USB OTG Users...Anyone? Curious...

fevercity

fevercity

Well-known member
This thread is intended solely to hear from actual in-field users of USB On-The-Go drives for alternative P2 card backup storage. Barry touches on this pretty risky method in his latest & greatest book. I was interested if anyone has used this method and with what 'varying' degrees of success.

I grasp P2 workflow. I do not need to hear about why this is a bad idea or see laundry-lists on its shortcomings. I get it. You don't need to 'take me to school' for even considering this wacky option.
If you have used, are using or are considering USB OTG's, please elaborate further. Thanks in advance for {hopefully} not ripping me a new one. :dankk2:
 
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I use this method all the time, with the Mwave "Magic Box". I've NEVER had a failure under any conditions, and use it in the field where it would be difficult to bring any other sort of backup. Heck, I've even used it to back up my digital still camera, which is closer to its original purpose, and as a nice portable rugged USB drive for moving files. What more could you ask for a $29.00 enclosure?

Basically, it's a win-win in my book. I still only own one 4gig P2 card, so the camera down time to transfer would be down time no matter the method unless I had a second card.

I haven't read Barry's book yet, and can't speak for his experiences, but I couldn't be happier with it.

No "ripping a new one" allowed...

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Curious...

Curious...

I know you're looking for first hand accounts of using it, but I was wondering if you could explain it more in detail. It sounds like a very useful in the field solution to me. Sounds like it might even be the perfect solution for the production I'm working with right now.

My questions though are:

1) When you transfer over from a card to a USB OTG drive how do you prevent the second transfer from copying over the first transfer? What I mean by this is renaming the card. If you only have one card and keep emptying that, everytime you hook back up the USB OTG won't it see that card w/ the exact same name? So how do you copy the second and so forth batches without copying over previous ones?

2) As a lot of USB devices can draw power through the USB cable, do these OTG drives do that as well (drawing from the camera)? Or does it have its own independent power supply?

3) Any specific USB OTG drive links and/or specific product/model #'s that you can direct me to?

cheers.

:Drogar-Smoke(DBG):
 
VaricamLife said:
1) When you transfer over from a card to a USB OTG drive how do you prevent the second transfer from copying over the first transfer? What I mean by this is renaming the card. If you only have one card and keep emptying that, everytime you hook back up the USB OTG won't it see that card w/ the exact same name? So how do you copy the second and so forth batches without copying over previous ones?:
Click to expand...

Each time you use the device, it creates a new sequentially named folder and drops the contents of the P2 card into that folder. No chance of an over-write. No user intervention needed.

VaricamLife said:
2) As a lot of USB devices can draw power through the USB cable, do these OTG drives do that as well (drawing from the camera)? Or does it have its own independent power supply?:
Click to expand...

This enclosure uses either a brick or the built in Lith-Ion battery, it doesn't and can't draw power from the camera... I've never run the internal battery dry, but the most card dumps I've done on it at once is 8 or so before recharging. Completly portable and nothing extra needed. A true "in pocket" solution.

Is this better than a notebook or P2 Store? No, but I've never had a botch of files, or error or loss of data. I do trust it, as much as any other link in the chain.

VaricamLife said:
3) Any specific USB OTG drive links and/or specific product/model #'s that you can direct me to?:
Click to expand...

Do a search here and you'll find lots of discussion about this topic and at least one other enclosure. Barry found this particular one before Christmas, and it's the one I have.... it and a drive cost under $100. High speed drives aren't necessary for this process, as the camera is the bandwidth bottleneck. My 40 gig 5400rpm Hitachi does great. You'll also need to format the drive as Fat32. On the PC, you can use a freeware software called SwiftKnife from CompuApps to make partitions larger than 32gigs to take full advantage of the drive space.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA30310

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Thanks

Thanks

:dankk2:

Thanks for the reply Jim, really appreciate it. This looks like a great solution and very affordable too. I'm sure the DP will love being allowed to just hit record and let it fly.

cheers.

:Drogar-Smoke(DBG):
 
A cheap laptop is a far far superior and safer solution. You could pick up a laptop for $300 or so that would work just fine and never have you camera down to transfer. The main problem is the transfer is at very best 2 minutes per GB. I carry an OTG drive as a back-up and use it as a back-up to the laptop as well. With P2 Genie you can create redundant back-ups of one card on 2 HDDs and never interrupt shooting, even with only 2 cards.


ash =o)
 
I agree that a laptop is a better solution when available or practical to have with you, but I would be curious to see if anyone has had the OTG solution actually "fail" when used correctly...

I too have used this drive as a "double backup" to the laptop harddrive. Our workflow was to copy the card to the laptop internal drive and the OTG used as a standard USB drive, then do a DVD immediately after of that card's worth of contents. This is about as "safe" as possible, as the data lives in three places, one permanent.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Thanks, Jim, for the useful info. The Colorado connection comes through again! I remember seeing "Groom Lake Mistake" a while back. Good times...

I had done some googling / searching on here and didn't find too many positive's or actual drive model #'s mentioned. As Jim noted, you're not limited by the number of drive paritions, each card gets a new sub-directory in sequential order taking up only the actual space used on the card. Granted, there's no way (w/o a laptop) to view clips but, hey, you can run off batteries!

I see this as a 'backcountry' option for remote hiking-in to locations where a laptop just isn't gonna happen. I have an upcoming project in-and-around Moab's Canyon Country and it might make sense. The footage wouldn't be of 'one-time-only' events but scenics that could be re-shot in a worst-case scenario.

The portability of USB on-the-go's might outwiegh their uncertainty for some cases. Also, the very pointed topic-starter was meant only to discourage outright bashing of the process like I've seen in other forums.

Any make's / model #'s?
 
I have not had the OTG drive fail but I have heard of a few people with some weird corruption issues, I do believe they were able to rescue the footage though.


ash =o)
 
fevercity said:
Any make's / model #'s?
Click to expand...

The one I linked to above is all you need... this is cheap, reliable and comes with the all-important reverse USB cable thingy which the other one (where ever it is in all these topics) didn't have, if I remember.

You get so much value out of this (standard USB storage device, works with your digital still camera or juke box, etc) that you can't go wrong.

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Thanks again, Jim, for the info. It is appreciated as always. Just threw the make & model question back out there.

Looking at your link, you may very well be right. That easily could be "all you need".

A drive & that enclosure, coupled with a solid back-up wokflow, could make for a very feasible remote-location set-up. I don't even mind the transfer time. Beyond desert heat (Canyonlands in August), everything should be cool.

A bit off-topic but I'd love that if anytime someone complained about swapping cards or transfer time, they had to work just 1 day as an AC on a film shoot. Just a thought.... Is that 'grumpy old man' or what?!?!?!?!?
 
Thanks, Jarred, for making sure we weren't completely losing it. I brought up the USB OTG merely as an option for remote shoots with no extra power and the least amount of extra weight as possible.

I realize that the P2 Store would be ideal. Unfortunately, my bank account doesn't agree at the moment. :(
 
im not talking about the firestore.. you can use a normal firewire drive (self powered as well) to offload p2 cards from the camera.. but it does it via the camera with an interface on the camera flipout to show you status of the copy etc.
 
Roger that. Coming from the editing end-of-things, most of my firewire experience revolves around big LaCie's / Western Digital's that need some juice. Live & learn.

Thanks again, Jarred.
 
I may be blind... or for whatever reason... I can't seem to locate (GOOGLE) self-powered Firewire drives. I've found OTG firewire drives that are bus powered... but no self powered drives.

Any one have some online vendors/sites regarding self powered firewire drives?

Thanks,
Jim
 
a few people found some a couple months back.. im using a mce quickstream (yeah they are expensive)
 
Jarred,
Thanks for directing me to the MCE Quickstream... thanks. But, the webpage makes no reference to its ability to handle DVCPRO HD. Obviously, since you are using this drive it must work. Just looking for some reinforcement on this point from you. Also, are you just filling up your P2 cards and than dumping them to this drive from the camera? Thanks.
Jim
 
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The relative scarcity of self powered firewire drives (then and now) was the original reason I went with the USB OTG drive. This is easy to find at MWave.com and cheap.

You just gotta have a little faith that it's doing it's job, and so far with over 40 or 50 copies I've seen no issues whatsoever. I'll believe in it until it lets me down, then I'll report back here and caution everyone.

It's no more half-baked than any other link in this fragile data chain. I'd be more afraid of clips getting mangled by the FireStore than my little OTG device from what I've heard on this forum... :)

Regards,

Jim Arthurs
 
Jim Carswell said:
Jarred,
Thanks for directing me to the MCE Quickstream... thanks. But, the webpage makes no reference to its ability to handle DVCPRO HD. Obviously, since you are using this drive it must work. Just looking for some reinforcement on this point from you. Also, are you just filling up your P2 cards and than dumping them to this drive from the camera? Thanks.
Jim
Click to expand...

it doesnt record to drive as dvcpro hd.. it just works like a normal hardrive for offloading p2 cards.
 
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