[Brian Thomas]

Thanks so much both of you! Sound advice.

[Brian Thomas]

Hi all – me back again. If I have the media (I usually use proxies) and the library on different drives, which of the two would be better on the faster drive? Thanks!

[Brian Thomas]

This is most interesting Mark. I must admit, I’ve never thought of splitting the footage from the associated library before. I’ve always had both on only one of my several G-Tech Thunderbolt 2 drives. In general, do you think it would be faster (or better in some way) to always have these two entities ‘forked’ across two reasonably fast external drives? I think I’m definitely going to try it for the next amateur-theatrical project coming up in a couple of weeks. I have the two Thunderbolt ports on my old machine – so why not.

[Brian Thomas]

Thanks for that Oliver. Lots to think about here with ideas coming in from all directions. To be sensible I think I’ll hold off getting a new drive until I get the new MacBook Pro (M1 Pro or Max?) but again, thanks both of you for your input.

[Brian Thomas]

Thanks for that John. As mentioned, I’m not really up-to-date on the ‘drive’ world but I sort of got the impression that SSDs have a limited number of ‘writes’ – a lot less than the spinning variety? Am I completely wrong? Should I not worry…?

[Brian Thomas]

Pretty pathetic responses from Apeman support. They reckon my MacBook Pro (late 2015) isn’t powerful enough to recognise the difference between 30 and 50 fps. Yeah, that’s what they wrote. Not much point in continuing with the product with that level of genius and even the shop where I bought it agreed, They gave me my money back and I opted for a DJI Osmo Action. A world of difference in build, quality and shooting options. OK, a bit more expensive but you get what you pay for.

[Brian Thomas]

OK, you’ve got me, I’ve been taking the odd sneaky breath but I’m still looking forward to the feature!

[Brian Thomas]

Apeman Trawo A100 experience so far – NOT good. The box says 4K@50fps, the camera ‘Settings’ say the same but both FCPX and Compressor say I’m getting 4K@30fps. Not only that but when videoing at their 4K@50fps setting, having imported the footage to FCPX, every second and third frame is actually missing! Flicker, flicker! Their 4K@30fps works beautifully but I bought it for the 4K@50fps setting.

I submitted sample footage at various settings to their support person in China. He seems confused for the moment. I will not let them get away with this and in the meantime, if you’re thinking about getting one, I suggest you hold off for now.

[Brian Thomas]

Thanks for that Paul. I took Jeremy’s advice pretty seriously and also found a short video by Larry Jordon in which he talks about the hazards of mixing frame rates. So I then spent quite some time researching with the additional criteria of 50 and/or 25 fps. Interestingly, at the cheaper end of the market for these good, tiny cameras there are very few. 30, 60, 90, 120 and so on are all there but not the crucial, for me in Europe, 25/50. Fortunately the Apeman does (4K, 50fps), has good reviews and is much cheaper than the typical GoPro so I plan on buying several. I got my first today and it’s looking good!

[Brian Thomas]

Great advice Jeremy, thanks. I did some more research and I now realise that frames would get dropped at regular intervals and possibly, when used in a theatre, with the European 50Hz mains current, videoing at 60 or 30 could introduce lighting/exposure problems.

So after that that research I’ve found the reasonably priced Apeman Trawo which apparently does 4K 50fps and supports fast SD cards up to 128GB. It would be far from my main camera in the theatre environment but it looks like fulfilling my objective of having more angles and integrating easily with all my Panasonics. Wish me luck!