Question about Firewire Storage

Nate Haustein · December 23rd, 2016, 11:42 PM

RICK, is your new computer a desktop? Or a laptop? Which modern ports does it have available?

Jay Massengill · December 24th, 2016, 07:40 AM

I say get an external USB3.0 hard drive.

Capture the footage from the camera to the Firestore as you have been doing with no dropped frames.

Use your old laptop to transfer the captured footage from the Firestore to the new USB external drive.

If you want to spend $20 extra for a USB3.0 PCMCIA Card for your old Sony laptop, that would speed up the process.

Otherwise just set up the slower USB transfer for overnight or when you leave for lunch, etc.

Then connect the new external drive to your better editing computer.

Back in the day when transitioning from FW-only drives to newer USB2.0 and USB3.0 drives, especially when retrieving archival footage to edit on my newer computer, I did this a lot.

Rick Antonio · December 24th, 2016, 08:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nate Haustein

RICK, is your new computer a desktop? Or a laptop? Which modern ports does it have available?

It's a Toshiba Qosmio X875-Q7390 Laptop
2 USB-2 ports
2 USB-3 ports
HDMI
Ethernet
Serial
BluRay combo Burner
3D screen

No PCMCIA slot or Firewire port

Jim Andrada · December 25th, 2016, 06:11 PM

Hi Noa

I looked up the Pinnacle unit out of curiosity. My guess is that it isn't a hub - it's more of an almost mini computer - there's probably some logic inside to read from FW into a buffer and then write to USB. Somebody could almost certainly buy a Raspberry Pi for $35 (or maybe a Raspberry Zero for $5) and hook up some connectors and write some code to make it sort of work.

Take a look at the reviews on Amazon - mostly 1-star because of crappy quality. Maybe OK for grainy 320 x 240 was one comment.

Nate Haustein · December 25th, 2016, 08:03 PM

If you can't get your laptop to work via FireWire PCMIA, for the money, just buy an old white Core2Duo 13" MacBook for $150 that has a FW400 input. Import (copy) directly from the Firestore to an attached USB drive, then move that over to your regular edit laptop.

Mark Watson · December 25th, 2016, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Antonio

It's a Toshiba Qosmio X875-Q7390 Laptop
2 USB-2 ports
2 USB-3 ports
HDMI
Ethernet
Serial
BluRay combo Burner
3D screen

No PCMCIA slot or Firewire port

Probably the computer has 5400 RPM hard drives, which has caused me to have dropped frames on my old Toshiba. Jay's recommendations will address that issue.

Mark

Noa Put · December 26th, 2016, 03:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

I looked up the Pinnacle unit out of curiosity. My guess is that it isn't a hub - it's more of an almost mini computer - there's probably some logic inside to read from FW into a buffer and then write to USB.

It looks like that Pinnacle doesn't sell it anymore, on their website they have the "dazzle" now but that one doesn't have a firewire input, that old pinnacle hub came out in 2003 and is only available as used on ebay.

Rick Antonio · December 26th, 2016, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seth Bloombaum

What's on the firestore is a digital file. It doesn't need to be converted to anything, in fact, you should steer clear of programs that claim to import all video and convert it. You don't want a conversion.

The closer you get to the original file, the better. Your old PD170 *does* create digital files, that are laid out linearly on the tape. The best conversion isn't a conversion at all, just a transfer of that file to a hard disk.

I guess I'm still a bit lost on this....

How would I go about transferring files from my Sony cams directly to my old laptop (with Firewire)?

I've always just used a program (particularly Vegas Video, but here have been others) and each one basically controlled the camera's playback and captured the footage as AVI's

If I just plug in my camera without opening up a program, a webcam app would pop up and I've be staring at myself lol

Jay Massengill · December 27th, 2016, 10:10 AM

You're mis-reading one extra step into what Seth was saying. The camera tape does have digital files on it, but really what he is meaning is the closest computer-useable version of this information is what you have captured originally on either the Firestore (with no dropped frames) or on your older Sony laptop (with occasional dropped frames).
That's really the closest you can get to what is on the tape for computer editing, and after a successful capture to a good DV file format, it doesn't need to be converted again, just copied to a new drive that is compatible with your newer editing computer.

When I was doing this, I never had a problem with dropped frames even on old computers. I was always using 7200rpm drives and Scenalyzer Live software.

I never had a Firestore, but like it shows in the video Noa put on, once the files are captured to the Firestore it can be accessed by the computer just like any hard drive.

If you have to use the Firestore to avoid dropped frames, then this will be a two-step process.
Capture from the camera to the Firestore, then connect it via firewire to your old computer and set it to HDD mode.
Also connect a new USB3.0 hard drive to the old computer and simply copy the captured files from the Firestore to the new drive. Then connect the new USB3.0 drive to your new computer.

Captured DV files can be time consuming to transfer if using USB or USB2.0. The DV AVI files I used to use were about 13Gb per hour filesize. So if you add a USB3.0 card to your old computer it would speed up the copying process.

It might even make it possible to capture without dropped frames and not use the Firestore at all.
Connect the camera via firewire to the old computer, use Scenalyzer Live software to control the capture and use a 7200rpm USB3.0 drive connected to a new $20 USB3.0 PCMCIA card in your old Sony laptop. (I have also always used Vegas for editing, but not for capture as Scenalyzer Live always did such a good job.)

If that works successfully, then you're done in one capture step and can edit the captured files using your newer computer without having to copy them.

Boyd Ostroff · December 27th, 2016, 10:51 AM

It seems odd that you are having dropped frames on the Vaio. Did you use that to capture video in th "old days" without problems? Regardless, the problem could be the slow internal hard drive on the old computer. As has been suggested, and external drive may fix that. I agree, you should not need a very powerful computer to capture DV with no dropouts. I used to do it on a Macintosh G3, and that was no speed demon!

I guess the firestore solution would be a work around, but it sounds like a lot of trouble, especially if you have any quantity of footage to capture.

Rick Antonio · December 27th, 2016, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay Massengill

That's really the closest you can get to what is on the tape for computer editing, and after a successful capture to a good DV file format, it doesn't need to be converted again, just copied to a new drive that is compatible with your newer editing computer.

I guess that's the part that really gets me....

The Firestore seems to already have each file captured as AVI's and ready to drag and drop onto my hard drive via Firewire, whereas I would otherwise have to connect the camera to my old laptop and capture using Vegas.

Doesn't look any different than when I pull the files off an SD card from one of my GoPro's, yet I'm not able to do this on my Qosmio because of the lack of Firewire.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boyd Ostroff

It seems odd that you are having dropped frames on the Vaio. Did you use that to capture video in th "old days" without problems?

Back in the day, I used a much faster laptop (Toshiba Satellite) and didn't have any issues with dropped frames.

The Vaio I currently have is the only laptop I have left with Firewire, but it's an ultra portable and just way too slow for editing.

It does fine on smaller clips, but on long captures, it will start dropping frames here and there and I usually just sh!t-can the entire capture after the first dropped frame.

In fact, if I try to do anything else while trying to capture footage (like surfing the net or listening to music), it has a stroke and starts dropping frames left and right.

The Firestore seems to get it done without worry of dropped frames whether I'm pulling footage from a tape or the camera itself (tapeless)

I have an external USB-3 hard drive, so I'll most likely be using that from now on instead of the SD cards

December 23rd, 2016, 11:42 PM	#16
Nate Haustein Trustee Join Date: May 2007 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 1,313	Re: Question about Firewire Storage RICK, is your new computer a desktop? Or a laptop? Which modern ports does it have available? __________________ Nate Haustein PXW-FX9 / FCPX www.flightcreativemedia.com

December 24th, 2016, 07:40 AM	#17
Jay Massengill Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Burlington Posts: 1,976	Re: Question about Firewire Storage I say get an external USB3.0 hard drive. Capture the footage from the camera to the Firestore as you have been doing with no dropped frames. Use your old laptop to transfer the captured footage from the Firestore to the new USB external drive. If you want to spend $20 extra for a USB3.0 PCMCIA Card for your old Sony laptop, that would speed up the process. Otherwise just set up the slower USB transfer for overnight or when you leave for lunch, etc. Then connect the new external drive to your better editing computer. Back in the day when transitioning from FW-only drives to newer USB2.0 and USB3.0 drives, especially when retrieving archival footage to edit on my newer computer, I did this a lot. Last edited by Jay Massengill; December 24th, 2016 at 02:37 PM.

December 25th, 2016, 06:11 PM	#19
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Re: Question about Firewire Storage Hi Noa I looked up the Pinnacle unit out of curiosity. My guess is that it isn't a hub - it's more of an almost mini computer - there's probably some logic inside to read from FW into a buffer and then write to USB. Somebody could almost certainly buy a Raspberry Pi for $35 (or maybe a Raspberry Zero for $5) and hook up some connectors and write some code to make it sort of work. Take a look at the reviews on Amazon - mostly 1-star because of crappy quality. Maybe OK for grainy 320 x 240 was one comment.

December 25th, 2016, 08:03 PM	#20
Nate Haustein Trustee Join Date: May 2007 Location: Minneapolis, MN Posts: 1,313	Re: Question about Firewire Storage If you can't get your laptop to work via FireWire PCMIA, for the money, just buy an old white Core2Duo 13" MacBook for $150 that has a FW400 input. Import (copy) directly from the Firestore to an attached USB drive, then move that over to your regular edit laptop. __________________ Nate Haustein PXW-FX9 / FCPX www.flightcreativemedia.com

December 27th, 2016, 10:10 AM	#24
Jay Massengill Trustee Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Burlington Posts: 1,976	Re: Question about Firewire Storage You're mis-reading one extra step into what Seth was saying. The camera tape does have digital files on it, but really what he is meaning is the closest computer-useable version of this information is what you have captured originally on either the Firestore (with no dropped frames) or on your older Sony laptop (with occasional dropped frames). That's really the closest you can get to what is on the tape for computer editing, and after a successful capture to a good DV file format, it doesn't need to be converted again, just copied to a new drive that is compatible with your newer editing computer. When I was doing this, I never had a problem with dropped frames even on old computers. I was always using 7200rpm drives and Scenalyzer Live software. I never had a Firestore, but like it shows in the video Noa put on, once the files are captured to the Firestore it can be accessed by the computer just like any hard drive. If you have to use the Firestore to avoid dropped frames, then this will be a two-step process. Capture from the camera to the Firestore, then connect it via firewire to your old computer and set it to HDD mode. Also connect a new USB3.0 hard drive to the old computer and simply copy the captured files from the Firestore to the new drive. Then connect the new USB3.0 drive to your new computer. Captured DV files can be time consuming to transfer if using USB or USB2.0. The DV AVI files I used to use were about 13Gb per hour filesize. So if you add a USB3.0 card to your old computer it would speed up the copying process. It might even make it possible to capture without dropped frames and not use the Firestore at all. Connect the camera via firewire to the old computer, use Scenalyzer Live software to control the capture and use a 7200rpm USB3.0 drive connected to a new $20 USB3.0 PCMCIA card in your old Sony laptop. (I have also always used Vegas for editing, but not for capture as Scenalyzer Live always did such a good job.) If that works successfully, then you're done in one capture step and can edit the captured files using your newer computer without having to copy them.

December 27th, 2016, 10:51 AM	#25
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	Re: Question about Firewire Storage It seems odd that you are having dropped frames on the Vaio. Did you use that to capture video in th "old days" without problems? Regardless, the problem could be the slow internal hard drive on the old computer. As has been suggested, and external drive may fix that. I agree, you should not need a very powerful computer to capture DV with no dropouts. I used to do it on a Macintosh G3, and that was no speed demon! I guess the firestore solution would be a work around, but it sounds like a lot of trouble, especially if you have any quantity of footage to capture.