Another Way Out (SxS to SDHC to PC)
 

Probably more a side topic to the SHDC threads going on here, but it occurred to me that

a) if one had one SxS card loaded for Q&S and one Kensington/SDHC card in the other slot, then

b) (if one had the time) one could simply copy the overcranked file from the SxS to the SDHC after the fact and then

c) one wouldn't need a computer with an Expresscard slot or the SxS to USB reader, just a multi-format card reader.

Of course transfer rates would be affected, but the copying from one card to another inside an EX1/3 is supported, and therefore theoretically the SxS cards would never have to look at anything other than the EX1/3.

I'm going to test this out when my Kensington card gets here, but I think that would be a no-brainer for acquisition onto laptops, etc., without an Expresscard/SxS option.

Yes, it's data copying only, of course -- one wouldn't be able to watch the clips in proper res or speed until one had them copied onto the edit drives and back onto a high speed system. But it's only data copying, right? And the SDHC cards don't need the PCIe SxS buss to work. Right?

And that's a grand or two saved, right there, for them that needs it. In theory, anyway.

(Of course, one could simply plug the camera into a PC via the USB port and treat it as an external hard drive holder, with the SxS cards being the "hard drives". Going to test the transfer times for that method too).

Cheers
Chris

Chris, have you tested your theory yet? Did it work or not?

A follow-up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi Jay
Sorry about that, just spotted your post.
Yes, it does work.
I've taken slomo clips shot onto an SxS card in Slot 1 and copied the clips over to an SDHC card in a Kensington in Slot 2, then taken the SD card out and used everything from an old Mac G3 laptop to a Windows WinXP laptop to a Macbook Pro and my regular edit suite and followed this basic workflow:

a) name a new folder to hold the BPAV folder in your recipient machine. I usually follow the TV naming convention that goes like this: 081103A05 (which is A camera team's fifth tape on November the 3rd, 2008 - but since I'm from Europe, I prefer 01JAN09A05, which just reads faster to me, and has no underlines, slashes, etc to contend with). For the purposes of this explanation, I'll call these new folders TAPE FOLDERS from now on.

b) mount your SD card in your computer slot. I've used multiformat readers, or just the card slots available in the laptops I tried. Open the CD's window and find the BPAV folder.

c) drag the BPAV folder into the tape folder you named in a) above. Simple. One BPAV folder goes into its identifying tape folder. Done deal.

Here's the key: YOUR COMPUTER MAY NOT BE ABLE TO SEE INSIDE THE BPAV FOLDERS, AND YOU PROBABLY WON'T BE ABLE TO PLAY THE CLIPS ON THE COMPUTER. Loud enough for you???

Once more - this is strictly a desktop, operating system level copy and paste, like a regular document file copy.

You mount your SD drive and copy your BPAV folder into the new folder with the tape name on it. That's it.

Now I've been able to tell if it copied properly because 4GB of data takes awhile to copy, and also I've been able to do a very rough checksum by getting the size of the folders to show up (under Properties in Windows or Get Info in Macs) and see that they're close. In other words, if an entire (and full) BPAV folder copies over in less than 10 seconds, then that's your indication that something's wrong.

Using this method, I can shoot slomo on the SxS, copy the clips over onto the SD cards, then take them out, make backups, etc.

Just be aware that you will NOT be able to see or play the clips themselves until your last step, in which:

z) your tape folders with the BPAV folders inside them (most probably copies thereof by thei stage) eventually reach their final destination, which would be a PC or a Mac with the appropriate Sony Clip Transfer software and/or the XDCam EX drivers.

NOW you use your readers, copiers, editing programs, high def monitors, and what have you, and have at it as usual.


I've field and stress tested this workflow enough now that I'm confident enough to delete the original clips off my SxS cards once I've copied them off onto the SD cards, freeing up the SxS cards for the next (S&Q) shots.

Also be aware that the Sony Clip browser and other programs are cued to search for the BPAV folder name, so just altering the BPAV folder names to BPAV001, etc., won't work (unless you put them into discretely named folders and then rename them back afterwards to BPAV). Renaming your BPAV folder temporarily will, however, prevent you from overwriting one BPAV folder with another one by accident during a copy. I haven't done that yet but I can see how that could be done, especially since Murphy lives here...

HTH
JM2c, YMMV, etc.

Cheers
Chris



Oh - copy times - well, they're pretty standard and usually the slowest link in the chain determines the copy rate. I now figure around a minute per GB of data, give or take, for just about anything these days.

Of course, that's not PCie Expresscard SxS extra rapid transfer speed, by any means. But the cost differential sure has made sense to me.

Thanks, Chris, I truly appreciate your input and experience with this!

Of course it seems that with this method you cannot shoot for longer than the card capacity in a single slot. This seems quite limited. Or am I misreading this method?


John

How much quick and slow motion are you going to shoot?

Hi John
Well, yes and no.
Since this is just a housekeeping method (i.e. done after the fact of shooting), then there's no reason you couldn't shoot all your regular SxS cards as usual, however you want, then back them up one by one later on.

Let's say you fill all of them you own up with a single clip. Then, when you're all done (let's say you filled six SxS cards up with one shot, of course labeled SxS001 through SxS006 or similar), you would then put SxS001 into Slot 1, a blank SD card (with Kensington) into Slot 2, copy out the BPAV and then copy that BPAV out into a computer file folder as usual.

So eventually you'd end up with the six BPAVs on your editing computer with the one clip recorded across all six. At that point, since the contents of the six BPAV's are identical to that which would be in your SxS001 through SxS006, your File Transfer utility would recombine the clip on output.

Of course, this presupposes that you had six SxS cards to begin with. But then again how many people would take a single shot that would last for, what, over 24 hours?

OK, this is where I misread it - Sorry.

John