Sanyo Xacti HD1000 won't recognise external hard drive

[G a f f e r]

Firstly, I have searched but no one else seems to have asked this Q (apologies if I missed it ).

Background: My sis has a Sanyo Xacti HD1000. I set the cradle up to send the 1080i signal via HDMI to her Viera. The other cable into the cradle is the power lead. The third cable is Hard Disk USB cable.

In order to archive any footage to an external hard drive, a few prerequisites were needed:

1. The external hard drive will only work if it is powered by it's own power lead....portable ones powered by the BUS apparently don't work
2. The hard drive must be formatted FAT32 (up to 2 TB I think?)
3. It will only work with 1 partition per drive, so if you have 3 partitions, only 1 will be used by the xacti, the other 2 won't.
4. Plug the cradle's usb into the HD and it will be recognised.
5. You need to then format the hd from the Xacti in order for it to work correctly?

So:
1: Check, she has a brand new Maxtor 500Gb external HD with it's own power supply
2: Check, when I connect up to her mac (Disk Utility) in both Leopard and Tiger, both confirm that it is indeed a FAT32 formatted drive. Plugging into a Vista and XP PC also confirms it's a useable FAT32 drive.
3: Check, it is not partitioned....one giant (shows up as 465.65Gb) FAT32 drive .
4: The HD has a mini-USB input but the lead from the cradle was a standard male USB A plug ......but easily fixed with a simple adapter . However, on plugging it in, I hit a problem. The xacti doesn't recognise the HD at all . You should get a menu option that allows you to format the external drive, but it doesn't appear. The manual states that if it doesn't appear, it's because the file system is not compatible with the Xacti......
....What? I have checked the HD on 4 separate OS's all of which confirm it is a perfectly "normal" FAT32 drive . I have even connected up using the same cables, but the computer's all still seem to recognize it fine (so it isn't a cable issue).
5: Problem. Without step 4, the Xacti doesn't give me that menu option in the first place, so I can't format the HD from the Xacti .


I have looked via google and over at the pretty unhelpful Sanyo parent site, (and in the manuals), but cannot seem to find how to get the HD recognised .
According to Tiger/Leopard/XP/Vista, it is a perfectly functional 500Gb FAT32 drive......but the Xacti is acting as though it has an incompatible file system even though the Xacti will only work with a FAT32 drive.


Oh, I have re-formatted it twice now but keep getting the same problem .


Can someone please help me? I'm pulling my hair out here .

[senu]

Is the Xacti "properly" designed to recognise standalone HDDs?
That may be the problem, not your HDD, not your formatting , not the USB cable and not any lack of logical actions on your part
I think the simplest thing would be to simply capture to a HDD connected up to a computer via a card reader TBH

[G a f f e r]

Hi Senu, Thanx for the reply .

Yes, the Xacti is specifically designed to allow straight to HDD connection.
The Camcorder has a built in system called "Xacti Library".
Once docked, the menu system that appears on the TV has the option of browsing and even editing video/pictures direct from the HDD.
The usual practise (from seeing what other folk do) is to have 1 high capacity SD card, and when it's filled up, connect to dock and then dump all video over to the HDD using the library function. This way, you always have an empty card when you go anywhere.
Interestingly, I can connect directly to her Mac and it shows up as a removable drive (the xacti does) and she can drag'n'drop what she wants.
However, the whole purpose of the Xacti Library system is to allow easy archiving, editing and browsing from the comfort of her sofa on her telly.
It was one of the reasons she bought this camcorder so she really wants it to work .

Originally Posted by Sanyo Marketing stuff

NEW "XACTI LIBRARY" FUNCTION FOR EASY FILE SAVING AND PLAYBACK
The large data size of Full HD movies, along with demanding file saving and playback processing usually requires special hardware and/or burning video to a disc. The HD1000's new "Xacti Library" feature makes it exceptionally easy to save video and image files by simply connecting the included USB cable from the docking station to an external hard disk drive (hard drive not included). After connecting the docking station to an external hard drive and to a television (via an HDMI cable), the user places the camera into the docking station and using the menu that appears on the television screen can search through the thumbnails and choose either to play the file or save it to the external hard disk.

[slowpoke]

http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...orum.php?id=27

try here for answers

[G a f f e r]

Thanx Slowpoke.

Did that and got the answer (here it is for others in the same situation):




The cradle comes with many leads. I was using the Xacti plug-----Male A USB lead.
This was then going into a USB A female-female adapter.........which then accepted the USB A male------USB mini cable that came with the HD.

So the cable looked like this:
Xacti Cradle Xacti plug-----Male A USB USB A female-female adapter USB A male------USB mini HDD

This way I could have a long run (position the HDD further away on side cabinet).
connect to PC/mac = OK........connecting to Xacti = No go .


I was advised to use the other cable in the Xacti box for a simpler connection: which is a Xacti plug-----Female A USB lead....like so:
Xacti Cradle Xacti plug-----Female A USB USB A male------USB mini HDD

Now it works .

I'm not sure why the extra cabling caused an issue but I assume if the Xacti doesn't like USB BUS powered (5V) HDD's but does like the wall powered (6v) ones, it was sensitive to small drops in voltage? Maybe this was a slight issue over the longer run I first tried ......cured by using the more "direct" method?

Either way, it works now. The Xacti Library system is a brilliant one to use to boot .

Thanx for all your help .

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by G a f f e r

Thanx Slowpoke.

Did that and got the answer (here it is for others in the same situation):




The cradle comes with many leads. I was using the Xacti plug-----Male A USB lead.
This was then going into a USB A female-female adapter.........which then accepted the USB A male------USB mini cable that came with the HD.

So the cable looked like this:
Xacti Cradle Xacti plug-----Male A USB USB A female-female adapter USB A male------USB mini HDD

This way I could have a long run (position the HDD further away on side cabinet).
connect to PC/mac = OK........connecting to Xacti = No go .


I was advised to use the other cable in the Xacti box for a simpler connection: which is a Xacti plug-----Female A USB lead....like so:
Xacti Cradle Xacti plug-----Female A USB USB A male------USB mini HDD

Now it works .

I'm not sure why the extra cabling caused an issue but I assume if the Xacti doesn't like USB BUS powered (5V) HDD's but does like the wall powered (6v) ones, it was sensitive to small drops in voltage? Maybe this was a slight issue over the longer run I first tried ......cured by using the more "direct" method?

Either way, it works now. The Xacti Library system is a brilliant one to use to boot .

Thanx for all your help .

great stuff, will set it up with my HD700 soon. So when you ue it you dont need a PC at all. Can you chnage the file names before hand and then put them on the hard drive?

[G a f f e r]

I had a quick go on the Library and it appears to have a media editing tool. You can create custom albums via the library.
I also tried renaming a file on computer, but the Xacti Library wouldn't play it back . I then renamed it on computer but kept the name as SANY**** and it played back fine, so I'm assuming files cannot to renamed to anything.
I think this is where the albums feature comes into it (name the album something instead) but haven't had a chance to fully play around with it yet (I set it up for her and then told her to read the manual ).

I think my sis' wants to use iMovie to edit the video's into DVD's (when she wants to she'll just connect the drive direct).
However, there is a current issue with the QT codec's in that the H264 from the Xacti doesn't conform correctly to AVC standards. Somone on the mac forums decompiled one and found that the supposed 1080i is actually encoded similar to a 540p stream instead by the Sanyo (so QT can't decode it correctly and you get a green screen - doesn't happen with anything 720p and below btw). There is a fix in an updated codec that you can get and add to the QT prog. Once she's done this, she'll be using the mac to rename and create DVD's so she wasn't too fussed about the naming thing via the library.

[PeterSan]

On you last point I have exactly the same issue - wanting to put edited videos back onto the camera to play to an HD screen. If you do discover the necessary codec and how to use it, I'd be so pleased to know.