DV video size + firewire question

[VJ]

Hello,

My brother has a number of videos recorded with his Sony handycam. We'd now like to transfer them to PC (via firewire).

What filesizes might I expect (MB/min, ...) ?

I'm considering to purchase a Lacie external harddrive (d2 extreme triple interface), but I'm wondering what the best connection is: my computer has a FireWire 800 interface, but according to the manual of the D2, it is possible to daisychain a camera from the harddisk.

So, should I connect both devices to the computer (the FW800 card is a 4-port, PCI-X - 64-bit/133 MHz), or daisychain ?


Jörg

[exMotraxUser]

When I capture from my Sony D8 -> DV in AVI (via FireWire) it begins a new file (4GB each) after 17 min. 55sec. because of FAT32. So much for space needs.
Second question: What OS are You using?
I've read something about bad FireWire speed on WinXP with SP2 and FW800 devices. If I could find the link...

[VJ]

Originally posted by exMotraxUser
When I capture from my Sony D8 -> DV in AVI (via FireWire) it begins a new file (4GB each) after 17 min. 55sec. because of FAT32. So much for space needs.

ok, thanks!

Second question: What OS are You using?
I've read something about bad FireWire speed on WinXP with SP2 and FW800 devices. If I could find the link...

Windows XP...
(currently SP2, but I could always uninstall it... )

I also read about that FW800/SP2 issue. However, Lacie have a fix for this (a firmware update on their drives seems to bring back the speed).
Only way to know for sure is to try...


Jörg

[Brian Ellis]

If you reckon 13 Gb/hour, you can't go far wrong. However, I have heard that "capturing" (better called copying) DV and sending to an IEEE-1348 disk drive on the same card can sometimes be fraught with difficulties, as the single chipset has to handle datastreams in both directions simultaneously and it doesn't always like it. I know some have succeeded and some have failed, so it may be a simple hardware problem. I have a friend who cured it by installing a second IEEE card.

[VJ]

The card has 4 chipsets; it is this one:

http://www.indigita.com/products/hostadapters/idt804pci.html

(an engineering sample )

But this would mean that daisy chaining is not the best way to do it.


Jörg