iMovie '08 won't rip video from HV20 to external HDD?

[Chodite]

Whenever I import my HV20 video to my Mac via iMovie '08, the drop down menu asking me where I'd like to save, only gives me the internal HDD option and not my USB 2.0 HDD. Any idea why?

[poppet]

Me to but my hard drive is FAT32. I read somewhere that you have to reformat it to HFS (if that's the write letters).

I now need to get a new hard drive because I have no where to dump my stuff so that I can reformat. I am now trying to find out if usb 2.0 will be fast enough for the hard drive when importing hd footage. I have a macbook and the only firewire port will be used for the camera.

Not sure if this helps you but this is what I have come up with thus far.

Good luck.

[Chodite]

Me to but my hard drive is FAT32. I read somewhere that you have to reformat it to HFS (if that's the write letters).

I now need to get a new hard drive because I have no where to dump my stuff so that I can reformat. I am now trying to find out if usb 2.0 will be fast enough for the hard drive when importing hd footage. I have a macbook and the only firewire port will be used for the camera.

Not sure if this helps you but this is what I have come up with thus far.

Good luck.

EXACT same boat here.
External HDD formated with FAT32 and my only Macbook firewire port is being used by the camera. Hmmmm.....

USB 2.0 should be fast enough, since iMovie seems to slow down the importing if resources are being used by other programs. You'll notice that sometimes it will say "importing HD at 3/4 speed"... and sometimes, "importing HD at full speed". So hopefully we're good there.

Let me know if you make any progress though w/your new external HDD!!

[Chodite]

Ok so I just found that Mac OS X cannot write to a hard drive formatted NTFS

Ugh :(

[CJDaniels]

I have never captured to anything but a external hard drive. I have a mac book pro and with FCPS2 and Adobe toys my hard drive is 95% full.

You cannot capture to USB and no its not fast enough anyway.

I capture with the camera plugged into a express 34 FIrewire adapter and the firewire hard drive connnected to the computer.
I can capture imovie 06, 08 and FCP to external.

[poppet]

Is the express 34 firewire adapter like daisy chaining? Sorry I am new to all this stuff

[poppet]

Just googled the firewire adapter. No go for a macbook users as we don't have the card port.

[Chodite]

I have never captured to anything but a external hard drive. I have a mac book pro and with FCPS2 and Adobe toys my hard drive is 95% full.

You cannot capture to USB and no its not fast enough anyway.

I capture with the camera plugged into a express 34 FIrewire adapter and the firewire hard drive connnected to the computer.
I can capture imovie 06, 08 and FCP to external.

The HV20 is ripping via Firewire and the external HDD is USB 2.0
That wouldn't work?

[poppet]

This is what is says in the imovie help:

iMovie: Format external hard disks as HFS Extended for best performance

Because digital video can take up a significant amount of hard drive space, storing your digital video on an external hard disk can be a convenient way to prevent your Mac OS X hard disk from becoming full.

Format your FireWire or USB 2.0 hard disk as HFS Extended for best performance with iMovie. Some hard disks come from the factory in other formats that are not as well suited for iMovie.

Formating an external hard disk is usually done when it's brand new. If you want to reformat a drive that already contains data, be sure to back up the data to another drive beforehand. NOTICE: Reformatting a hard disk will permanently erase all of the data on it.

Tip: You can check the format of your hard drive by clicking its icon in Finder and then choosing Get Info from the File menu. The format is displayed in General information in the Info window.

To format a hard disk as HFS Extended

Note: Formatting a hard drive will permanently erase all of the data on it. Formatting an external hard drive is usually something you'll do when it's brand new. If you want to format a drive that already contains data, be sure to back up the data to another drive beforehand.

Connect your external hard drive to your computer.
Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder in Applications.
Select the name of your hard disk in the left column of the Disk Utility window so that it's highlighted.
Click Erase to show the formatting options pane.
From the Volume Format menu, choose Mac OS Extended.
Click Erase (in the lower-right corner).
Note: USB 2.0 hard disks work best with iMovie when directly connected to your computer. Disks connected to an Airport Base Station are not supported with iMovie. USB 1.x disks are not supported with iMovie.

I would love to know if I could capture using usb 2.0 albeit slower. I don't have any use for the firewire drive if I am going to use the camera direct with the external drive (as I don't understand daisy chaining) and the fact that I have two usb ports I could split the drives. Not sure if this makes sense

[Chodite]

Well I think instead of buying another external HDD, I'm going to back up everything on DVDs (yes it will take forrrevvvver!) and re-format as HFS Extended. I'll let you know how it goes, since I am also using USB 2.0 for my external HDD

[CJDaniels]

Is the express 34 firewire adapter like daisy chaining? Sorry I am new to all this stuff

No opposite. From what I understand the reason people ever have issues with two firewire ports is because they are on the same "bus". This would happen from plugging the firewire drive into the computer and plugging in the camcorder into the hard drive (Daisey chaining two things on one bus).

Using an express 34 card you are adding another firewire port, on another bus, thus decreasing the chances of processor or speed conflicts.

[CJDaniels]

This is what is says in the imovie help:

iMovie: Format external hard disks as HFS Extended for best performance


I would love to know if I could capture using usb 2.0 albeit slower. I don't have any use for the firewire drive if I am going to use the camera direct with the external drive (as I don't understand daisy chaining) and the fact that I have two usb ports I could split the drives. Not sure if this makes sense

If this works, I would like to know, I have tons of portable drives, but only one portable firewire.

[skydriver]

sorry guys/gals i am new hear, i just bought the HV20, and i considering getting an Imac, fully loaded, 2.8dual core, 4GB memory and 1TB hard drive.

my questions, with a system like that do i still need external hard drives? or is the memory and 1TB drive big enough?

I understand Imovie and FCE does not support 24p unless i get that third party software to capture it. so it seems like that problem is solved.

I plan i recording in 24P mode all the time, i mean why not right. For vacations, my 7 week child growing up ect..ect.. and edit into nice movies. is recording in cine or regular HD mode of any use anymore. i am guessing movie quality 24P is the way to go.

Should i save my money and only get the standard 500GB hard drive. Because it sounds like in this thread most people edit from an external drive formated to a specific standard?

thanks for any help

skydriver:hv20-smilie55:

[poppet]

Got that extra hard drive. I formatted it for Max OS X etc. Although its got firewire I have used my camera in the only firewire port and then used usb 2.0 to take the footage straight to the external. All seems ok although it is a slow process. The slow bit is when it creates the thumbnails at the end. Hope this helps.

[File13]

The way i do it is i have a 500GB external HDD that i run off firewire 800 out of my MBP. Then i plug my HV20 into the 400 port and when i open the export menu on iMovie 08 i just select my FW800 drive from the pulldown, its probably not as fast as if you were going directly to your HDD but the speeds seem fine, the only thing that i was shocked by is i recorded a 10 minute clip in 24p cinemode (eventhough iMovie converts it since it doesnt support 24p) and it said it was gonna take 80 minutes to render a 10 minute clip, is that normal?