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Computer problem

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  • 28-12-2010 8:51pm
    #1
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭


    Hi,

    I bought a new laptop today, unfortunately, it doesnt have a Firewire port ( and frankly I was amazed by the fact that most in store didnt, only the high end ones seemed to have one :eek: why is this?)

    But i figured no problem really, i'll just capture on my desktop that i have been previously using to edit on, using Premiere pro to edit, but HDVsplit to capture, and then transfer the files over to the laptop using a USB or possibly trying to setup a home network.

    I setup the home network fine, (New laptop is Windows 7, old desktop is Vista) using the public folder way, i would capture from my camera directly into the public folder on my desktop, and then just import those files into Premiere pro on the laptop, directly from the public folder. That didnt work, as it crashed when importing the files. so i tried then to transfer the files from the public folder, onto the laptop itself, but that takes hours for it to copy all i need.

    Does anybody have any idea on how i could better my situation?

    Thanks,

    Matthew


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    #2
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    Transporting the DV files over LAN shold be doable, if you are using a LAN cable and neg'd at 100Mb/s. Forget WiFi though of thats what you are using. I tend to use different computers in the house so I store most of my project source files on a network drive and it doesnt cause any real issues, so its certainly possible.

    If you arent aready, copy the files to your laptop using a LAN cable or get a firewire card for your laptop assuming it has a PC Card slot.


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    #3
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    Firewire never really caught on in a big way and is not the norm on most laptops. Now many camcorders have solid state memory, so it may be on the way out.

    Silly question, what does the camcorder capture to, mini-DV, solid state drive, DVD?


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    #4
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    SouperComputer wrote: »
    Transporting the DV files over LAN shold be doable, if you are using a LAN cable and neg'd at 100Mb/s. Forget WiFi though of thats what you are using. I tend to use different computers in the house so I store most of my project source files on a network drive and it doesnt cause any real issues, so its certainly possible.

    If you arent aready, copy the files to your laptop using a LAN cable or get a firewire card for your laptop assuming it has a PC Card slot.

    Yes i've been transferring it through WiFi so i will try it using a LAN cable. Will that make the transfer much faster?
    Silly question, what does the camcorder capture to, mini-DV, solid state drive, DVD?

    Its a Canon HV20 so it records to miniDV/HDV


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    #5
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    roguey wrote: »
    Yes i've been transferring it through WiFi so i will try it using a LAN cable. Will that make the transfer much faster?

    Yes speed over a wired connection is faster and reliable then wireless. It is better suited to data heavy work such as this.
    Its a Canon HV20 so it records to miniDV/HDV

    Firewire also compresses the data.

    EDIT: Does your laptop have a HDMI imput, that should be able to transfer straight from the camera.


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    #6
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    roguey wrote: »
    Its a Canon HV20 so it records to miniDV/HDV
    Did a Google, and found that the Canon HV20 has a USB slot on the left side...

    Picture taken from http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-HV20-Camcorder-Review.htm

    Would this not suit you?


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    #7
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    USB2 speeds are generally to slow for video transfers, especially HDV. The data needs to keep up while the information is being played over the tape head.

    Opps, you also need to have a hard drive with 7200rpm to write the data fast enough. Most laptops come with 5400rpm drives.

    I've looked around, it seems most laptops with hdmi only do output. I remember a video production guy saying they tested capturing the feed from the camera to a laptop. Didn't mention what they used.


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    #8
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Looking at your original problem...
    roguey wrote: »
    I bought a new laptop today, unfortunately, it doesnt have a Firewire port ( and frankly I was amazed by the fact that most in store didnt, only the high end ones seemed to have one :eek: why is this?)
    Most likely because if you're using Firewire, you'll be doing video editing, and I'd say most of said laptops probably have a good amount of RAM?
    roguey wrote: »
    i would capture from my camera directly into the public folder on my desktop, and then just import those files into Premiere pro on the laptop, directly from the public folder. That didnt work, as it crashed when importing the files.
    At a guess, probably because it wasn't on your local machine. May be a better idea to copy the file to your local machine first, and then import it. Failing that, get a 7200rpm USB* external hard-drive, and put the file onto it, so you can work directly off it.

    Link to the laptop that you bought? Considering CS5 needs at least 2GB RAM, how much RAM does the laptop have?
    roguey wrote: »
    so i tried then to transfer the files from the public folder, onto the laptop itself, but that takes hours for it to copy all i need.
    Yup, but it depends on how the hardware. How old is the PC? Depending on how old the PC is (or how cheap you bought it for), you have have a slow network card in the back. If the PC was pre-built from a shop, tell me the make and model number, and I'll check that.

    Next, where is it connecting through? Probably some sort of router? I'll need hte make and model number of that. And while you're at it, give me the make and model number of the laptop.

    The reason is, is that I want to see if there's a bottleneck somewhere along the line. Most commonly, it's the PC network card, but it could be anywhere along the line. And yup, we're talking over ethernet. Over wireless just isn't worth thinking about for large files.

    Finally, the Windows copier thing is sh|te. Any errors, it pretty much says "f**k you" and tells you if you wish to cancel. Get SuperCopier beta 2.2 which works on Windows 7 (I've been using it instead of the Windows default one for the past few months). It's free, and is great if copying over a network. If it gets an error, it asks you what you want to do, and if it's a simple case of "network connection lost", reconnect the network, and it can resume the copy process.

    Oh, and ensure you change the power settings on the laptop to "stay on" when plugged in (you can set it so that the screen goes off, if you wish, after X minutes of non-use). I say this as if you're copying a super-mega-big-gizzilion-megabyte file, and go for a cup of tea, sometimes laptops tend to go into "sleep" mode, and stop the copy process. How friggin' annoying.

    Oh, and ho-hum. Long reply :D :P

    USB* USB2 = about the speed of firewire. Firewire was great when USB1 was around. Firewire is still used by Apple things, I think.


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    #9
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    Good reply the_syco, you covered all the basics, except for firewire/usb (I studied video production, usb cannot handle video. Usb3 probably can, but that isn't used much yet). Firewire has basically survived because of video cameras. USB connections are used to export still pictures from cameras, which also have a sd card slot for that purpose.

    Yes firewire is apple branding, but its an official standard that works on most platforms. The wikipedia page explains that usb rarely achieves it best speed and has better technology to handle data transfer.


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    #10
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    the_syco wrote: »
    Link to the laptop that you bought? Considering CS5 needs at least 2GB RAM, how much RAM does the laptop have?

    The laptop i bought is a Dell Inspiron 15R, 3Gb RAM,(which i'll probably upgrade, as its 64 bit and can take more) 2.4Ghz i3 processor and the main reason for buying was that it has a 1Gb dedicated graphics/video card. So video editing is very smooth and fast. 100 times better than my old desktop which by using this i dont even know how i used it tbh.

    the_syco wrote: »
    Yup, but it depends on how the hardware. How old is the PC? Depending on how old the PC is (or how cheap you bought it for), you have have a slow network card in the back. If the PC was pre-built from a shop, tell me the make and model number, and I'll check that.

    The desktop is about 3 or 4 years old at this point, its pretty sh1te, Acer M1610 1Gb ram, 1.6ghz dual core and integrated graphics card:o
    the_syco wrote: »
    Next, where is it connecting through? Probably some sort of router? I'll need hte make and model number of that. And while you're at it, give me the make and model number of the laptop.

    Router is a ZyXEL, model number P-660HW-T1 v3
    the_syco wrote: »
    Finally, the Windows copier thing is sh|te. Any errors, it pretty much says "f**k you" and tells you if you wish to cancel. Get SuperCopier beta 2.2 which works on Windows 7 (I've been using it instead of the Windows default one for the past few months). It's free, and is great if copying over a network. If it gets an error, it asks you what you want to do, and if it's a simple case of "network connection lost", reconnect the network, and it can resume the copy process.

    Thanks for that, i'll download it and give it a try!


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    #11
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    Wired connection is going to be of order of magnitude better than wireless for a series of reasons we dont need to go into on this thread. Get them networked through a switch. Windows file copy has never caused and issue for me but YMMV. As I say I edit DV and HDV over a 100Mb connection without issue. The PC serving the files is a 7 or 8 yeard old Athlon XP with 768MB of RAM running windows 7 and hosting two VMware guests at that. What I'm saying is that your Acer is well up to the job of "serving" DV or HDV files to your laptop so dont worry about it.

    The 7200RPM figure for laptop drives is a cop-out figure that ive seen bandied around. Its only an issue if your computer or hard drive are otherwise marginal. Remember DV has been around for a LONG time (15years?), its an old format and HDV is really just a variation of it. All you are doing is transfering a data stream to your HD. If your HD cant write <25Mb (megabits not bytes) for HDV you have much bigger issues at hand or your computer is an absolute feckin dinosaur. Sure the shorter access time is nice to have, but it depends on the two exact drives you are comparing, not to mention the extra heat and power consumption, cluster size also has a role to play if you want to get your hands really dirty.

    Weather USB2 has the throughput or not is of no conseqence, cameras that have DV don't output via USB anyway. Firewire is what you have. Also graphics card memory is no consequence for video editing. It demands no more the video\graphics card than any other "desktop" app. Some later editing software and codecs use the GPU to assist in rendering however this is nifty, but the amount of memory on the graphics card wont matter as much as the speed of the core and the speed of the memory used. I used to edit HDV on a 3.0GHZ single core P4 (basically under half the power of your acer). Editing was fine, but rendering SUCKED.

    If you have a PC Card slot, this is probably the best overall way to go: http://cgi.ebay.ie/PCMCIA-3-Port-IEEE-1394-FireWire-Laptop-Cardbus-PC-Card-/390275207331?pt=UK_Computing_LaptopAccess_RL&hash=item5ade3710a3

    DV recompresing the video stream in transit is news to me and I cant see why that would be done? not to meantion 15 years ago it would have cost a fortune to buy custom chips that would be needed to recompress it on the fly. Do you have any more info on this tadcan


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    #12
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    roguey wrote: »
    The desktop is about 3 or 4 years old at this point, its pretty sh1te, Acer M1610 1Gb ram, 1.6ghz dual core and integrated graphics card:o
    A 1GB Vista machine? Ouchies. As Windows 7 runs faster than Vista, you'd probably need a few more GB's (PC can take up to 2*2GB) on the PC to find it as smooth. And maybe some cheap GFX card. Did it come with XP, or Vista, or maybe XP with an upgrade pack to Vista? Before you throw it out, put XP back on, as XP runs better an a GB than Vista does.
    roguey wrote: »
    The laptop i bought is a Dell Inspiron 15R, 3Gb RAM,(which i'll probably upgrade, as its 64 bit and can take more) 2.4Ghz i3 processor and the main reason for buying was that it has a 1Gb dedicated graphics/video card. So video editing is very smooth and fast. 100 times better than my old desktop which by using this i dont even know how i used it tbh.
    Uh. Will look at this later.
    roguey wrote: »
    Router is a ZyXEL, model number P-660HW-T1 v3
    This is your bottleneck. The PC and laptop both have gigabit network cards, whereas this only has "10/100M". So even though laptop and PC can send at 1000Mb, the router only allows a max transfer of 100Mb. Either get a new router with gigabit connections, or get a hub that will connect the laptop to the PC. Who are you with for internet? If you're not a geek, maybe tell them the router is giving you problems, and that you're looking for a new one? Although they may charge you a tenner more than the cheapest one you can get, it'll be one that is configured for the internet (a client once got a "cheap and cheerful" router, only to find it wasn't compatible with Eircom internet - was missing some things).


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    #13
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    You dont need a 1Gb link. Sure its nice to have but you dont need it. Like I said I edit HDV (and often from three computers at the same time come to think of it) over a 100Mb link without issue. I do this to reduce rendering times. Once I get my editing done on the project and im ready to render (the source files are being edited via a 100Mb LAN connection) I then go and open that same project file which is on a network drive along with the source HDV files on two or more computers (via RDP) and start them rendering each clip simultaneously.

    Get the laptop off the wireless and your problems are prettymuch solved as long as the sharing is setup correctly which with Win7 is easy peasy. That's all there is to it. Capture the DV files to the desktop, copy them to the laptop. Done, finitio, good to go.

    A good 100Mb connection maxed out is around 60Mb in the real world, so it will xfer the DV files in "double time" or better to the laptop if we consider the stream is 25Mb/s. ie one tape should take <30mins to transfer from one computer to the other over a 100Mb connection. It will probably turn out to be much quicker. 100Mb is good enough, unless you have tapes upon tapes to move in which case, yeah, get a 1GB switch from komplett, marx or whoever to save yourself time.


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    #14
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    ok, so i hooked up the laptop to the router via an ethernet cable, and started to copy over files, 27 files in total, 2.8 GB, estimated time is over 4 hours? should it be this slow??:o


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    #15
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    roguey wrote: »
    ok, so i hooked up the laptop to the router via an ethernet cable, and started to copy over files, 27 files in total, 2.8 GB, estimated time is over 4 hours? should it be this slow??:o

    Both are connected via LAN cable right? Did you turn your wireless off on the laptop? :d Thats sounds like around 1.5Mb xfer which is akin to typica real-world wireless speed. 100Mb "in theory" should transfer that in <5 mins: http://www.esubnet.net/file-transfer-calc.html?


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    #16
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    roguey wrote: »
    I bought a new laptop today, unfortunately, it doesnt have a Firewire port ( and frankly I was amazed by the fact that most in store didnt, only the high end ones seemed to have one :eek: why is this?)
    No Firewire or PC Card/Express Card slot, it would seem.


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    #17
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    Would a crossover ethernet cable help in this situation. This cable swaps around the wires so that the in/out parts are aligned on each end. This would mean you don't have to go through a router to connect the PC and laptop.

    OT
    For the HD speed, a student bought an external HD that was 5400rpm and was unable to write video. Maybe with improved cache has fixed that problem.

    For the firewire comment I based that off the difference with using that and component out on a black magic card. The video file from component was bigger and supposed to capture the full information from the tape. So I presumed the firewire signal was compressed in some way.

    But then my batting average on this thread has been poor. :D


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    #18
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    Since it's PC to laptop, a crossover cable would be the cheapest and most straightforward option.


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    #19
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    SouperComputer wrote: »
    Both are connected via LAN cable right? Did you turn your wireless off on the laptop? :d Thats sounds like around 1.5Mb xfer which is akin to typica real-world wireless speed. 100Mb "in theory" should transfer that in <5 mins: http://www.esubnet.net/file-transfer-calc.html?

    ah yes, i assume that is the problem, i didnt turn off the wireless, i'll try again and that should be much faster!
    Since it's PC to laptop, a crossover cable would be the cheapest and most straightforward option.

    i'll buy one of them so, how do i use it? just plug it from pc to laptop using the ethernet ports?:confused:


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    #20
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    Yes, the two machines should then be available over the network, or become a network. Check in computer - network. Never done it myself, so I'm guessing :D


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    #21
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    Roguey Unless you want to setup static IPs forget crossover. You have what you need to do the job.

    tadcan something was way wrong with whatever drive/computer setup that person was using. I have a POS iBook G3 with a 4200RPM drive that can do it, so something else was up. 25Mb/s translates to 3.2MB/s even the crappiest of drives in the last 8years there can handle this with ease. Modern drives have an average throughput of 40-50MB/s.


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    #22
    tadcan
    Registered Users Posts: 458 ✭✭tadcan


    Thanks SouperComputer, I overheard the teacher explaining why it didn't work, so I presumed he was right.


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    #23
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    ok, i just plugged in the ethernet cable, turned off the wireless and its transferring at a speed of roughly 230kb/sec

    is that good?


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    #24
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    roguey wrote: »
    ok, i just plugged in the ethernet cable, turned off the wireless and its transferring at a speed of roughly 230kb/sec

    is that good?

    Nope, thats pretty dire. I wonder if you LAN cable neg'd at 10Mb/half or something.


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    #25
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    what should it be? the LAN cable im using is a few years old, could that be the problem??


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    #26
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    ok so at the minute im transferring a big folder over the network (6.65 GB) and the transfer speed is about 220ish kb/s. Why is it going so slow?! estimated time is over 8 hours!!

    I have the computer connected to the router via an ethernet cable, and likewise the laptop (I remembered to take off wireless this time:rolleyes:)

    Is there anyway i can make this faster? But 2 new ethernet cables perhaps?

    Im using a Canon HV20, and HDVSplit to capture into a folder, then into the public folder, then I go onto the laptop and copy. The files are said to be AVCHD wheni trasfer them. Maybe i should convert, then transfer??

    Any ideas anyone? :(

    EDIT: I just had an idea, would it be possible for me to capture using my desktop straight onto the laptop? As in, have the output folder on HDVSplit a folder on the network? would it work?


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    #27
    SouperComputer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,949 ✭✭✭SouperComputer


    You aren't getting anywhere near the speed that you should. Two NICs\cable wont do anything for you. Did you change out the cable? That should be your next move.

    Yes you can capture direct to the laptop over the share, thats a good idea. However until you solve the bandwidth problem you are out of luck and theres no point in trying this.

    If you go to network connections under control panel on each of the computers, right click on the network connection and go to status. It should list the negotiated speed. It sounds like its running 10Mb/Half rather than 100Mb/Full


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    #28
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    ok, i just did a little test, i transferred a clip (30MB) from the laptop to the desktop and it took about 5 seconds. But then I tried to get the same file from the desktop onto the laptop and it look about a minute and a half.

    Why is that? This is really starting to stress me out, I need to start work on this video project..

    EDIT: just checked again, from desktop onto the laptop, the files are transferring at roughly 250kb/s, but from the laptop onto the desktop, its 11mb/s?!?!?!?!


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    #29
    Optimus Prime
    Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 5,381 Mod ✭✭✭✭Optimus Prime


    Could it be the properties of your network card in device manager, advanced tab is set to is set to 10mbps?


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    #30
    roguey
    Registered Users Posts: 402 ✭✭roguey


    keithgeo wrote: »
    Could it be the properties of your network card in device manager, advanced tab is set to is set to 10mbps?

    I checked on both computers yesterday, both were set to auto negotiation, so i put them on 100Mbps full duplex. should i have?


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    #31
    swampgas
    Registered Users Posts: 3,535 ✭✭✭swampgas


    roguey wrote: »
    I checked on both computers yesterday, both were set to auto negotiation, so i put them on 100Mbps full duplex. should i have?

    Sounds like a duplex mismatch.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duplex_mismatch

    Ideally Gigabit connections should all be auto-negotiate, but you might have to set it manually, if one of the devices doesn't support autonegotiate properly.


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