Capturing via Firewire to an External USB Hard Drive

astrovideo · Post by **astrovideo** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 3:24 am

Hi,
I have been capturing DV Video from my camcorder via Firewire. All has been working fine. However, I just ordered an external USB hard drive. Will I be able to cature to this new hard drive through VideoStudio, or does the external drive need to be Firewire instead of USB?

Thank you.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:03 am

I should be OK as it is. My external disks are all USB 2.0, and I sometimes capture from a mini DV camera via firewire to the computer direct to an external HDD.

astrovideo · Post by **astrovideo** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:28 am

Okay, thank you Ken. Do you notice any difference capturing to the external HD as compared to the internal HD (difference in speed, dropped frames, quality, etc)?

THank again.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:25 am

No. The speed of transmission of DV via Firewire is well below the rated max for USB 2.0 so there is no problem with it keeping up. The only proviso I would make is that you should not have too many other things connected to USB at the same time as, unlike Firewire, every USB device takes away a share of the overall bandwidth. And otherwise, I always keep my external HDDs regularly defragged.

astrovideo · Post by **astrovideo** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 6:36 am

Once again I thank you Ken. One more question if I may - I am beginning to think this external drive that I ordered is going to come pre-formatted with FAT32, and I believe FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB. If I am going to be capturing 30 minutes or so, I will surely exceed that limit. Will I have to re-format the drive to NTFS?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:17 am

Yes, that would be advisable when you first receive the HDD. In your Windows, go to Control Panel > Administrative tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management > Action > Format.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 8:21 am

astrovideo wrote:Once again I thank you Ken. One more question if I may - I am beginning to think this external drive that I ordered is going to come pre-formatted with FAT32, and I believe FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB. If I am going to be capturing 30 minutes or so, I will surely exceed that limit. Will I have to re-format the drive to NTFS?

For future external HDDs, I trust you realise that building your own is both very easy, even for a newbie, and a fraction of the cost of a commercial made one. Just recently, for example, I bought the external case for A$45 (about US$38 ), and a Seagate 400 GB hard disk for A$165. It took about 2 minutes to assemble (the instructions are simple and clear) and a couple of minutes more to format. A commercial one that size would be over $500.