Could a DV file be watched from an external USB2 Drive?

[Gibson's Squares]

Is USB2 data transfer rate fast enough to watch a DV file directly from an external USB2 hard drive?

[yoda313]

What are you watching it from? USB 2 drives are just fine for watching video from but what is your playback device?

If you are watching it from a computer just use whatever software player you usually use and play off the drive no issues. If you are using a media player or a game console you need to be sure it can play dv video in its raw format. Each external player has its own requirements like needing a fat32 drive or for it to be in a different codec. If its a wdtv media player or one of its competitor it SHOULD play dv avi but I've never tried it with my gen 1 model so I don't know if it can play it in its original format.

[edDV]

DV format (~3.5 MB/s) is well within the sustained transfer rate of a USB2 drive so should play with minimal glitches depending on what other processes are running. This assumes a compatible player like WMP, WMCHC or VLC.

Still it isn't recommended you capture directly to a USB2 drive. Better to capture to an internal drive, then copy to the external drive.

[Gibson's Squares]

Playback device would be a modern day laptop - mac or PC, using whatever software plays DV (I assume VLC could??)

[jagabo]

As edDV pointed out, DV requires about 3.5 MB/s and USB 2.0 drives can usually sustain 20 to 30 MB/s. USB 1.1, at about 1 MB/s, isn't fast enough.

[Gibson's Squares]

Better to capture to an internal drive, then copy to the external drive.

Thanks, that was my plan.

Just wasn't sure if buying a cheaper USB drive (rather than the more costly Firewire) was a good idea for archiving stuff (ie stuff I would only need to access occasionally).