 slots during wrap or sleep time. Kind of like spare 2-card reader to speed up the offoad. A typical 64 Gb card w/ full verify on takes about 2 hrs to offload to a 5400 RPM 1 Tb ext usb hd. Two p2 cards will take about 4 hrs total. That's just way too long of a gap to wait.
Overall I'm already using it in real production and it's working out quite well w/ out a PC to fiddle it. Just click couple menus and be done w/ it. I see it another way to maximize the use of the HPX250 and save $$$ on their super expensive 3 P2 USB3 card reader (about $2K).
The largest single 2.5" hd now is 1 Tb. Real world tests show that USB bus powered is 80% reliable. I have a USB drive w bus power that will work at one moment and the other moment, won't. The only way to assure this is to supply the bus power to the USB-mini cable. Most vendors supply you with a dual USB connector. The 2nd one is mostly to supply stable power power.
This is a very simple and near bullet proof way of offloading. When using Type S, the HPX250 will make a dedicated P2 FAT32 partition based out of the capacity of the P2 card. If a 64 Gb card is used, it will make a dedicated 64 Gb partition. Unfortunately if you only shot 4 of 64 Gb, then the whole 60 Gb is wasted. A 1 Tb 2.5" HD will allow about fourteen 64 Gb P2 cards flat. No greater or smaller if all you have are 64 Gb P2s. This may be limiting because I often only shoot 50% of the 64 Gb and change to a different P2 card for different type of scene/location. Only solution to this is simply get more 2.5" ext USB hds.
The most annoying is the "NO NAME" P2 formatted in the camera (HPX250 or any other 2/3" P2 cam). Workaround is simply load it on a Mac or PC and rename it properly prior to final P2 archival destination. The good news is that it allow for "NO NAME" to be the same on all of the 14 partitions. Most OS will not allow duplicate partition name.
I don't see it's too practical during mid shoot. More of letting it offload all the P2 slots during wrap or sleep time. Kind of like spare 2-card reader to speed up the offoad. A typical 64 Gb card w/ full verify on takes about 2 hrs to offload to a 5400 RPM 1 Tb ext usb hd. Two p2 cards will take about 4 hrs total. That's just way too long of a gap to wait.
Overall I'm already using it in real production and it's working out quite well w/ out a PC to fiddle it. Just click couple menus and be done w/ it. I see it another way to maximize the use of the HPX250 and save $$$ on their super expensive 3 P2 USB3 card reader (about $2K).
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