[DarkKnight]

Hi,

I finally received my Panasonic HDC-SD5 along with two 8GB SDHC cards and am very pleased with it.

I'm on holiday next week and plan to take a Lacie USB drive to offload my recordings, however I've been having problems with with the USB host function.

I read elsewhere in this forum that the USB host function works beyond the Pansonic recommended DVD burner (VW-BN1), but is it really a matter of plug and play ? I've plugged in the SD5 to my external drive using a non standard USB cable (more about this below), but when I press Disc Copy it gives me a standard Waiting for External Disk to be ready error.

I'm partly thinking there may be a problem with the wiring of the USB cable. I've been using a USB Mini A -> USB B which strikes me as non standard. Aren't these both slave adapters ? I've had to 'build' this cable using a travel warror type pack which allows different types of USB connectors to be plugged into a standard cable.

Just feel I'm missing a trick in getting this USB host copying function to work.

Has anyone actually got the USB host function on the HDC's to work with external harddrives ?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[rhubarbe]

I have an SD7, which is very similar to your SD5 and AFAIK, the only way that you are going to be able to do what you want to do: namely to dump the stuff from the camcorder to the external drive via USB is to buy a "Personal Storage Unit" which acts as the USB host. I don't think that the USB host mode of the SD5 is designed to do what you want.

You need something like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/NextoDI-Next.../dp/B000KEBASM

which I am assured takes either USB or you can just bung in the SDHC card. I was told that the 2325 will take an 8GB SDHC so I bought one (2325 that is) but in the end I never used it, preferring to buy extra SDHC cards instead and take those on holiday because they only weigh 2 grammes.

I bought too many, of course.

[DarkKnight]

Thanks for the details. I'll be looking up that device.

But surely the HDC's USB host function can't be solely for their VW-BN1 hard drive.

Has anybody had any luck connecting to an external hard drive ?

[rhubarbe]

Originally Posted by DarkKnight

But surely the HDC's USB host function can't be solely for their VW-BN1 hard drive.

Betcha it can.

[rhubarbe]

I bought my Nexto from this chap named Douglas Hare:

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/Cat...NextTo:ND-2325

As you can see, they are a lot cheaper than on Amazon. his shipping is reasonable and very fast, and since he booked it as worth <$20 I was unable to pay any VAT.