Storing Footage on Holiday

[Stephen Green]

Hi
please be gentle folks I'm still on the vertical learning curve with this magnificent little AX100!!!

I'm not well traveled and busy preparing for my first big trip to Vietnam and dont want to take a laptop etc
\i know the AX100 stores the footage on SDXC cards. Any advice on how I store the footage from the camera ? (intending to take a lot.... nay.... a LOT of footage!!!) not sure exactly how many cards...
any simple maths to work what storage I should get on the cards with the various shooting modes

TIA

[Mark Watson]

I don't have this newer version that accepts SDXC cards, but I do have a Nexto DI and it has performed well. Battery life was good for maybe 2 days' shooting. Just plug in the card and it dumps it to the internal hard drive, very easy to use.

Do some research and find out which capacity SDXC gives the best value and get several. If you are running low on storage space, you can review your footage in the camera or on the Nexto (I think) and delete clips you don't want to keep.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1061094-REG/nexto_di_nese_nd29011tb_nd2901_with_1tb_hdd.html
Mark

[Stephen Green]

Thanks Mark

I have a 1Tb external hard drive and as you say I can monitor footage on the camera so all I need is some form of 'file hub' that allows connection of the camera/sd card through to archiving on the 1Tb drive.
Unfortunately I would be unable to see that archived footage!!! ....need some way of checking the drive has got the files intact!

The AX100 has a direct copy facility but it doesn't seem to work if connecting the drive directly to the camera (think more power is required for the drive)

would have been great if I could have played back the footage on the hard drive into the camera a view on the small screen... hmmmm..

[Atticus Lake]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

any simple maths to work what storage I should get on the cards with the various shooting modes

The maths is in fact simple. 50 Mb/s is... well, 50 Mb/s. In other words you wil be storing 50 megabits of information for every second you shoot. ("M" = "mega", i.e. a million; "b" = bits, "B" = bytes).

There are 8 bits in a byte, so 50 Mb/s = 6.25 MB/s (megabytes per second); or 22,500 megabytes (22.5 gigabytes) per hour. Obviously double for 100 Mb/s shooting, etc.

As for storing it... maybe just get a lot of SD cards? I got 64GB U3 cards from Amazon today for less than $30; that's about $11 per hour. Of course for many hours, an external hard drive will be cheaper... but transferring it is the issue. I'm afraid I've only done that by laptop.

So maybe a small laptop, or a tablet even? A Windows tablet should have a USB host port, which will let you run the drive, plus an SD slot. Then you could also preview what's on the drive without the camera attached.

[Karl Walter Keirstead]

Very easy to find a USB plug with an SD card reader at the other end. Less than $10. The plug/reader does not need to have any storage facilities.

Plug the reader into your laptop, then connect your 1 TB drive to another USB port on the laptop, then go to Windows Explorer (there must be an equivalent protocol for Mac computers).

For PCs, Explorer will see both drives.

Open up the drive that is the SD and copy the entire contents (i.e. everything) over to your 1 TB external drive to a new empty directory.

Many cams tag files under STREAM as 00001.mts, 0002.mts etc so if you fail to properly name the directory you add each time you load/copy an SD card, you will have difficulty finding footage, not to mention greatly increase the chances of inadvertently overwriting content.

When you copy content from one drive to an empty drive\directory\sub-directory, you will NOT get any prompt asking if it is OK to overwrite/replace.

If you see such a message, you know your are not pointing the right drive\directory\sub-directory. Immediately Cancel and figure out where you should be pointing..

I would recommend you bring a second 1TB hard drive and do a backup each night from your main drive.

[Stephen Green]

Thank you for your kind informative replies...

But.....to clarify..... no laptop/tablet pc allowed!

I understand the concepts especially the buying of extra U3 sd cards as a solution but they are a dam sight more expensive over here in the uk!!!!

I am trying to explore the potential of the direct copy .... maybe with the restrictions I am placing it cannot be done???...

[Rob Cantwell]

i've ordered a Sony AX100 and in advance of that I got a 128GB Transcend SDXC UHS-I U3 for €54 which isn't that expensive, as for storage would a cloud based solution work for you, Google Drive, Dropbox etc.?

[Mark Watson]

Gentle Reader, may I suggest an alternative?

I have not done this myself, but the camera manual describes a method of saving files directly from the camera to some external media (i.e. HDD). Please turn your attention to page 67 or thereabouts and get all the details. It requires a special adapter cable, the "VMC-UAM2" which I'm guessing not a single one of us happy camper AX100 4K (@ 60 or 100Mbps) shooters have in our bag. So, after you acquire said cable, then you should be able to connect that to a hard drive directly and download your footage. There are some limitations; can't have a USB hub in the chain, and can't download XAVC S footage; so no HD or 120 fps footage can be transferred this way. I would further suggest that you test this out before your trip and make sure your HDD will work with this camera. Some HDDs draw more current than others. Of course, if you have access to AC power and can plug your drive's power adapter into a wall outlet (MAINS) then that may work if nothing else. The manual leaves something to be desired, but my take is that it might even be possible to reconnect to the drive and preview the video files on the drive with the camera. Really not sure on that.

Now back to celebrating U.S.A. "Independence Day"!

Best,
Mark

[Ricky Sharp]

Do you have a rough guess as to how many hours of footage you'll be capturing?

The way I see it, you really only have two solutions. First being just to use SD cards. On my X70, I recently picked up two 256 GB cards (I do simultaneous recording to have an instant backup). At max HD quality (XAVC-L 50Mbps), I can get 9.5 hours of footage.

Are you shooting HD or UHD? If the latter, expect to get about 4.75 hours (at 100Mbps) on a 256 GB card.


Second, have you looked at a wireless drive with built-in card reader? e.g.

Western Digital Passport Wireless

You have a choice of 500 GB, 1 TB or 2 TB.


Also take into account how much time you'll have to transfer any footage from your cards and of course the time to recharge the wireless drive. For me, I wanted the most lightweight and quickest solution so opted for high-capacity SD cards. In looking at past vacations, the maximum amount of footage I ever captured was 4.5 hours. But I wanted some room to grow in case I shoot more on our next trip.

[Stephen Green]

Good info peeps ... thanks

I intend to shoot at least 2 hours per day possibly 3 at full 4K (2.5hrs x14days = 35 hours of 4k - approx 800Gb following Atticus's advice...

I didnt read the manual correctly (lol) and yup they have addressed the workflow I am trying to sort with that elusive cable Mark refers to "VMC-UAM2" and at a stonking 20 uk pounds.... sheesh...
it looks a bit 'special. too as there seems a lot of bad press about cheaper parts on the market that do not work.

not sure about wifi in Vietnam .... ! but sure is the way to go with reliable fast connections here !

hey... enjoy your 4th of July.... I'm celebrating too with a Newcastle Broon ale !!!!

[Atticus Lake]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

I understand the concepts especially the buying of extra U3 sd cards as a solution but they are a dam sight more expensive over here in the uk!!!!

As a Brit in California, I comisserate... after life in the UK, getting camera kit is like buying toffees over here.

And like you, I'll be mourning the disgraceful treason of our former colonies (though somewhat keeping my head down as I do...). Happy July!

[Stephen Green]

Finally bit the bullet and purloined the Sony Direct Copy Cable

there is a lot of bad press about these cables not working. If you buy the cheap ones I suppose that's the chance you take. Amazon had them for 18 sobs (UK) ordered and it duly arrived.

Connected to the Transcend portable HDD and..................... voila!

works a treat... holiday shooting storage sorted

I recommend it to the house !

[Mark Goodsell]

The cable is a Great idea. I just ordered one and give it a try. Wish I would have had one on my previous trip. Thanks for the tip.

[Mark Watson]

I have one on order as well, but can either of you confirm whether you can review footage on the HDD using that cable. Just curious.

Mark

[Paul Hardy]

Originally Posted by Stephen Green

Finally bit the bullet and purloined the Sony Direct Copy Cable

there is a lot of bad press about these cables not working. If you buy the cheap ones I suppose that's the chance you take. Amazon had them for 18 sobs (UK) ordered and it duly arrived.

Connected to the Transcend portable HDD and..................... voila!

works a treat... holiday shooting storage sorted

I recommend it to the house !

Does the cable work with 'Bus Powered' USB drives, or is it only USB drives that are plugged into a wall??