maximum file transfer on fat 32 system?

[tyleronline]

Hi I was capturing some footage from a minidv camera which was about 60 mins, but everytime i try to capture it all in one go it stops at about 20 mins. A friend of mine thinks this is because im using the fat32 file system on my hd and he says that i can only transfer upto 4gig at a time. Is this correct? Thanks for your help.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Your friend is correct.

The maximum file size on a FAT32 formatted partition is
4 GB or 4,294,967,296 bytes minus 2 bytes.

Regards Howard

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Yes. You should also use preferably Windows XP and Firewire. You should get a big harddisk, which should be formatted in NTFS. A short access-time is more important than a large buffer if you are goinf to buy one.
It takes about 13GB per video-hour, as a ballpark figure.
See also this:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,118523,00.asp

 

[tyleronline]

thanks guys!I'm getting a new drive anyways, which I will format in NTFS. How come everyone reccomends firewire over usb 2 for capturing from camcorders? Cheers for the info

 

[RealBlackStuff]

USB is controlled/handled by the CPU, whereas Firewire is independant of that, hence faster and more stable.

 

[kirock]

USB is controlled/handled by the CPU, whereas Firewire is independant of that, hence faster and more stable.

Interesting, can the camera actually upload fast enough to prove the above statement true? Are we assuming USB2.0 at 480Mps and 1394b at 800MBps?

Cheers

 

[tyleronline]

I thought that windows xp couldnt utilize the full transfer speed of firewire 800 as win xp caps the speed? If this were the case would usb 2.0 be faster? Regards

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Take a look at this article HERE.

Regards Howard

 

[tyleronline]

thanks Howard the article helped alot. I shall try and get a camera with firewire then, although I,ve been looking at the new harddrive cams from jvc and they all seem to be usb 2.0! Thanks for all the help guys.