Connecting External Hard drive and Video Camera to laptop

G

Guest

Hello,

This may be a very simple question to many of you so I would like a quick
reply, 'cause this is driving me nuts! ;-)

I have a laptop with a 4-pin firewire port (ans several USB 2.0 ports). I
also have a Seagate 200 GB Hard drive with 2, 6-pin Firewire ports and 1 USB
2.0 port. Lastly I have a Sony Mini DV Camcorder which has a USB and a 4-pin
Firewire port. I have all the cables for all the ports. I would like to
transfer video from my Camcorder to my External HD. So, the question is HOW
DO I CONNECT these three pieces of equipment? 1) Should the Camcorder plug
into the computer's Firewire port and then use a USB cable to connect to the
Hard drive? Or 2) connect the Camcorder to the Hard drive's firewire port and
use the other firewire port on the hard drive to connect to the laptop?
Please hurry...this is driving me crazy! :)

Wil.
 
T

Trevor L.

Wilfred said:
Hello,

This may be a very simple question to many of you so I would like a
quick reply, 'cause this is driving me nuts! ;-)

I have a laptop with a 4-pin firewire port (ans several USB 2.0
ports). I also have a Seagate 200 GB Hard drive with 2, 6-pin
Firewire ports and 1 USB
2.0 port. Lastly I have a Sony Mini DV Camcorder which has a USB and
a 4-pin Firewire port. I have all the cables for all the ports. I
would like to transfer video from my Camcorder to my External HD. So,
the question is HOW DO I CONNECT these three pieces of equipment? 1)
Should the Camcorder plug into the computer's Firewire port and then
use a USB cable to connect to the Hard drive? Or 2) connect the
Camcorder to the Hard drive's firewire port and use the other
firewire port on the hard drive to connect to the laptop? Please
hurry...this is driving me crazy! :)

Wil.
Click to expand...

My guess is 1) because you will need to use the PC's software to initiate
the copying process. The PC will then write to the hard disk (if you tell it
to).

PS. I'm jealous :))

I have to use USB2 to read from camera and because the internal disk doesn't
have enough free space, I have to write to an MP3 player with a 40GB drive,
using USB2. If course not all of the 40 GB is available either, as it has
music, jpeg images and video on it.
 
B

bxf

Wilfred said:
Hello,

This may be a very simple question to many of you so I would like a quick
reply, 'cause this is driving me nuts! ;-)

I have a laptop with a 4-pin firewire port (ans several USB 2.0 ports). I
also have a Seagate 200 GB Hard drive with 2, 6-pin Firewire ports and 1 USB
2.0 port. Lastly I have a Sony Mini DV Camcorder which has a USB and a 4-pin
Firewire port. I have all the cables for all the ports. I would like to
transfer video from my Camcorder to my External HD. So, the question is HOW
DO I CONNECT these three pieces of equipment? 1) Should the Camcorder plug
into the computer's Firewire port and then use a USB cable to connect to the
Hard drive? Or 2) connect the Camcorder to the Hard drive's firewire port and
use the other firewire port on the hard drive to connect to the laptop?
Click to expand...

Unless you are determined, for whatever reason to use Firewire for
everything, do the following:

Attach your drive to the computer using a USB port. Your computer now
has an additional drive, which, if everything is as it should be, will
show up in Windows Explorer, for example.

It is not possible to infer from your description whether the ports on
the camcorder are input or output. Firewire is more frequently (but not
exclusively)used to connect capture devices to the computer, so you
should probably try to use that. You can try to use USB (assuming it is
an output port) if you have problems when using the FW connection.

There is no reason for you to think in terms of connecting the devices
to each other. Just connect each one to the computer, independently.
 
B

bxf

bxf said:
Unless you are determined, for whatever reason to use Firewire for
everything, do the following:

Attach your drive to the computer using a USB port. Your computer now
has an additional drive, which, if everything is as it should be, will
show up in Windows Explorer, for example.

It is not possible to infer from your description whether the ports on
the camcorder are input or output. Firewire is more frequently (but not
exclusively)used to connect capture devices to the computer, so you
should probably try to use that. You can try to use USB (assuming it is
an output port) if you have problems when using the FW connection.

There is no reason for you to think in terms of connecting the devices
to each other. Just connect each one to the computer, independently.
Click to expand...

I realize that it is almost meaningless to talk in terms of input or
output on a camcorder, as why would there be an input port? I made the
reference just in case the presence of both USB AND firewire had some
unknown significance. If they are both for the same purpose then you
should be able to use either one.
 
G

Graham Hughes

I would connect the firewire of the external hdd to the laptop,a dn then the
cancomrder also with firewire to the laptop. Fire wire is much better at
handling the data flow of dv-avi capture, with using usb2 you run the risk
of dropping frames.
When editing, thre is no reason to *have* to use firewire, as the editing
app does not have to work in real time, but with such large files, I'd also
suggest using firewire.

I always do this when editing away from my base.

Graham

--
Graham Hughes
MVP Digital Media
www.myvideoproblems.co.uk
www.dvds2treasure.com
www.simplydv.com
 
B

bxf

Graham said:
I would connect the firewire of the external hdd to the laptop,a dn then the
cancomrder also with firewire to the laptop.
Click to expand...

OP says laptop has only one firewire port.
 
G

Guest

I can't connect both Camcorder and HDD with Firewire, since my laptop only
has one firewire port. So, what would your suggestion be then, Graham? Please
let me know...

Wil.
 
T

Trevor L.

Wil,
I replied early on in the thread and after reading other replies, I think
what I said is correct

1. Camcorder to laptop via firewire.
2. Laptop to External HDD via USB2.

This is identical to my setup except that I can't do 1. as my laptop doesn't
have a firewire port so I use USB2 which I am told is slower and runs the
risk of dropping frames. I don't think that the USB2 connection between
laptop and HDD should caase the same problem as the transfer *should* be
buffered - experts please correct me if I am wrong.

Of course, you need a program on the PC to do the transfer, but this came
with the camera, didn't it?
 
G

Guest

Hello Trevor,

Thank you for both your timely responses, Sir! I just did what has been
suggested (Firewire from Camcorder to Laptop and USB from Laptop to HDD) and
it worked great! I don't think it dropped any frames and the nearly 55 minute
video of my Choir's first half of our last concert was an 11 GB file! My
first use of the HDD and this set up! Woo hoo!! :) Thanks to you and
everybody else! Now for the second half and then the movie creation, followed
by titles and chapters and then the DVD! Wow...I'm on a roll here woohoo! ;-)
Good day to all...

Wil.
 
B

bxf

Trevor said:
Wil,
I replied early on in the thread and after reading other replies, I think
what I said is correct

1. Camcorder to laptop via firewire.
2. Laptop to External HDD via USB2.
Click to expand...

Where did you say these? Am I not seeing all the posts? The only post I
see from you has the following:

"
My guess is 1) because you will need to use the PC's software to
initiate
the copying process. The PC will then write to the hard disk (if you
tell it
to).

PS. I'm jealous :))


I have to use USB2 to read from camera and because the internal disk
doesn't
have enough free space, I have to write to an MP3 player with a 40GB
drive,
using USB2. If course not all of the 40 GB is available either, as it
has
music, jpeg images and video on it.
 
T

Trevor L.

Triffic, Wil

This is how it worked for me too. 11GB for 55 minutes is about right. I got
13.3GB for 59 minutes.

Now comes the fun bits

Take care that you use the highest quality when outputting. Experts here say
MPEG2 is much better than MPEG1. I guess MPEG4 would be even better.
Unfortunately, my software didn't give me much choice, but I may find a
better package to do the job.
 
B

bxf

Trevor said:
Take care that you use the highest quality when outputting. Experts here say
MPEG2 is much better than MPEG1. I guess MPEG4 would be even better.
Click to expand...

The thing with MPEG4 vs MPEG2 is not that it is ultimately better, but
rather that it can be better at any given bitrate, especially at low
bitrates. The best images MPEG4 can produce are not likely to be better
than those from MPEG2, if bitrates are ignored, but the files will be
smaller.
 

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