Don Greening
Forum Replies Created
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[Andy Nagel] “I’m more concerned with archiving the camera footage safely than the speed of transfer. “
Agreed. You’re a smart guy. Once the Sony PDW-U1 firmware gets updated to allow any file format to be written to a disc you might consider shifting your archiving strategy to XDCAM Disc. A projected shelf life of 50 years plus and 50 Gbyte capacity for the dual layer disc version. As we all know, all hard drives will eventually fail so the sooner we can stop using them for archiving purposes, myself included, the better.
If you’re not concerned with the relatively slow USB transfer speeds when offloading cards that’s okay. I don’t see anything wrong with the way you’re doing things in that respect. Keep in mind that down the road you may need to start using Express 34 transfer on-site. With my Macbook Pro I can offload a 16 Gbyte card in about five and a half minutes. For myself, this time savings will be critical perhaps as early as this summer when I’ll have 3 EX cameras to worry about on a shoot.
– Don
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HI Kevin,
Have you seen this tutorial yet?
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/ex1_sd_output_young.html
– Don
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Hi Raf,
I think you’re referring to something that happened to Craig Seeman the other day. It wasn’t a problem with the MxR adapter and card but instead was the fact that his new EX firmware upgrade was not done correctly. He ended up taking the camera back to Sony and they re-did the firmware. Once that was done he had no problems reviewing last clip in camera mode and was able to play back all clips in media mode.
I’m the wrong person to ask about the MxR adapter anyway because I haven’t taken the plunge yet. I’m still undecided and am waiting to see if Sony drops the prices of their own cards.
– Don
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Hi John,
As Clint has stated, the important thing to find out from your client first is whether they’re using a Windows or Mac work station. That will determine whether you need to format your hard drive in Mac OS Extended or FAT32, the disc formatting read by both Mac and Windows machines. I’m not sure what you’re using for a lap top but if you have a lot of both Windows and Mac clients it may be in your best interest to have a Mac and and Windows lap top available depending on the client you’re shooting for on any given day. The extra cost would probably pay for itself in peace of mind and convenience.
There’s two ways of looking at what you need to provide the client with as far as the clips themselves and any companion software. If the client hired you because you’re shooting with an EX then they’re most likely already set up to edit EX material. You could then simply provide the client with the BPAV folders on a hard drive formatted in Mac OS Extended or in FAT32 binary if it’s for a Windows platform. Keep in mind that FAT32 is also the formatting of the SxS Pro memory cards so copying a BPAV folder to the client’s hard drive should be a simple procedure.
If the client hired you to shoot something and it’s your choice to use an EX for the job then you really have to do your homework with the client and find out exactly what they use to edit with and provide everything they’ll need to make the job as easy as possible for them.
On my last job I got off easy. We are a Mac/FCP house and so was the client. I checked to make sure they had the minimum requirements to edit EX footage then simply gave them the Mac .mov versions of the footage on a Mac formatted hard drive and Fedex took care of the rest.
– Don
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Did it say something like “unable to connect to background processes”or “Unable to submit batch?
If that’s the case try this:
https://support.apple.com/kb/TA47672?viewlocale=en_US
– Don
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Perhaps the transfer rate of your media drive(s) not keeping up? Just guessing, since I don’t use Premiere.
– Don
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[Philip Imbrenda] “Where can you buy a MXR?”
Right here:
Keep in mind that the MxR Express Card Reader with the Sandisk cards cannot record overcranked footage either.
– Don
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[Marvin Holdman] ” Is this a default setting? “
Since I’ve never altered the way my EX1 generates filenames I would suspect that my EX’s naming convention is the default protocol. BTW, perhaps if you used the “Reset All” function in your camera’s menu it might solve your issue of the duplicate filenames. Back to square one, as it were. This is just a guess, since I’ve never had the issue come up. Might be a good place to start tho’.
– Don
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[olof ekbergh] “I also back all raw SxS files onto Blueray DVD’s and enter Card descriptions into a FMP database with short clips or stills for searching in the future.”
Nice, Olof. This is the way it should be done. BTW, I have RAID envy.
– Don
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[simon d] “I’m trying to import them into premiere but it’s saying it don’t recognise the files – is there a plugin I need? “
Which version of Premiere do you have? Minimum requirements, so I’ve been told is CS3 with the very last update before Premiere CS4 came out. As I eluded to in your pervious post I watched a friend transfer EX HDV files from my camera to CS3 on a Windows machine without any other drivers installed. But you may want to go to the Sony web site and download the latest SxS driver. You can find the installer here:
https://www.sony.ca/promedia/drivers.htm
– Don