Some questions about Shotput Express
 

I am interested in this software and have used the forum search engine to read what several of you have stated about it, but I have a few questions that I would appreciate some input for.

1. The minumum system requirements indicate 2GHz min for Windows XP. My laptop (that I just bought) is a Core 2 Duo at 1.4 GHZ. Are any of you using Shotput Express with a similar laptop or do all of you have laptops with 2GHZ or more?

2. What I want to do is to be able to shoot stage productions alone in the dark with this setup and simply stick the card into the laptop and have it automatically transfer the clips to the laptop's hard drive and an external My Book hard drive and ready the card to stick back into the camera without my having to do anything but insert and remove the card.

I read the "Auto Offloading" section of the manual, but I am not sure if it can be set up that way without having to first click on something or click on something thereafter.

I work alone and cannot take my eyes off the camera to mess with a laptop while shooting. I will barely have time to remove and insert the cards.

John

Follow-up:

I called Imagine Products and ran these questions by them. They were very helpful. In terms of the above two questions, they said.

1. The 2GHZ refers to a non-duo core system so my core 2 duo 1.4 GHZ is fine.

2. They said that I have to click on auto offloading once to start it, and then it will automatically unload the card and ready it for the camera and then wait for the next card even if it is 40 minutes later as long as I get rid of the sleep modes or other power down options on the laptop.

Has this been your experience as well?

I have the Mac version for testing but didn't try the auto mode.
I'll try it out to see if it works.

They will supposedly have a new version out very very soon that improves functionality.

Did you ever try that Len?

John

Not yet . I'll get to it this weekend.

The auto mode works as advertised. Great for minimal input card dumps. Version 2 is out now, faster transfers on multi-core machines and nice big green and red indicators.

I'm probably using this program incorrectly, but I've been getting some annoying messages saying that "This card has already been downloaded" or similar warnings and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. For example, last night I was trying to transfer some fireworks footage from the cards still in the camera. The program saw both cards and had check marks next to them. However, after tranferring, I found that one of the cards did not transfer. This was probably tied into the warning message that I got. I'm sure I can figure this out but I don't find it very intuitive when I get these messages. I know I'll figure it out eventually, but it scares me to think that it might reformat my cards before I know for sure that the files all got moved onto my HD's.

When Shotput sees two SxS cards with the same name - usually "untitled" it tells you its already transferred that card and asks if you want to do it again. I think this is only if you haven't ejected it yet.

Seems like a sensible double check especially since it also gives an option to name the card and change the name when it leaves.

I have some other issues with the program that I'm trying to sort out.

Has anyone gotten an error message titled:

File copy error! Error number = 256

Lenny Levy

Hi Guys,

Stupid question perhaps because I know Shotput EXpress was designed for SxS cards, however...

Is it possible to configure it to work with other types of memory cards?

Specifically, we use MemoryStick Pro based Sony camcorders alongside our EX1.

Any help info would be appreciated...

SG

Also, if you set ShotPut to "Automatically format the card after ingest", won't that remove the name you've given the card? Or does it simply delete the movie files and leave the name alone? Guess I should read the manual... ;)