Using external firewire drive

[Edward Troxel]

I do. I’m using the following setup:

Computer -> firewire -> Hard Drive -> firewire -> deck

I can capture from the deck to the firewire drive.

Edward Troxel

[Mahesh Upadhyaya]

Thanks Edward. That’s what I am hoping to do. I am hoping to use laptop to keep’my hand in’ whilst I take more breaks away from the edit suite.

Regards
Mahesh
https://www.crestvideo.co.uk

[Gary Kleiner]

You should also consider using USB2 drives/enclosures.

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Mahesh Upadhyaya]

Thanks Gary. Is USB2 fast enouh for capture / preview?

Regards
Mahesh
https://www.crestvideo.co.uk

[Edward Troxel]

USB2 is definitely fast enough. It will take more CPU resources, though. You can try it using both USB and Firewire and see which you like best.

Edward Troxel

[Gary Kleiner]

USB2 is actually slightly faster than firewire. I switched the majority of my external enclosures to USB and often have 5 or 6 drives hooked up to my destop, or 3 or 4 hooked up to my laptop.

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Seth Bloombaum]

Mahesh, daisychaining camcorders/decks and FW drives does not work always. As I understand it, there are two different FW protocols that the deck and drive use, and not all cards run them simultaneously. But many do.

Several ways to deal with this if sharing doesn’t work: a second firewire card on a desktop. A PCMCIA FW card on a laptop ($35 USD?). A USB2 drive. I use drive enclosures with both USB2 and FW, but usually have them hooked up as USB2.

[Mahesh Upadhyaya]

Thanks guys for all the help.
I never (never) appreciated that one could have FW and USB in the same box. I was also surprised to learn that USB2 is faster than FW.

I am going to hide in a corner and read up on external HDD interfaces. I am ashamed to say that I never fully understood USB interface. Okay back to Google.

Regards
Mahesh
https://www.crestvideo.co.uk