EXTERNAL DRIVES AND LAPTOPS

[ZAPPER]

I have done some searching and been kicking the idea around for some time. But in a nutshell this what I would like to do. I would like to have in an external enclosure a killer burner (like an Iomega super drive or the likes) a huge harddrive 200GB or so to hold the DV files and another harddrive to hold the programs, and be able to input from the camera or an analog to digital box of a yet undecided make, directly to this external beast. My reasoning goes like this. I got a new laptop from work and don't want to clutter it up with all of the video crap that I have on my poor old weak desktop.

I have seen external harddrives that claim that you can plug your DV cam Via Firewire into it. This would be great if it is true, and the transfer doesn't have to go thru the laptop.
I am wondering how well I could use an external drive to hold the editing and encoding software, and be able to use it on the laptop.
I have seen some multi bay enclosures and am wondering if I could set one up to do all of this.

I am open to suggestions or ideas or am I living in a dream world

[takeshi]

It takes a bit more than just an external enclosure to have DV saved directly from a camera to an external drive in the enclosure. If you'll check, the devices that offer this are currently fairly pricey. However, for what you're doing you can just capture to the external drive.

[ZAPPER]

It takes a bit more than just an external enclosure to have DV saved directly from a camera to an external drive in the enclosure. If you'll check, the devices that offer this are currently fairly pricey. However, for what you're doing you can just capture to the external drive.

Well the reason I would like to be able to go straight to my external contraption is that I have read of problems useing laptops and external devices. If I new in advance what the outcome of trying to pass the DV from my cam through my laptop to an external drive would be, I wouldn't be so nervous about droping the chunk of change that it will be.

I got an IBM R-51 Pentium M 1600/591 504MB Ram If that helps anyone in the know.

I have seen a few different drives that claim to be able to capture from the cam. But they are all like stand alone in their own houseing. I wouldn't mind daisy chaining a DVD burner, program drive and video drive together but what a mess of wires and power supplies. If I knew how to make a drive transfer from the cam and tucked all three into one enclosure with one power supply it would be the knats ass. I could then even use it on just about any system that I had access to.

I have lost track of which drives I thought that I liked the look of (information overload and no note taking) and the specs and hype make it hard to tell what really does what. I may go torture a salesman and have him show me on my machine how to do what I hope I can. In the mean time I will keep watching for any info that I can find around here.

Thanks

[redwudz]

You could get a PCMCIA Firewire card, or maybe the laptop already has Firewire. Use a 2 bay external Firewire box with HD and burner. The DV would go to the computer, then to the external HD.

How well this would work would depend on the Firewire interface and the external box interface. An external (Or extra) HD can only help. You may be able to have the software run from the external drive, depends on the software.

EDIT: Just read your last post: An external DVD recorder with a built in HD and DV input would do most of what you want. Quality would probably not be as good as a software encoder, but it would be pretty simple.

[ZAPPER]

You could get a PCMCIA Firewire card, or maybe the laptop already has Firewire. Use a 2 bay external Firewire box with HD and burner. The DV would go to the computer, then to the external HD.

How well this would work would depend on the Firewire interface and the external box interface. An external (Or extra) HD can only help. You may be able to have the software run from the external drive, depends on the software.

The laptop has built in firewire, (4 pin)
I know that it could by tricky to run any program from anywhere other than the primary drive and this is a big concern. But if I had to, I could put the programs on the laptop, they dont really take up that much room. I don't have any expeirence with laptops or externals and have only soaked in the negatives. If passing the DV through the laptop is the best that I can get so be it, but I don't know how well even that will work.

Thanks and keep 'em comming

[tmh]

can't speak for others, but I runf my external hd and DVD wriier with my laptop - both via usb 2.0 card. I capture via firewire from camcorder into WinDV.

It all works fine for me. I have a 2.4g pentium 4, 512 mb ram.

The laptop does get quite hot when capturing and encoding.

[ZAPPER]

can't speak for others, but I runf my external hd and DVD wriier with my laptop - both via usb 2.0 card. I capture via firewire from camcorder into WinDV.

It all works fine for me. I have a 2.4g pentium 4, 512 mb ram.

The laptop does get quite hot when capturing and encoding.

I got a centrino. Our guru that the boss uses reccomended it. I don't know how well it will do. I didn't get to pick my laptop or I would have about 30 pounds of Aileinware machine in my lap right now. I may start out slow with an external harddrive and see what happens, but I was really hopeing to be able to keep everything off of the laptop for a couple of reasons.

[tmh]

yea, I should have said my laptop is really a "desktop replacement" type made by Prostar which is similar to Alienware. I has a deskop processor. I've never tried this stuff with any other lappy.

[logixrat.01]

Wow, sounds like alot of work to accomplish your goals. For the money you will spend buying external devices, why not use your internal components of your older desktop and buy a new mobo. It might be cheaper in the end, and probably with lots better performance.

[edDV]

can't speak for others, but I runf my external hd and DVD wriier with my laptop - both via usb 2.0 card. I capture via firewire from camcorder into WinDV.

It all works fine for me. I have a 2.4g pentium 4, 512 mb ram.

The laptop does get quite hot when capturing and encoding.

Your mileage will vary on that depending on machine and the background processes. See this thread for the issues.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248968&highlight=

Best practice is to transfer first to the notebook drive, then copy to the external drive unless you have confidence in your rig. A lost frame is a lost frame.

No time to discuss all the issues but the solutions that will work for direct DV camcorder to external hard drive capture are listed best to worst below. Read their FAQs as to why a cheap drive won't work. Read user reviews to understand the tradeoffs.

http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/fs-3.html

http://www.focusinfo.com/products/firestore/fs-1.html

http://www.datavis.com/product.jsp?prid=404

http://www.baber.com/drives/external_hard_drives/firewire/citidisk_specs.htm

[ZAPPER]

Wow, sounds like alot of work to accomplish your goals. For the money you will spend buying external devices, why not use your internal components of your older desktop and buy a new mobo. It might be cheaper in the end, and probably with lots better performance.

Yep ain't no doubt it's a different way to want to do things. And the cost will vary depending on any deals that I may find on the components. My goal is kind of making a storage box that could be used on almost any PC with a firewire. And be somewhat portable for like nights when I am out of town for work or bored out of my mind while at the inlaws.

I don't think that the DV editing will be the problem on the laptop, and that is what I think is the most hands on intensive part of it. I hope I could make the movie edits and such on the laptop and save the AVI file to the external drive to be encoded on a better machine at a later time. Having all of the software on an additional external drive could (I am hoping) let me use any of my software on whatever PC that I might have access to at the time (work office, sisters, anyone dumb enough to let me use their PC while I am there). I have got to admit that I have editing/converting programs downloaded and saved to three different drives and don't even know what I have anymore. A 40 GB drive for programs would be big enough I think. And a fresh install of all of them into one place could help my head keep track. Putting a killer burner into the mix just speaks for itself, no explaination needed.

Thanks all, for the links and thoughts keep 'em coming

[edDV]

"I don't think that the DV editing will be the problem on the laptop, and that is what I think is the most hands on intensive part of it. I hope I could make the movie edits and such on the laptop and save the AVI file to the external drive to be encoded on a better machine at a later time. "

Should be no problem. The problem to be solved is field DV transfer ("capture") from the camcorder to the external drive.

Alternatives are
1. transfer the camcorder DV stream to the notebook first and then copy the DV-AVI file to the generic external drive, or
2. get one of the drives above, or similar to allow direct transfer from the DV camcorder to the external drive.

After the DV material is on the drive, you will have few problems viewing, editing, copying or rendering files to/from any external drive so long as it is fast enough to support realtime DV playback. If it can't support the speed, copy segments to the local drive for editing and viewing then copy the rendered files back to the external drive.

[takeshi]

FWIW we have no problems capturing from a Sony VX2000 through a Toshiba Satellite P30 directly to an IDE (a 200GB/8MB/7200rpm Seagate, I believe) drive in a Coolmax CD-509B USB2/Firewire external enclosure.

Your miles may vary, of course depending on your notebook and external drive specs.

[edDV]

Yes direct capture to an external drive can work on fast machines but is risking dropouts from many sources due to the fixed datarate of the camcorder DV stream. Once the data is in a file, the OS will ensure further copies are transferred error free.

Issues are discussed in more detail here
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=248968&highlight=