DV Info Net - Help with Mac to PC info

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Help with Mac to PC info

Hello,

I have a shoot coming up where we will be capturing some DVCPro HD into a Macbook Pro.

I will be supplying the hard drive and editing the footage.

But I use a PC.

So, if I could ask for some help regarding how to format the drive and how to get the files back into the PC for editing.

I am unsure about the formatting the drive. If we format it in the Mac, I don't think the PC will be able to recognize the drive.

If we format for the PC, I am unsure about capturing on the Mac.

Thanks for your help!

You can use a harddrive that is formatted Fat32 because Mac's and PC's will read it but it will limit your file size to 4gbs. This might not be a problem if you are recording to DVCProHD MXF's because they have a 4gb file size already. But if your going to DVCPRO HD quicktimes that can be bigger than 4gbs then there are also 3rd party programs that will let you use a drive on both a pc and mac but the name escapes me right now.

Once on a PC though it won't read DVCPRO HD quicktime movies unless you have a program like DVFilm Decoder. If you need to write dvcpro hd quicktimes on a PC you would need DVFilm Encoder Pro which will decode and encode.

Hope this helps,
Andy

You can use a windows program called MacDrive in order to read the Mac's HFS+ file system. It is shareware and will run you about $50, but you might be able to bill it to the client.

Anyway, MacDrive would definitely work for you. I haven't had any issues with it in the past. Another possible option would be to format the drive for NTFS and use a similar program on the mac that would allow the mac to read and write NTFS, but everytimg I've used programs like that, they just don't give me the same amount of confidence as MacDrive. They aren't as well built, and they don't integrate as well into the operating system (granted, of course, I haven't tried all of them). I know the most talked about shareware app for the Mac is ParagonNTFS, but MacFuse is free (albeit relatively new).

If it was me, I would rather use MacDrive on the Windows computer and format the drive for the Mac. That would ensure that you won't have any problems while capturing.

Best of luck,
Glenn Fisher

Thanks guys.

I did a double post and MacDrive came up on the other post as well.

So that looks like the best option.

Problem solved.

Great! I hope that works out well for you.

The only thing I want to point out to you about MacDrive is that you should change one of the settings right away. By default, it is set to open dual format CDs and DVDs (i.e. one CD or DVD uses one format on Windows and another on Mac) as a Macintosh formatted disc. You don't want that. You want to be able to see the Windows part of the disc. So when you first get MacDrive, I recommend that you just go into the settings and switch that to Windows to avoid any issues down the road (I tried to install a video game awhile ago but it kept showing the Mac-formatted part of the disc, and I couldn't find out what the problem was until I found that setting about an hour later in MacDrive).

Best of luck,
Glenn Fisher

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glenn Fisher (Post 1002873)

Paragon NTSF has worked trouble free on my macbook pro for editing files transfered from my PC based system. It is transparent to use and can read and write to the NTSF formatted hard drives that are used on my PC system. I do recommend that you move all editing files over to the mac system rather than try to edit directly from the NTSF drive. It works better for intensive editing.

I have both Macdrive ( a great program) and Paragon, but have decided to just use one software program to transfer back and forth. My main system is the PC so I use Paragon on the mac.