I had several one to two minute clips in the camera (8GB card). I used the USB cable and FCP 6.0.2 with Sony Transfer Utility 2.1. It was to a G5 PowerMac and the USB port is definitely USB2. The transfer speed seemed to about 1.3 to 1.4x real time. I was expecting closer to 3x with USB. I'm not sure if I'm getting typical speeds or maybe something I'm not thinking of is slowing the transfer.

What speeds are you seeing when coming from the Camera's USB to your computer (and what computer)?

Using a MacPro Quad 2.6 with 4GB ram and dumping to internal drives I average about 2x real time. I haven't ever seen it hit 3x with usb. But on a Macbook Pro I have seen 9x real time using the expresscard slot.

Thanks Chris for the info. I thought someone had mentioned 3x or even 5x with USB but given my results (and yours). Maybe I misinterpreted those comments.

I believe others have reported speeds around 9x on laptops with Expresscard slots

Now wouldn't it be great if someone came out with PCI card with an Expresscard interface. Why should laptops have all the fun (speed)?

On another forum one person posted to me they're getting 4x on a six year old PC with USB2 port.

I'm wondering if there's a Mac specific USB issue relating to OS or driver or inherent issue with Mac USB2 ports.

Can others report their transfer speeds via USB port?

I'm using the XDCAM Transfer Software 2.1.
As I mentioned I got about 1.3x on my G5
On my Intel Mac Mini (not my edit box obviously) I got about 1.8x
Using the Sony Clip Browser 1.1 software on my 1 year old Dell 2.8Ghhz Dual it wasn't much faster than real time either from MP4 to MXF.

G5 dragging BPAV folder with 2:04 minute clip to desktop - 53 seconds - 2.3x
Intel Mini doing same as above - 30 seconds - 4x

Based on my Intel Mini drag and drop I'm getting 4x but I was timing import into FCP (to MOV) on Mac and Clip Browser to MXF on PC.

This means straight Drag and Drop BPAV from SxS card to hard drive is fastest.

WARNING
It also means your data wrangler/assistant has to be real careful they don't overwrite one BPAV with another.

with the usb reader i get around 2.2x with mac pro quad. Quite disappointing really! No faster than the professional discs.

Seems silly that I have to use my Macbook pro to get proper solid state transfer speeds.

My solution is to unload the card from my MacBook pro to an external hard drive attached by Firewire 800.
Then plug the drive to the editing box (which is a dual 2GHz G5 for me).

I saw some drives having firewire 800 plus e-sata, so you could use it full speed with your MacPro (or G5) if you have a such card.

create a shared folder on the mbpro to copy files to and use airport extreme to transfer files to your desktop.

I'd REALLY want to add an Express port slot to a Mac desktop (Windows folks will want this too I'm sure). I don't want to be forced to use USB at all.

BTW I wonder what the speed is xfering from Laptop to Desktop through Gigabit Ethernet.

thats the problem. USB is really slow and i own a mac pro so i shouldnt have to use my macbook pro to transfer footage of the camera.

I am surprised transfers are that slow using a USB connection. Sony recently released a standalone USB-2 XDCAM drive (PDW-U1) which yields 4X speed with 25mbps XDCAM footage and 3X with 35 mbps. I would expect the SxS memory card to do quite better than the optical XDCAM discs for data transfer via USB2. May be the USB SxS driver is not fully optimized yet?

You can buy ExpressCard adapters for desktop PCs...

SIIG PCIe to ExpressCard Adapter Model JJ-000072-S1 $37.99

SYBA ExpressCard to PCI-Express Conversion Card Model SD-PEX-EXPC $19.99

StarTech PCI-Express to ExpressCard Adapter Model PEX2EC $37.99

SIIG JJ-000082-S1 PCIe to ExpressCard Bay $49.99

Prices are from Newegg. All of the above indicate support for Windows only.

Tom,

Great suggestions. I see that some of these cards even come with wiring and a front pannel assembly so the card reader fits neatly in one of the 3.5" bay in front of a PC. I suppose these adaptors will allow data transfers that are as fast as those seen on laptops with built-in Express slots?

I just exported a full 8GB card (about 27 minutes of HQ video) into MXF files to a hard drive in exactly 5 minutes using the Sony USB card reader/writer and the EX Clip Browser -- this translates to about 5X or about 220 Mb/sec,

8GB x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 8 bits/byte
-------------------------------------- = 229,064,922 bits / sec
5 minutes x 60 sec

which is close to the specs of the drive which is 240 Mb/s (Read).
This is on a PC running Vista.

Ironically, on my notebook PC running XP which has a built-in ExpressCard slot and 7200rpm drive, it's slower (about 2X).

Glad to see the 5X speed with Sony's USB reader. Weird to see that your notebook Express reader is slower though....

I just exported a full 8GB card (about 27 minutes of HQ video) into MXF files to a hard drive in exactly 5 minutes using the Sony USB card reader/writer and the EX Clip Browser -- this translates to about 5X or about 220 Mb/sec,

8GB x 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 8 bits/byte
-------------------------------------- = 229,064,922 bits / sec
5 minutes x 60 sec

which is close to the specs of the drive which is 240 Mb/s (Read).
This is on a PC running Vista.

Ironically, on my notebook PC running XP which has a built-in ExpressCard slot and 7200rpm drive, it's slower (about 2X).

got nowhere near those sort of figures on my mac

Greetings Folks!

I'm a computer engineer and new to the forum. I didn't see a "New People" thread anywhere, so I'll just post away.

Although I'm new to HD video production, this topic and a few others are inside my area of expertise.

USB 2.0 can achieve real-world transfer rates up to 40 MegaBytes per second. So an 8GB card should transfer in about 3.5 minutes.

But if either the device or the host computer are not well designed, then you won't achieve those rates. Hard drives, motherboard, and device drivers are all factors. I would expect at least 25 MB/s regardless of what type of computer is used.

got nowhere near those sort of figures on my mac

I'm not sure about the latest generation of Macs, but I"ve heard the G5 did not implement the USB chipset or drivers very well. The were limited to about 18 MB/s, which would transfer 8GB in about 7.5 minutes.

using a PC laptop with an express slot
using sony clip browser by inserting a card into laptop.
< 8 gig card almost full / 5 clips =ing 7.2 gigs>
the copy to the laptop was about 5.5 mins
the export to mfx was the same

I put the card back in the camera and transfered the same files
using clip browser via the usb cable from camera to laptop.
It took a little less than twice as long at 9.2 mins

Not too shabby!! I can deal with that offload time using my mobil laptop.
I also got a deal on some sony 8gig usb thumb drives that can be used as backups... or just burn to the dual layer burner.
So I feel safe wiping a card that has been copied to the lap hd, usb drive and DVD-R.

I just got my Sony card reader,plugged it in,(plug and play),transfered 4mins of footage in 1 min.