Hard drive and Sony HDR TG3

[vinod]

Can footage from TG3 transferred to portable hard drive without using the computer?

If on holiday, if memory stick is full, then archiving on small hard drive would be ideal.

If it is possible, then hopefully it can be played back on computer/ DVD with USB in.

Any thoughts/ advice appreciated.

Also, how does it go with iMacs?

[Solidstate]

What you need is a photobank.

These are usually a 2.5" Hard Drive inside a caddy that also contains a rechargeable battery and memory card slots.

Standard operation is that you stick your memory stick in the photobank - it copies all the contents to the hard drive (usually rather slowly). You then put the card back in the camera and format/erase it to start again.

When you get home you attach the photobank to a PC via USB and you'll see that each time you imported a card it created a new folder which contains the contents of each card.

Photobanks can be very expensive or very cheap - you can just buy the caddy and put your own 2.5" drive inside.

There is one good thing to say about the Sony Memory Stick Mark 2 format - they work fine with older hardware. I've got a home-made photobank that's at least two years old. I'd won't read SDHC cards because they weren't around at the time - but it reads my MS Mk2 card perfectly.

[rhubarbe]

But just make sure that you check it takes the size of MS that you want.

My Vaio laptop wouldn't read an 8GB MK2 MS but it'd read a 4GB. I had to update some drivers....

A good source for these phototanks is

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/Cat...iMedia+Viewers

where Doug will ship to you using a method that seems not to attract VAT or Duty.

I bought a Nexto Multi ND-2325. Not used it yet because SDHC is so cheap, but if I buy a TG3 I certainly will.

[vinod]

Thanks, thats what I need. I am thinking of buying TG3.

I will see if John Lewis pricematch Amazon!

I also bought Oppo DVD 983 recently (which is great for SD) and if the photo bank works with USB in, that would be icing!