What hard drive do i need for DV?

[kazzer]

If I was capturing/transferring 2 hours of DV footage (720 x 576), what size hard drive would I need? Does the drive need space for the original transfer, and more space for the edited video?

Hope this makes sense, thanks!

[Greg12]

Huge,

17 minutes of DV footage is 4gigs.

[CMP1223]

Yes, if plan to edit video, you will need space for the original capture and for the final rendered video. I would suggest a hard drive no smaller than 60GB (thats enough for about 4 hours of DV). MORE IS BETTER!! Also check on speed. Some video editing programs and/or capture card require a fast harddrive. I just bought a 7200RPM ATA-100 60GB, and had to buy a controller card b/c my computer was slow. Hope this helps!

[kazzer]

Thanks for your reply CMP1223. The maximum I would be transferring in one go is 2 hours. Would a 40 Gig HD be enough? Also, I didn't think that the drive speed was that important for DV, as there is no digitization taking place (unlike analog capture). Is 7200rpm really necessary??

Thanks again!

[CMP1223]

I'm no expert, but im pretty sure the following is right. One, if you look on the COMPARISONS section of this site, you'll see DV quality is 216 mb/min. This means a 40GB harddrive will store a liitle more than three hours of video. If you plan to edit the video, you'll need space for that too, so you will only be able to work with about 1.5 hours at a time. Also, if plan to put anything else on the harddrive (OS, software) than the storage goes down. About the speed. I don't know how important RPMs are, but transfer speed is important. Even though there is no conversion, you still need to transfer it on your computer. That means you'll need a harddrive to handle it. I think a ATA 100 or SCSI drive will do. Like me, I can only handle ATA 66 so I buyed a $20 controller card. If your going to edit, you'll want the added speed. Personally, I'd buy a 60GB ATA 100. Its fast, cheap, and good enough for what you want.

[catnip1]

Hello kazzer,
I just recently upgraded from a very slow drive < ata 33. I upgraded to a Western Digital ATA100 80 GIG (7200 rpm). While I was looking I talked with several capture software manufacturers (Dazzle being one of them) and asked them about HD speed for capture. All seemed to agree thet 5400 rpm should be about the minimum speed although data transfer rate was the deciding factor. I was able to capture OK with my slow drive but there were some dropped frames but not bad. I'm using Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge with Win 98SE, a 633 Mhz Celeron processor and 256 Mgs of ram. My AVIs were a bit choppy with the old drive but when I converted to mpeg1 they looked pretty good. I do notice a big difference with my new drive (and controller card). You probably will be OK with 5400 rpm. I am currently using MainActor as capture program and getting good results.

Good luck

D.E.

[You_Are_Alive]

Why are you sweating the 7200 rpm issue man? Video editing, especially if you use DV compression, is highly demanding on your system resources and thats why it requires a 7200 drive. The difference is $10 only between a 5400 and 7200 that has a capacity of 60 Gig, no brainer. I suggest you do some more research for yourself to find out the benefits of using a 7200 rpm over 5400, then learn also the basics about video editing on a computer, this stuff needs to learned. :wink:

[Greg12]

r u gonna be able to devote all 40 gigs to capturing?


i'd buy one of those 120gig monsters

[Greg12]

I have a 20 gig hdd and I am going to need to build an external firewire drive,


you are lucky, you have a desktop.

[Tommy]

I wouldn't go with anything less then a 60gb drive but just because if you going to be editing video the more space you have the better. As far as the speed goes. A 5400 rpm drive will work fine, the deciding factor is the transfer speed. I have both in my machine a 5400 and a 7200 and both have enough speed to capture without dropping any frames. However with that said, if they were about the same price I would go for the 7200 if not save some money and perhaps get something larger.

8)

[kazzer]

I suggest you do some more research for yourself to find out the benefits of using a 7200 rpm over 5400, then learn also the basics about video editing on a computer, this stuff needs to learned. :wink:

Thats why I'm here in the forums

Thanks for everyones reply!

[spiderman2k1]

Hi Im not a DV person but I do use a Dazzle 2 mpeg2 card it's analog card but it very good and you do not have to whore about hard drive space like DV and you do not have to rencode the video. I capure from satellite dish and Im very happy with my SVCD I push it to bitreate 2600 and have to setting's VB on and VB off that's CBR also with CBR I can not tell if it from my DISH or my SVCD