EX1 bottle neck for USB transfer to PC
 

I’m trying to give a client 43 mins of footage shoot on the EX1 and they use Sony Vegas.
The problem is that when we go to transfer the file onto their PC system via USB out of the EX1 the transfer is taking as much time as the recorded footage.
I thought USB was faster.
I cant give them QuickTime as Vegas needs an MXF,file.
How can I overcome this bottle neck in the transfer?

Simon

Why aren't you using the expresscard in a machine? Give them the mp4 file inside the file structure.

BPAV > CLPR > XXX_XXXX_XX > *.mp4

Opens right up in Vegas.

What do you mean Perrone? I dont follow what your saying.

Regards

what Vegas do you use :)

remove the SxS card from the camera
insert it into a computer with a PCxpress card slot
and transfer that way.

Well i'm now dumping from the EX1 via USB using the clip browser. I have 43mins of footage and it's now been 1hr 20mins and it's just at 63% in the clip browser.
Something is wrong with this.

Are you just copying or MXF converting, are you shure you connect to USB2 port, not all USB ports have USB enhanced driver by default

thank god someone else is having this problem, its driving me crazy.

I tried the BPAV file, but it wont open in vegas, and I dont have an express card slot, I can get one for my desktop, but not for my lap top, and the lap top is the one that would need it because its used when I am shooting news in the field. I dont want to wait 3 hours for an hours worth of video I shot.

I called sony, and they had no idea what to do.


i have tried it on 3 different computers, its all the same, either real time, or longer.

8.0c and 8.1. The mp4 opens up just fine in both.

Does your laptop have an SD card slot?

yeah, it does, and since I am using the kensington adapter method, I took the SDHC card and plugged that straight in, but it wouldnt let me transfer the files for some reason.

my laptop is still running clipbrowser 1, so maybe that had something to do with it.

do open up the file, and copy the mp4 into vegas? thats what I was trying and it said it couldnt be opened.

Weird. Maybe you're missing a codec or something but it should work. It's just mpeg2 wrapped in an mp4 wrapper. In fact, I take that mp4 file and batch encode to Avid DNxHD now so even the freebie ffmpeg on my machines understands the file.

Maybe the clipbrowser software adds a codec for it or something.

no, i use both , works the same way, except for the missing features from the V2.0

i'll try it again and see what I can get

Are you saying that you can open the native mp4 file in vegas, without rewrapping to mxf ?

I just tried and vegas can't open the files, i have to rewrap to mxf first.

Paul.

You know what? I just tested this to be sure. You're right. I cannot. My transition to using the .mp4 files came at the same time as my transition to another editing codec. The transcoder can read those files just fine, but Vegas cannot.

I am sorry for the confusion.

whew, I thought it was ALL my equipment screwing up!

are you still using clip browser to re wrap then?

Oh, thought that's the "user" problem :)
but anyways it's redicules, no problem with native EX1 mp4 in Adobe, and sony does not understand sony

i've updated the laptops clip browser to v.2 and can now pull the files off the SDHC card, but its still slow...what am I missing? is it possible its camera related?

No, USB is slow. That's why the cards come out and can be placed in a machine. It's also that slow USB interface that is responsible for us not being able to do overcranking on SDHC. No way around it unless you want to take the card out and transfer directly.

No, I don't.

There is a utility that converts mp4 files to Avid's DNxHD codec directly, in batch. So I just point it at all my source material, and let it do it's thing. When it's done, I have lovely editable files. Overnight, I do the same thing, but let it encode to higher quality files (if necessary).

Peronne, out of interest what utility are you using?

A small utility called XDCAMEX_to_Avid. It's a GUI shell wrapped around ffmpeg. Takes mp4 files as input, kicks out DNxHD .mov files. Simple and highly effective.

thats what I did this time, and I stopped the transfer at 12 minutes in to a 7 min file.

I just tried copying my BPAV folder from my expresscard to my laptop drive. 7.03GB took about 2 minutes 20 seconds.

-P

now you are just showing off! haha.

that was with the express card plugged right into the computer? did the drive come with the computer? or did you buy it aftwords?

I am gonna go try my gear with a mac, just to rule out the camera, and go from there.

EDIT-

just noticed you said laptop, so I am assuming its a newer one with the built in express card slot huh? I need to find an adapter for my PCexpress card slot, so I can try using the SxS cards.

Many of the SD card slots on laptops do not support SDHC cards without a firmware update. I had this problem on a Vaio. Found I got much faster transfers from SDHC cards by using a USB to SDHC adapter.

Yes, I bought the new laptop in anticipation of working with the EX1. Ordered within a week of each other. Honestly, if you are going to get into this level of the game, the workflow has to be solid end to end.

I'm specing out a new desktop as I type this. Hopefully a dual quad-core. One of those times I WISH Vegas would use a GPU. But I am building this one to handle 2k and 4k. I don't want to be here again in 2 years crying about my slow machine.

yeah, my laptop is the weak link, but the desktop shouldnt be, its all brand new, built specifically to handle the ex3.

back to the BPAV subject, how do you re wrap using clip browser? I put the folder on the desktop as a test, and cant find it using clip browser.

thanks for the heads up.

you are talking about one of the cheap card readers?

When I got my Scandisk Ultra II cards they came with a free USB to SDHC adapter and that works really well.

Well transfering from the EX via USB toclip browser for Sony Vegas PC is slower than realtime, 43mins of footage ended up taking 1hr 40mins.

If I buy a card reader this still has to use USB.
What are my options to quicken this up?

Regards

Are you sure your USB port is USB 2? It should be faster than that. I would give a card reader a try, they don't cost much and bypass the bottleneck that slows down SD cards in the EX.

Thanks,
Yeah, all USB ports are USB 2.
Any brands of card readers that you might suggest Alister?

Simon

Vegas 8.0 cannot read the mp4 wrapper. You have to use the Clipbrowser to rewrap into MXF. It does take a long time.
Be aware also that Vegas cannot join the files. You must use the Clipbrowser to do this, if you don't you'll get a glitch at the join.

ok, now I am really confused. I did on continuous file (7 minutes worth) it took 44 seconds to transfer. sweet. then I tried multiple clips totaling 7 minutes, and I am back to the slower than real time transfer. the copy check is not on, clip browser is set to processing speed over data protection.

is anyone with a PC, vegas, who is using clip browser to transfer the files, not BPAV's seeing faster times?

should I be looking into the sony SxS card reader?

are you using the SxS cards, or SDHC?

I use my EX1 with Vegas 8.
I'm not certain exactly what you're doing when you say "transfer the files"?
If you're rewrapping to MXF then I'm not surprised at your outcome as the Clipbrowser is probably doing more than just reading one data file so the USB data rate would really slow things down.

I always copy the entire card(s) and it's structure to a folder on my HDDs. Then I use the clipbrowser to do the rewrap to MXF. The rewrap to MXF is slow, around 25% RT. The old version of the Clipbrowser was much faster.

yeah, thats what I am doing, I plug in the camera, open clip browser, select the clips, and select "export mxf".

for some reason I wasnt understanding that, I get it now, once the files are on the computer, its faster to rewrap than doing it while pulling them off the camera huh?

what I dont get is how to rewrap, once the BPAV file is on the computer, I cant find it in clip browser, and it wont let me drag it in either. sorry for being so dense on this, I have been going in 8 different directions trying to figure it out, I am frazzled.