Coping from camera's memory card to PC hard drive

[Gwenn]

Hi Gurus

I've been reading the posts and trawling through this forum but none seems to address what I do.

I take JPEG photos and short AVI video clips on my Canon digital camera. My camera records my stuff onto a removable 2gb SD Memory Card.

I take longer MPEG2 videos on my JVC Everio digital camcorder. It records my stuff onto a removable 4gb Micro Drive.

When any one of my memory cards are full, I remove them from my camera or camcorder, stick it into my Vosonic multimedia player, download the information into the Vosonic's portable hard drive, empty out the memory card, then stick the memory card back into my camera or camcorder to continue shooting. In this way, I can easily carry home up to 120gb worth of images and videos after a vacation.

When I reach home, I download all the images and videos collected on my Vosonic multimedia player into my PC's hard drive via a USB cable that came with my Vosonic.

Then I launch Video Studio, and import directly from my hard drive.

I don't use a firewire, whatever that is.

Is there any information loss or quality degradation in a "capture" procedure like this?

Thanks.

[NoM.O]

Hi Gwenn,

While I in no way consider myself a guru, I think it is safe to say that there will be no quality or information lost in the procedure you describe. It sounds like you are simply transferring data between storage devices rather than 'capturing' in the traditional sense.

Just so you know, firewire is another type of cable which works in a similar fashion to USB, but is capable of faster transfer of information. This shouldn't be a concern using the method you describe though, it is more relevant when capturing footage in real time from a camcorder or VCR.

That's all from me, stick around though, one of the more experienced users might have something else to add.

peace.

[heinz-oz]

Well, it depends on what losses you consider important. To transfer images that way, you will lose the exif information at least but you do not take a quality hit.

[Ron P.]

Well, it depends on what losses you consider important. To transfer images that way, you will lose the exif information at least but you do not take a quality hit.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but this seems no different then when you would transfer images from an Memory card. I transfer 100's of images, and have used USB connected from my digital still camera to my PC, and the card reader that is built into my PC. So far the EXIF is not stripped. PI is the only program that I have the strips the EXIF data. So I would have to say unless there is something specific with the OP's camera, or the multi-media player then the EXIF data should remain intact.

EDITED 10 Sept 06.

Well we shall disagree then... I've just done a comparison of the EXIF data on images trasfered with the software that came with my camera, and those transfered by USB and/or card reader. No difference.

Ron P.

[heinz-oz]

Sorry to disagree with you vidoman. I know for a fact that the only software that leaves all the exif intact is the software that comes with your camera, everything else strips some of it. I work exclusively with PI on my images, when I load the images with the Canon program into my PC, all the exif is there, including focal lenth, WB etc. I then use PhotoExplorer to back these images up to a CD for save keeping. Images I took during a holiday to Crete last year, I copied via a card reader straight onto my HDD, most of the exif is missing from those.

[Gwenn]

Oooookay.

Er, what is EXIF? What is PI?

[heinz-oz]

Exif is the data a good digital camera saves with the images. It tells you at what time with which settings using which lens, apperture and shutter speed, you took the image.

PI is Ulead PhotoImpact, a very good image editing, graphics and animation program.