How much disk space do I need ?

[Trevor L.]

I have recently bought a Panasonic GS-35, which writes to DV tape

So far, I have successfully downloaded a tape with 35 minutes of video.

I am using Panasonic MotionDV STUDIO LE for DV (supplied with the camera). I
seem to recall it writes files in.avi format, which I have then been able to
edit using the same software or Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3.5 Suite Deluxe
(supplied with my DVD drive).

I now have a few tapes of 60 minutes and, when trying to download the first,
I can't find enough disk space to download it. I keep getting messages that
I need 0.1 more GB than is available. For instance, it first said that the
tape is 16.1 GB but only 16.0 GB is available. When I released more space,
the same happens. Eventually, it said the tape is 24.6 GB but only 24.5 GB
is available. (Or figures of that order.)

So the question is:
How many MB/GB per minute of DV tape?

 

[Guest]

AVI files will take up some serious real-estate on your hard drive. If you
are going to save/edit using AVI format, best advice would be to get another
hard drive of about 100 gig and use it specifically for video processing. I
have a partition of about 105 gig that I use specifically for video
editing/processing. If you convert and save your video out in mpg format, it
won't take up as much space but quality suffers to a certain degree.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

12gb per hour in DV-AVI format. It may be time for a secondary hard drive!

 

[Trevor L.]

Thank you both for that info.

I had noticed that .avi takes up some pretty serious amounts of real estate
on my hard disk.

After copying my first tape, I converted to other formats. I have tried mpeg
and DivX. The latter seems fairly good, and works on a portable player
(iPpod type, but by Vosonic). So far, I have only copied the mpeg to DVD (as
used by home DVD players). This look O.K. also.

Since I posted, I managed to find (hidden in my Panasonic manual) the
statement that one needs about 1GB per 4 minutes of DV tape, which is close
to (a bit higher than) your estimate, Cari.

I am thinking that I do need a separate drive for video. Unfortunately, my
desktop (which would be the better place to install it) doesn't have a USB2
port, which is needed by the Panasonic software. So it's going to be a
two-stage process - copying to laptop via its USB2 port, then moving to
desktop drive (when I get a larger drive). If I share the drive (the 2 are
networked) this second stage won't be too time consuming.