Final Cut Log and Transfer to External Hard Drive

[David Roth weiss]

[Alana Curtis] “I’m using a USB cable. Could that be the problem?”

Yes!!! USB does not deliver the sustained throughput required for video editing, period, end of story.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Mark Petereit]

Well, maybe. It depends on what you’re capturing and what external USB drive you’re using. I have successfully live-captured 720p ProRes, through the BlackMagic Decklink card in my Mac Pro to an external Seagate FreeAgent 2TB drive connected via USB without any problems. I then tried swapping the Seagate drive with a bare Hitachi drive in a SATA dock connected via USB and had no joy.

[David Roth weiss]

Mark,

You serve absolutely no good hereby chiming in on this with what is at best an exception to the rule.

Of course there’s an exceptions to every rule, however as all of us more experienced users know, USB drives are a known source of a great number of issues, especially for newbies and neophytes. It’s simply a mistake to use USB for editing, and the last thing new FCP users need is more confusion.

So, I ask you, please think about the goals we’re trying to achieve here, and don’t make our work here any more difficult than it needs to be.

THNX,
DRW

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Alana Curtis]

Thanks for the responses. To be honest, I’m not sure what the target format is–all I know is that I shot in AVCHD. I have a 1TB Seagate GoFlex Desk drive. I’m using school computers at Colorado State University, so I’m going to try and transfer to the footage onto the desktop hard drive (which is working fine so far) and then drag all the folders to my external hard drive. It doesn’t seem like I should have to do it this way…

I’m not sure what format I shot it in…when I look at the clip properties in the transferred clips it says 1440×1080, and the compressor is Apple Pro Res 422.

If it isn’t the USB cable, what else could it be?

[Rafael Amador]

[David Roth Weiss] “Of course there’s an exceptions to every rule, however as all of us more experienced users know, USB drives are a known source of a great number of issues, especially for newbies and neophytes. It’s simply a mistake to use USB for editing,”
David,
You are right when talking about hardware (RT) capture (IO card or FW). When L&T (software), transfer speed or media speed shouldn’t be an issue.
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[Mark Petereit]

Sorry. The OP didn’t say anything about editing — only Log & Transfer. (Don’t worry. I won’t risk mentioning that I also edited off that same USB drive.)

[David Roth weiss]

I read about a guy who survived a 23,000ft drop when his parachute failed, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone… Not even you.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Steve Eisen]

Stay away from commercial hard drives from Best Buy, etc.

I highly recommend drives from Other Wold Computing, Caldigit and G-Technologies.

You will not have any problems with these drives.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Alana Curtis]

Thanks for your response!

All I’m trying to do is log and transfer right now, and I can’t even get past that without it FCP crashing. I’m using university computers, so I will try logging and transferring onto the desktop hard drive and then dragging the scratch folder over to my hard drive…but that is a huge pain, of course. Could there be a problem with the hard drive and how it’s formatted, or is it definitely just because of the USB? I want to be sure before I go wasting more money on a firewire port for a drive that doesn’t work…

[Mark Petereit]

LOL! I feel the love…