When travelling with EX1 and no laptop
 

When I travel for a period of 1 or 2 weeks with my XDCAM-EX1 and want to copy the contents of the SxS card into an external hard drive, So far I bring with me a laptop to which I connect the EX1 camera and from which I connect to the external hard drive.
Now, if I want to avoid bringing with me the laptop, what would be the smallest, most compact device that I could use to copy the contents of the SxS cards into that external hard drive (which is a Western Digital My Passport 320 Gb). I do not want to use the Sony 60 Gb external drive which is attached to the EXCAM, which is not the solution I am looking for.
I am not sure the SBAC-US10 device can be connected directly to a hard drive as it might need to be connected to a PC.
In other words, I need a small portable device that will make the link between the Camera or its SxS card to this Western Digital drive.

Any suggestion will be most welcomed

Buy a load of sdhc cards and an sdhc adaptor and don't bother offloading.
Paul.

Have you considered MxR? E-Films

I'm purchasing 16 GB SD cards for around the same cost as DVCAM cassettes (GBP18 each) and did a shoot a couple of weeks ago that involved 16 hours of rushes in four days. Avoided any need to do any disk transfer on site whatsoever, and that is (for me) the way to go.

It's just like shoving another cassette in the camera, except there's two, and it A/B rolls nicely, and they're very small, and can be washed inside your jeans pocket (don't try it). Pure delight to work with.

Lovely to return home and review your rushes, everything labelled nicely, ready to edit.

PS: Sorry Paul - you got there first!

Deal with extra kit on-site? Another battery set to charge? Another kit bag to pack? Another set of cables to get through airport security? No thanks. Spend the money you'd save not buying a hard disk solution on four dozen 16 GB cards and a day or two's worth of MxR adaptors (you don't want to be unloading the MxRs in the field - do that in the hotel). Two little 'washbags' - one for empties, one for fulls.

FWIW, I had 2 SxS cards with me exclusively for slomo shots. Used half of one card (shot two acts in slomo). Otherwise, it's SD in MxR all the way.

I'll say this, though. I'd appreciate a little 7" mini-laptop on-site that would allow me to do my XDCAM Transfer logging (file naming, take trimming, embedding interviewee info, etc) without actually emptying the card. Ideally, just switch XDCAM Transfer's info to the ingest machine when back home, give it the cards, and it pulls out your selects, names them and presents them ready to edit.

You could give the Nexto a try:

Nexto Extreme ND2700 Review

This would work as both a SDHC storage device and can also connect directly to the camera to download footage. The camera sees the Nexto as a connected PC and then you can download the footage on to an internal drive. Not exactly what you are after but it is one solution.

That is a really fine approach Matt.

Is there a "netbook" out there that Windows users here find suits the workflow of the EX really well?

Another vote for the MxR and 16GB SDHC Cards! I now have 12 MxR and 12 16GB SDHC plus one SxS for overcranking! I find it is easier to have the cards pre-installed in the MxR holders than fiddling about inserting them in the field. If I was on a long shoot i.e. a week or more then I’d just buy more SDHC Cards as 12 MxR is more than enough for a days shoot (Can swap the cards over in the evening).

I think the Panasonic Toughbook is an ideal production laptop for both SxS and P2. It has both a PC card slot, an ExpressCard slot, and a SDHC card slot. It's tough as anything and has a touch screen display. A client of ours put velcro on the back of his toughbook and attached a rugged Lacie drive.

You can install the Sony Clip Browser software on it and do all the sub clipping and logging in the field. Any data changed in the clip browser will be retained on the original card so when you bring it into FCP you'll still have that data.

Learn about Panasonic's TOUGHBOOK-19

You are right. This is what I did. I bought 2 MxR adpators and 8 SDHC cards.
However, I do not feel safe by just keeping these cards in a box when I travel. I read different threads describing the danger of mismanipulation making these cards unreadable. I would like to back them up to a second media. Either burning DVDs DL, but this requires having a laptop, or copying the contents of the cards into an external drive.

We are in the same wave length!! This is the sort of work flow I would like to follow. I dont want toempty the contents of the cards, but backing them up to another media without having a laptop.

Bingo !! Yes, this could be a proper solution to my requirements. Thanks for letting me know.

Too big to be put in the camera bag. I dont want to carry on the plane both the camera bag and the laptop bag. I want soemthing small enough to be put in the same bag as the camera.

On the Go
 

Over in 1/60th of a second

My own method/workflow/solution to this.

Sony Companion

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/995362-post28.html

Hahaha.. yeah.. i heard it automatically converts the mp4 to mov on the go so you can preview what you shot ;)

you would get a better chance with one of these small laptops like eeePC.
seems HP (the HP mini 2140) is doing a nice one with expresscard an SD slot.
This would allow to see what is in the card (with the sony ex player) rather than blindly copy files. I the target is to go ultra light, i would (i have) definitely opted for the SDHC solution. You can buy 20 SDHC 16 gig card for the price of a sony SxS 16gig card.