Posted by JT on 12/07/05 06:46

The little box is convenient for hand-held, but for meetings (assuming
a fixed camera position) a laptop and external USB 3 1/2" hard drive
is surely worth considering. The drive will have much better
performance, and a 300 GB size will hold four days' worth of meetings,
as opposed to having to do a transfer off the 40GB FS4 at lunch break.

I have no clue what kind of drive is in an FS4, but strictly as an
uninformed guess would throw out 15-20 MB/sec as the comparable rate,
and wouldn't be surprised to learn it was even slower. Thus the
transfer is likely to take 45 minutes or longer.

Note that if multiple cameras are within firewire distance of the
laptop, you can probably capture all three onto the hard drive. I use
two with no concern. Decent 3 1/2" drives have sustained write rates
of at least 45 MB/sec (outer cylinder), so I'd guess 3 DV streams
would be no problem.






"Rayne" <mineapollo@gmail.com> wrote:

>Hi All, Im looking into picking up 4 FS4 for my travelling kit (3 DV
>Cams) To aid our 'conference' setup which often mean recording up to 6
>hrs of meeting footage per day for up to 2 weeks. This would mean a
>massive financial relief as the DV tapes are costing a fortune! Does
>anyone have experience with these in the field? Whats the failure rate
>like? Also, how quick is the transfer? In theory i should be able to
>upload a whole disk (40 GB) in a few minutes - is this true in
>practice? How fragile are they as well?
>if anyone has any experiences they could share it would be much
>appreciated.
>
>M

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