HDD right choice for DV capture question

[arvin]

Hi

I am planing to buy a HDD 80 or 120 GB 7200. Now I have Quantum 30Gb 5400.

I want to capture DV material. So, what do you think. Is it better to use new HDD 80Gb 7200RPM as master with Windows 2000 instaled, slited on 2 partition for capturing.

OR to leave this old 30gb Wuantum, with Windows 2000 and to put a new HDD 7200 in Hdd rack with NO OS on it and to use it for a video capture.


My question is, what is better. If I choose second option, to use blank HDD 7200 in HDD rack-will that be good or no.

Since I dont know-i need your help.

PS. And another little question.

DV capture using FireWire is ONLY 720x576 PAL,-can I resize DV before capture ;ike on 352x288-or that is imposible


Thank you

[firetoad]

I have firewire captured on all sorts of stuff, from "super" fragmented, uber-slow drives with an OS installed up to 7200 RPM 8MB Cache clean HD's. I have never really had too much of a problem with any of them. What I currently run is an old 40 GB Seagate for backup purposes only and a triple partitioned 120GB Maxtor for my OS (1 partition), Video Editing (1 partition) and File Storage/Working Directories (1 partition). This seems to work well for me. I would suggest a little 30KB program called DVIO for firewire capture, simply and works great. It will not allow the resize that you want but you can capture with it and resize it later. You could probably use a video editing/capturing package to resize and capture, but, personally, I would capture as is and resize later. Just my personal preference.

[ZippyP.]

Capture used to mean some sort of analog to digital transfer which is demanding on resources. That's why analog capture needs a separate, clean, unfragmented drive.

DV and Firewire isn't really capture though, more like a direct transfer of digital information via an input port. In your case it may not be necessary to have a separate drive.

8)

[donsmith]

I would agree with what everyone has said so far. However, if you are going to be working with big files, its always good to have two physically separate hard drives while editing. One could be reading and one writing. Plus, if it important stuff save it on two drives to be extra safe.

Also, if i were getting a new hd now i would look at the ones with an 8mb cache. i noticed a difference going from a 2mb to 8mb cache and i believe most of the benchmarks support that finding. not much of a difference in price.

depending on the file size you are working with, i would go with a bigger partition than 40gb. not sure on the size of those dv files though.

[ktnwin]

If you already have a system drive with Windows and plan to add a second one, it is best to dedicate the second one (drive D for captured video.

I use my second drive for capture, editing, authoring. When done then I (quick) re-format my second drive to clean it up and ready for the next project. People use to think that DV requires very fast drive but that's not really true, DV max transfer rate is 4MB/sec and today's HDD can sustain upto 30MB/sec transfer rate (max is 133MB/sec but that the ideal case and not sustained). When you capture analog video (uncompressed) this require really fast system and hard drive to be able to keep up with the amount of data transferred.

[mustang581]

just in case you have not bought your second drive yet, consider this one.
I bought a Maxtor 120gig ATA/ 133 7200rpm for 129.00 at Costco the bonus was that the box also included a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter card which goes for about $40.00. (the display box did not show it though).

[flyingmonkey35]

all that i have read and done myself says.

keep your drives seprate. and if at all possble have one dedicated just for DV capt. if your like me you will end up with a few projects going at once and it really hogs up your hd space.

+ like others above me easy formatting when all done.

party on

monkeyboy out

[jennyandgreg]

Ok question....

If you dedicate one drive to capture, do you need to dedicate another drive to output so that the throughput of the video project goes clean to a drive without any interuptions to read data from the same drive you are writing to?

all that i have read and done myself says.

keep your drives seprate. and if at all possble have one dedicated just for DV capt. if your like me you will end up with a few projects going at once and it really hogs up your hd space.

+ like others above me easy formatting when all done.

party on

monkeyboy out

[The village idiot]

You don't absolutely have to render to a different drive, but you will gain a bit of speed by rendering to a second drive.