[David S.]

[gary adcock] “David as I said – yes the card is fat 32 format and once the card it formated it does not need to be reformatted.”

In any case, Gary I guess, according to Jan’s response, HAVE TO REFORMAT the card to use it again.

You can’t just write over it.

That certainly does change workflow for long form events.

I hope Jan’s suggested remedy comes to fruition

David S.

[David S.]

[Jan Crittenden Livingston] “Hi David,

There is work in progress that I cannot disclose that will likely do this. The realityis that you will have to reformat your card in the camera after moving the data off of the card. I just tried, I had to reformat, it took 6 seconds all total, but I had to do it.

Best,

Jan”

You’re up late. Thanks Jan.

I intend to use the camera to do long form work for a skating event, as you may recall.

I tried to assess workflow, and unfortunately my orientation is CF and SD and tape.

I know FireStore, CitiDISK HD, and etc. are solutions, but I have this distrust of a hard drive capture.

But anyway, thanks

David S.

[David S.]

It’s good to learn that the p2 cards can be written over without reformatting.

I wasn’t aware of that, and my orientation, like many, is from using SD and CF cards within the context of our digital SLR.

Those storage cards can’t be written over — files must be deleted or the cards reformatted.

Thanks for all the assistance, and I apologize for my ignorance.

David S.

[David S.]

[gary adcock] “David as I said – yes the card is fat 32 format and once the card it formated it does not need to be reformatted.

Your P2 card DOES NOT need to be re-formated after every use. I do not understand what your thinking is on this and why you need to be able to do this in a mac. Once the card is formatted it is good to go”

Gary, I just got the manual, and I don’t have access to the camera.

My thinking was that the cards had to be wiped clean. Without confirmation that they don’t have to be, I’m just asking.

Thanks for your patience.

David S.

[David S.]

Got this elsewhere:

“When you’re shooting continuously by rotating P2 cards, you don’t re-format. The system, P2 store, camera, etc… Simply erases the file entries from the P2 file system’s table of contents so that the camera can write new data to the card. Just as you would with your computer hard drive or a memory card in the camera or your iPod. You don’t re-format the device every single time you need to wipe it clean.

The Mac utility that can format P2 cards will format the card the same way the camera does. It’s not formatting it directly from OSX and placing extra system files and whatnot. Same with Windows. The HVX200 likes its P2 cards formatted a specific way and this is why there are utilities available to do it. And best of all, you can do it right from the camera when you get a new card and be done with it — just as you do with a memory card for your digital camera. If you’re formatting your memory cards for digicams every time you wipe the card clean, you’re just wasting your time and adding extra cycle counts to the chips…. Not that you’ll format your way to the failure limit of these memory cards, but something to consider.”

I believe the poster means that the Mac Disk Utility will not format the card the same way. If this is correct, and there are warning lights to indicate full p2 cards, it will allow a continuous shoot more efficiently.

If there is someone with a production model that could confirm this, I’d appreciate it

Thanks

David S.

[David S.]

Perhaps I’m incorrect about this.

Just did an pretty tight search of the pdf manual, and so only one reference to card bus, and none to reformatting the P2 card in a windows or mac computer.

I know the disk utility will format to FAT32, but I wonder if that is sufficient.

Any actual owner of a HVX200 and Mac with card bus able to confirm this?

David S.

[David S.]

I do know that you simply reformat the iPod to reassume its audio/video capabilities.

What I am concerned with however, is whether there is a Mac formatting utility that can reformat the drives in the computer

There is one for Windows.

Using the camera to format means you have to stop shooting. Rather than just rotating the cards as you are shooting, this interrupts a long form shoot.

But formatting in the computer, such as what is provides for Windows users, is a better solution.

Gary, as you saying there is NO Mac utility, or that you don’t know?

And do you have a production model to confirm this?

David S.

[David S.]

One the reasons I am asking is to ask the user to do some tests, ie. using an iPod to download, transfer of 4 Gb p2 cards to Apple Powerbook during shooting, direct capture to FCP using a laptop, etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

David S.

[David S.]

No body at all?

David S.

[David S.]

dvxuser has links

so does dvinfo

David S.