need computer help

[werty]

Hey guys

ok so I have been doing alot of work recently with avchd...aka HD movies

and Ive run into a large problem

I filmed something that was 25 minutes long and consequently its 25 gigs...yes gigs...a single file

I am going to convert and compress it later, but the problem is that my harddrive is out of space. So I bought myself a Western Digital external HD...320gigs

No here is the problem....its in fat32 format and it wont take a file size larger than 4 gig. Now it never said anything like that on the outside of the box...so of course after you rip it open it gives you that nice bit of info inside.

Now what is the point of a harddrive that limits the size of the files to such a small size. I am using a Macbook and want to know if I can reformat the external HD to something that could take a 100gb file or more. Any help? please

[aiasib]

Format the drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

[werty]

Format the drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

will that work with Mac though? and how do i format it?

[Wouter Melissen]

I would suggest reformatting it to NTFS or equivalent.

[Rockefella]

If I'm not mistaken, you could plug it in and when you turn on the laptop, attempt to boot from the drive. In the bios menu you could format it and choose to use NTFS format treating it as if it were a standard hdd. I may be wrong or backwards in the steps but even worse I have no idea how it would work on a mac.

If you wait around I'll ask my old roomate who's a macguru and has done exactly what you're asking about in the past.

[werty]

If you wait around I'll ask my old roomate who's a macguru and has done exactly what you're asking about in the past.

awesome, ill be here all day


orrrr maybe not...I have no idea what exactly I did, but now its taking the file...almost has 15 of the 25 gigs of it now...sweet

[werty]

ok so it took the file but the quality of the video was compromised

gonna try a different format this time...

let me ak another question. ok so this file is a quicktime movie at 25 gigs....I copied and pasted it to the new HD and when i click on it to play...its all choppy....is that because

a. the file got degraded
b. it cant send that much info through a usb
c. something else

[Rockefella]

ok so it took the file but the quality of the video was compromised

gonna try a different format this time...

let me ak another question. ok so this file is a quicktime movie at 25 gigs....I copied and pasted it to the new HD and when i click on it to play...its all choppy....is that because

a. the file got degraded
b. it cant send that much info through a usb
c. something else

Most likely b. USB (2.0) can only handle 480 megabits/sec so with a massive HD video it's probably not capable of streaming the content fast enough. FireWire Or esata would probably help if available.

[Zytek_Fan]

Most likely b. USB (2.0) can only handle 480 megabits/sec so with a massive HD video it's probably not capable of streaming the content fast enough. FireWire Or esata would probably help if available.

This.

[Bob]

Most likely b. USB (2.0) can only handle 480 megabits/sec so with a massive HD video it's probably not capable of streaming the content fast enough. FireWire Or esata would probably help if available.

Don't think so. USB's top speed is 60 megabytes per sec or 480 Mbits per/sec
thats 60^2 megabytes per minute or 3600 MBytes. which is 3.6 GB per minute, and according to him the video streams about 1 GB/min, much less. I think it's much more likely that your video card (it's a crappy integrated one in the old macbook, the new line has a good integrated one) can't handle such high bit rates. Of course you could check by saving a 1GB video to the computer at the high bit rate and seeing if that plays correctly.

[Dary]

my macbook have an Intel GMA 950 graphics card, its sucks when playing a 1080p movie format, specially when playing action movie (you will notice the fans works in the top speed and the processor too). but its work just fine with 720p.

[Matra et Alpine]

WHat file size did this "degraded" file end up ?
I'm betting that you got a video conversion done, making the file smaller and the quality poor. USB2 was a direct response to compete with Firewire. Don't fall for hte fw BS ... most of which was put out by Apple themselves early on when they wanted Firewire to be the dominant interface for hi speed.
The playback comments are valid and easily checked by playing another HD file and see ig it acts the same. Torrents are your friend for excellent HD video

FAT won't miraculously turn into NTFS. Please confirm all actions you did regarding the drive and check to see if it is still FAT.

THis limit has NOTHING to so with the disk drive. FAT is an old file structure format and nobody imaged a file EVER being larger than a gig back then THe supplier of the drive has been good enough to format it for what is probably 80% of the market. You need to over write it with "Better".

Open Disk Utility and select the drive in the list to the left.
Note: If you are formatting the primary drive, use the Disk Utility program on the Install Disk.
Click on the Partition tab.
Click on “Options” and best to select extended Apple modes if you're not using it on a PC, the journalling can be a life saviour
Apply the change by clicking on the “Partition” button.

[Rockefella]

WHat file size did this "degraded" file end up ?

From what I understood the file size is still 25 gb once transferred, unless I misread it.

[Roentgen]

I recently bought a 250 gig WD external Hdd as well, and I also have a mac, so naturally I ran into the same problem. Mac cannot read NTFS, therefore, the only option is to format it to use the fat32 file system. In fact, this is also why the file system that windows use on my mac via bootcamp also uses fat32. So if you are going to use your hdd for both pcs and macs, then fat32 is your only option.

However mac offers you other file systems as well. All you have to do is open up disk utility, click on the "erase" tab, then you'll see a drop down menu called volume formats. It should offer you options like Mac OS Extended and stuff, which i believe is mac only. Take your pick I suppose...

That's as far as I know. Good luck with your work

[pimento]

Don't think so. USB's top speed is 60 megabytes per sec or 480 Mbits per/sec
thats 60^2 megabytes per minute or 3600 MBytes. which is 3.6 GB per minute, and according to him the video streams about 1 GB/min, much less. I think it's much more likely that your video card (it's a crappy integrated one in the old macbook, the new line has a good integrated one) can't handle such high bit rates. Of course you could check by saving a 1GB video to the computer at the high bit rate and seeing if that plays correctly.

Actually, the 480mbps figure is a top speed, sustained transfers are rather slower.

FAT won't miraculously turn into NTFS. Please confirm all actions you did regarding the drive and check to see if it is still FAT.

In Windows XP (and probably the later ones) there's a command that will convert a FAT32 disk to NTFS.. and it probably won't destroy any data. It didn't when I tried it anyway... Also, it's not very magical. But yes, unless Macs have a funny way of enhancing the file system, FAT32 won't support a filesize over 2GB. I would suggest researching for a way to either make a Mac read NTFS, or Windows to read whichever Mac/Unix related format you go for. There's probably a way...