"Dumping" memory card data on hols in Florida?

[BingoBongo275]

I was going to get a Sony TG3 for a trip in the autumn to Florida/Disney

Anyone know whether stores will dump memory card data to DVD's, like they do photo's?

I'm conscious that I may take a lot of footage and at 4gb per 30 mins it could be VERY expensive in memory cards

Any ideas?

Cheers

Jez

[Jodoi]

I'm also interested in the answer to this!

We go to Florida this Tuesday and I've got a Panny SD9 with 4x 16GB cards and 1x 4GB. I want to shoot on top quality so this will give me approx 8 and a half hours recording.

Having never owned (or used ) a camcorder before, I have no idea if this will be enough or not!

[willc111]

I took my Canon HF100 with 2x16GB SDHC cards (~4 Hrs of recording) on a 2 week holiday to Italy, and ended up with about 10 Hrs (80 GB) of footage.

I used a portable USB OTG (On the Go) hard drive, and just backed up the SDHC cards at the end of each day, and then erased and reused them.

If you haven't seen these before, they are very small portable hard drives that can be used without a computer. Just plug your card (SDHC, Memory Stick or whatever) into it via a USB card reader and it will automatically suck all the data off allowing you to reuse the card again.

They cost about £30 + the cost of the hard drive. A 160GB hard dive costs about £35. So for £65 you get the equivilant of 10x16GB memory cards, which is pretty good value.

Here's an example of the kind of thing i mean...
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...278394&CatId=0

[BingoBongo275]

That sounds exactly what I need!

So let me get this straight, I need the OTG box, plus a HD, plus a card reader - right?

Sorry to be a dummy but can you point me to the other 2 things?

Also what about power supply - will it all work in the US?

Cheers

Jez

[solidamber]

If going to Disney universal the main shopping is on the HWY 192
http://www.kissimmee-us192.com/map/ushwy192mapindex.htm
the whole road is lined with shops you will find the independant retailers here rather than in the Malls

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by BingoBongo275

That sounds exactly what I need!

So let me get this straight, I need the OTG box, plus a HD, plus a card reader - right?

Sorry to be a dummy but can you point me to the other 2 things?

Also what about power supply - will it all work in the US?

Cheers

Jez

If you look at the detailed specs it states, battery, inlcuded ac adaptor, USB bus

[BingoBongo275]

Thanks inzaman - so it only needs an HD. Does it specificall need a portable or external drive....

or will a standard internal like this http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...231&Sku=Q71216 do?

I notice this only has an "ata100" interface whereas the OTG is "ata300". Confusing!

Cheers

Jez

[willc111]

Hi Bingo,

For the enclosure I linked to, you'll need to get an SATA 2.5 inch hard drive, and a USB memory card reader. I should mention that I haven't tried that particular model (the InfoSafe enclosure) myself; I have an Apacer Steno CD211, but it's very old, and has been discontinued now.

There are other models available as well, but for some reason they seem to be difficult to find in the UK. Here's a link, for example to a US site...
http://www.meritline.com/camera-mate...nclosure1.html
...that has quite a few different versions; some with built in card readers.

I would suggest doing a bit of research and seeing if there are any others available in the UK. The one I linked to was just the most obvious one I found using google.

If you do decide to go for this one...
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=278394&CatId=0
...then there are a few things to be aware of...

1. You need to get an SATA 2.5 inch HD for it. The one you linked to in your last post was an ATA-100 (also know as IDE) HD. Why they use such confusing terms, I don't know, but the two types aren't compatible.
Any of these...
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=3094&Nav=|c:2266|c:2268|c:2 269|&Sort=0&Recs=10
...should be fine, but note that this site...
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...d=14&subid=896
...has them a little bit cheaper.

2. Formatting the drive. If you look at the picture of the USB enclosure, it has a sticker on it saying "Attention, hard drive must be formatted using FAT32". This may be an issue, as Windows can't easily format a FAT32 harddrive to more than 32GB. You need to use a special program, which can be downloaded here..
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/FAT32format.shtml
...which can format large FAT32 hard drives. This only has to be done once when you first connect the drive to a PC, so it's not too bad, but it's still a bit of a pain, and a bit techy.

3. Finally you need a card reader to connect the Memory Stick for your TG3 to the HD. Any standard USB card reader will do. Sometimes they come free when you buy a memory stick, so shop around and see what you can get. They should only cost a few pounds.

Finally, if all that sounds too complicated, then here's an alternative ALL-IN-ONE version...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NextoDI-Next...760733&sr=8-15
...with built in 160GB HD and card reader, but note the hefty premium you pay (about double) for the convenience.

Edit: Actually, with a bit more digging, there are quite a few of these on Amazon...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_ce/202-4947398-3478218?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=NextoDI&x=0&y=0

Hope that helps. If there's anything you're unsure of, let me know.

[richard plumb]

can you use those image storage things like the epson p4000 which are usually used to dump photos from a digital camera onto? Might be a useful additional reason to justify one.

[tim68]

Originally Posted by BingoBongo275

I was going to get a Sony TG3 for a trip in the autumn to Florida/Disney

Anyone know whether stores will dump memory card data to DVD's, like they do photo's?

I'm conscious that I may take a lot of footage and at 4gb per 30 mins it could be VERY expensive in memory cards

Any ideas?

Cheers

Jez

I put this question out on the disboards forums, only one reply so far.

Quote. i think you can do this in disney at magic kingdom and the kodak bit in main street.

Maybe walmart may do this as well

[tim68]

Hi all. appols for jumping the thread as I am in the same position.

I have an archos av480 multimedia player with a built in compactflash type 1 card reader, with an adaptor will it be ok to copy the files from the tg3 to the av480.

[lurcher]

Recently got an Archos Gmini 500 ( 40gb ) from these forum for £25 , no card slot but it does have a usb host socket so I can connect camera/card reader to copy files over.

[Pug_WD]

Might be worth looking into a dedicated USB transfer device, such as this one, combined with a decent USB HDD like this one (unfortunately out of stock atm.)

[BingoBongo275]

Originally Posted by willc111

Hi Bingo,

For the enclosure I linked to, you'll need to get an SATA 2.5 inch hard drive, and a USB memory card reader. I should mention that I haven't tried that particular model (the InfoSafe enclosure) myself; I have an Apacer Steno CD211, but it's very old, and has been discontinued now.

There are other models available as well, but for some reason they seem to be difficult to find in the UK. Here's a link, for example to a US site...
http://www.meritline.com/camera-mate...nclosure1.html
...that has quite a few different versions; some with built in card readers.

I would suggest doing a bit of research and seeing if there are any others available in the UK. The one I linked to was just the most obvious one I found using google.

If you do decide to go for this one...
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=278394&CatId=0
...then there are a few things to be aware of...

1. You need to get an SATA 2.5 inch HD for it. The one you linked to in your last post was an ATA-100 (also know as IDE) HD. Why they use such confusing terms, I don't know, but the two types aren't compatible.
Any of these...
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=3094&Nav=|c:2266|c:2268|c:2 269|&Sort=0&Recs=10
...should be fine, but note that this site...
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...d=14&subid=896
...has them a little bit cheaper.

2. Formatting the drive. If you look at the picture of the USB enclosure, it has a sticker on it saying "Attention, hard drive must be formatted using FAT32". This may be an issue, as Windows can't easily format a FAT32 harddrive to more than 32GB. You need to use a special program, which can be downloaded here..
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/FAT32format.shtml
...which can format large FAT32 hard drives. This only has to be done once when you first connect the drive to a PC, so it's not too bad, but it's still a bit of a pain, and a bit techy.

3. Finally you need a card reader to connect the Memory Stick for your TG3 to the HD. Any standard USB card reader will do. Sometimes they come free when you buy a memory stick, so shop around and see what you can get. They should only cost a few pounds.

Finally, if all that sounds too complicated, then here's an alternative ALL-IN-ONE version...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NextoDI-Next...760733&sr=8-15
...with built in 160GB HD and card reader, but note the hefty premium you pay (about double) for the convenience.

Edit: Actually, with a bit more digging, there are quite a few of these on Amazon...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_ce/202-4947398-3478218?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=NextoDI&x=0&y=0

Hope that helps. If there's anything you're unsure of, let me know.

Excellent detail - thanks!

Cheers

Jez

[Phil Hinton]

WE have started using the type of solution that is being discussed here for dumping our footage when shooting videos for the forums.

We use the DVCPRO HD standard on our Panasonic HVX201 which has two 32GB P2 cards (basically pcmcid). With two cards and recording at 720p we get 140 mins. Once I fill the cards, we use a My Book 1TB hard drive to dump the footage from the cards, then erase and reuse the cards. I was very wary of using such an approach as I was used to tape and having my footage, as I saw it, in my pocket and safe. However I have only had one transfer failure and for everything else it has worked perfectly.

One rule I do use is to delete bad shots while shooting to save space on the cards, this saves time transfering footage you are not going to use. For me to download two full cards on to our HDD takes about 30 minutes and is done at the end of the day. I have never yet hit my 140mins during normally daily shooting around the trade shows etc.

With our camera the cards can stay in the unit and just a USB 2.0 cable is needed to transfer the footage over, no need for card readers. Check to see if your camera will allow tranfer via USB or firewire and if so that should negate the need for card readers etc.

One thing I would point out is the need to see that your footage has gone on to the hard drive. See if your camera has a host facility to read external HDDs, or take your lap top and use that to check (as I have started to do recently, just for piece of mind).

I would also recommend that you do a few dry runs where you shoot footage and then dump to the HDD. Make sure you have it all sorted out before going on holiday as the last thing you want is the panic of a technical issue eating into your holiday time.

Have fun!