PDW-U1 Drive tranferring speed

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Is a Sony PDW-U1 drive faster in transferring XDCAM discs to an NLE then a camcorder from the PDW-F3xx series? If so, how much faster?

Thanks in advanced!

[Doug Jensen]

About twice as fast.

I haven't used my F350 to transfer anything for about 2 years, but I hooked it up and ran some tests this morning -- just for you, Ivan.

Here's what I used for the test:
23GB disc
168 clips
76 minutes
17.1 GB of actual data (the disk said 19.5 on the disc, but only 17.1 was clips)


PDW-U1 (USB) to internal HD on MacPro: 22:52
PDW-F350 (Firewire) to internal HD on MacPro: 40:44

Get the U1, it is worth it. Plus you can now write any type of data (including native EX files) to an optical disc in the U1. Can't do that with the camera.

FYI, to move all the data in the previous test from the HD to the UserData folder on a 50GB disc took 36:07.

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Hello Doug,

Wow! Thank you very, very much for running this test! I really appreciate that you have done this especially for me. :-)

Twice as fast is certainly a good reason to get one. Will be ordering one next Saturday together with my new Mac Pro.

Thanks again

[Kalunga Lima]

More importantly the PDW-U1 will save you from potentially burning out the firewire link on the F350 wich can happen if you are not very careful about the order in which you connect the F350 to your computer.

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Never had a any problems connecting the camera to the computer. What is that specific order you are talking about?

[Stewart Menelaws]

… and Ivan, if you ever trade your 300 series for a 700/800, and or receive optical discs from the latter, then the U1 will continue to do the job for you. As Doug says… if you have the money, get one… they make life so much easier and your cameras optical drive mechanism will thank you… ;-)

Best: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

[Kalunga Lima]

Originally Posted by Ivan Snoeckx

Never had a any problems connecting the camera to the computer. What is that specific order you are talking about?

Early on there was quite a bit of traffic on this forum about people blowing the FW port on their F350 cameras. Perhaps Sony fixed it onthe F355.

From my understanding you have to 1) plug the FW cable with both camera and computer off. 2) Power up the camera. 3) Power up the computer.

S+Teh problem seems to be related to some kind of voltage spike that can occur when you insert the 6 pin FW cable if it's hot (ie connected to the computer). Basically as the pins are inserted they can short the camera's FW circuit.

Somebody suggested a work-around by converting the 6 pin to a 4 pin (ie without the voltage) and then back into a six pin with Male/female FW adapters.

Anyway, just thought this would be another good reason to get a PDW-U1.

cheers

[Ivan Snoeckx]

Thank you all very much for your responses! For the moment I have taken an option on a PDW-F70 demo deck with less then 50 laser hours on it. This deck comes available at the end of the year. Only problem is that I'm not able anymore to use the dual layer discs. Oh well, actually it isn't a big deal for me.

First let's see what happens with that PDW-F70. If it goes away in front of my nose, I will get the PDW-U1 drive.

[Bill Ward]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

Get the U1, it is worth it. Plus you can now write any type of data (including native EX files) to an optical disc in the U1. Can't do that with the camera.

Doug:

Let me double check this: the U1 can also record data onto an XDCam HD optical disc?

Thanks!

[Peter Beeh]

Yes, the U1 can record any type of data to an xd disk.