Hey guys,

I just shot a music video on Panasonic's SDX900 and I'm about to go rent a tape deck to import my footage into my computer. I have 2+ hours of footage that I need to capture, and my harddrive space is limited at the moment, so I'm going to go buy an external harddrive.

My question is: Can I import DVCPro25 footage directly into my external harddrive? I've tried to do it before and it always says "Allocating Disk Space" and never begins to import. So what do you guys think?

Also, this is the first time I've used DV tapes instead of miniDV tapes, so I guess my second question is: What is the best way to import DV footage into FCP? Any specific specs or regulations I should follow?

Thanks again.

Capturing to external drives is not recommended by Apple. If you do, make sure the drive is on a another bus than the tape deck. Some deck/drive combinations won't work. You could always move some stuff from the internal to external drive.

DVCPro25 takes just as much space as DV material. Ingestion is best done by firewire. In a nutshell, it won't be any different from DV.

Don't sweat it. The only time I ever had a problem capturing to an external FW drive was when I was using 25 feet of FW cable. Other than that hundreds of hours 0 problems. Good Luck, Jason.

"Capturing to external drives is not recommended by Apple."

Incorrect. Xserve Raid...external drives manufactured by Apple. Fibrechannel Raids, SATA Raids, external SATA drives...all used to capture video...all external.

What you mean to say is that Apple doesn't recommend firewire drives for capture. That is true. BUT...most people who use FCP use external firewire drives, and successfully.

Allocating disk space?

Shane's Stock Answer #10

1) Set a limit on Capture Now. Never have that box unchecked. Set it to 60 min if you want the whole tape.

2) Do not under any circumstances run any anti-virus/filesaver software. Including Norton and Virex. Sure, Apple doles out Virex for free, but FCP doesn't cooperate with it very well.

If you absolutely feel you must keep Virex installed on your system then use Kevin's script to shut it off before you use FCP:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@85.zPgDaaNeQzT.323013@.68a85d17

3) Do not capture to your main system drive.

4) Check the format of the drive you are capturing to. It should be Mas OS Extended, jornalling off. If it isn't, copy your files from it and re-initialize it. If it is any other format, you will encounter problems. If not at first, then eventually.