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Can a Mac read NTFS formatted external hard drive?
Here’s the situation. It’s my first foray into P2 land, for my new employer who wanted to get into video, but bought a MacPro tower decked out with everything except a capture card. But I digress . . .
My boss arranged a two-camera shoot at a studio. The production company is providing a Panny HVX-200 and a Varicam. I told them I needed all the clips on a portable hard drive so I can edit in Final Cut. They said, “No problelm” so my boss signed off on the deal.
Today I asked exactly how the footage would get to the hard drive. Answer: the DVCPRO HD deck and the P2 card reader are wired to the production company’s Avid, so they’ll digitize the tape and transfer the card files via the Avid. Only problem: their Avid is on a PC and they say they’ve never had much luck with Wiebetech drives and Macs!
I’ve been doing some research and I’ve read that OS 10.5 should be able to read files off of an NTFS formatted drive (not write to it, but read from it). If that’s so, I should be able to take their drive and copy the clips to my internal RAID.
At least that’s what I’ve read. Is that right? Has anyone had the experience of copying files from a Windows formatted drive attached to their Mac?
If that won’t work, what are my other options? Partition my boot drive and install Windows XP?
(I’m thinking I should pass on their marked-up Wiebetech and should just buy a WD My Book with USB & FW400/800, format them for Windows and bring it to the shoot.)
Any advice would be appreciated, as always.
TIA,
Mike Raff
Richmond, VA -
2 Replies
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I don’t use P2 so I can’t answer to your general workflow but …
[Mike Raff] “I’ve read that OS 10.5 should be able to read files off of an NTFS formatted drive (not write to it, but read from it). If that’s so, I should be able to take their drive and copy the clips to my internal RAID. At least that’s what I’ve read. Is that right? Has anyone had the experience of copying files from a Windows formatted drive attached to their Mac?”
Yes, I do exactly that every day. Macs can read NTFS with no help, but they need third-party software to write to NTFS drives … oddly enough, I think it’s called “NTFS for Mac”, but I don’t recall who makes it (even though I have it since I’m not at my Mac right now).
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I use this on two stations writes and reads,firewire,fibre channnel no conflicts
https://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/download.htmlDoug Beal
Editor / Engineer
Rock Creative Images
Nashville TN
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