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Old 07-31-2008, 11:27 PM   #1
philip
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Default Fat32 vs Ntsb or whatever its called

ok I am way over my head. I bought a Pinnacle Video Transfer from Woot.com real cheep.

It promised to convert my svideo's into digital with one touch no computer ease. Writes directly to a usb 2 external hard drive which I already had.

Well it didnt work, apparently Seagate FreeAgent external hard drives are formatted with NTSB or something like that since thats what XP uses and this device only writes to Fat32 which I guess is the Windows98 standard.

There seem to be some free software that will format to Fat32 but it all looks very complicated.

Does anyone make a external hard drive already fomated Fat32 as I really dont want to reformat the one I have.

Thanks in advance and remember I'm over my head here.
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Old 07-31-2008, 11:46 PM   #2
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Originally Posted by philip View Post
ok I am way over my head. I bought a Pinnacle Video Transfer from Woot.com real cheep.

It promised to convert my svideo's into digital with one touch no computer ease. Writes directly to a usb 2 external hard drive which I already had.

Well it didnt work, apparently Seagate FreeAgent external hard drives are formatted with NTSB or something like that since thats what XP uses and this device only writes to Fat32 which I guess is the Windows98 standard.

There seem to be some free software that will format to Fat32 but it all looks very complicated.

Does anyone make a external hard drive already fomated Fat32 as I really dont want to reformat the one I have.

Thanks in advance and remember I'm over my head here.
Windows xp comes with "windows movie maker" which should be able to "capture" the video directly w/out any fat32/ NTFS issues.

Fat32's limit is 2gb file size limit, which raw video can become larger
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Old 08-01-2008, 12:00 AM   #3
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What operating system do you have? you should be able to do it w/o any external software i believe, follow this:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000

As was said by prev poster, fat32 has big limitations. I'd be surprised if your capture card ( i assume that's what your pinnacle device is, analog to digital right?) can't work with ntfs, there might a setting for it missing somewhere, it's probably just the default as Macs can't write to ntfs so they save some $ on tech support that way.
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Old 08-01-2008, 01:49 AM   #4
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I am guessing the Pinnacle device has some slim local operating system installed, and that is the source of the Fat32 limitation.

Philip, are your tapes Hi8 8mm? If so, I am thinking your easiest bet is to purchase a used Sony Digital8 camcorder for $100 of eBay, and use a firewire cable to simply capture directly to your Windows XP computer.

This is what I did to get my 8mm Hi8 tapes onto the PC.

As mentioned, Windows XP can natively format Fat32 partitions, so you should be able just plug the drive in and use Computer Manager and format the external drive - As Fat32 has a 2BG file size limtation, I am guessing the Pinnacle device is going to use some very aggresive compression to keep the files of the captured manageble.

Then again I have an older Pinnacle capture device that overcomes the 2GB Fat32 file size limitation with clever software that captures videos in 2GB pieces.

What is the ultimate goal with this excercise? As it turns out, video capture of various types is a "hobby" that I was forced to become more of an expert at than I ever wanted to be, a few years back when I had a pile of tapes I needed to digitize - so feel free to post any other questions you may have.

Paul

Last edited by RC45; 08-01-2008 at 01:57 AM.
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Old 08-01-2008, 01:17 PM   #5
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I have beta, vhs and hi8 video. Only the hi8 has car stuff. Rest is family stuff. (I already have a digital hi8 camera, but there is too much tape to mess with doing it with the camera) (I had to pay $800 for a new beta player a while back and I was lucky to get it, at least it was beta hifi)

The Pinnacle device is what I think is called a break out box, the older one you plugged into a computer. This one is stand alone and you simple plug it into the analoge source and then pug it into an external hard drive. You push play on the source and record on the Pinnacle and it converts and downloads on the harddrive in 2gb files chuncks automatically. Supposedly you wash it though some program Pinnacle has on their website for free and it converts it so you can edit it.

I was going to buy a new FreeAgent drive (they are sooo cheap now at Fry's) and try and format it to fat32, but I dont want to have to become a computer genius in the mean time. Is this something mear mortals can do? I have already been warned that if I do it on my computer and I get the drive number wrong I am totally screwed.

Supposedly a 250gb external hard drive will hold 174 hours at 720i resolution which is the Pinnacle boxes maximum resolution.

One nice thing is that it will take it off my DVR recorded from cable and put it on my PSP. A 2 gig card will hold 2.5 hours at PSP resolution. Again no computer is required.
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Old 08-01-2008, 01:40 PM   #6
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just reformat the external drive to fat32
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Old 08-01-2008, 02:30 PM   #7
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I suggest ntfs format rather than fat32 format, you can only write a file that is approx 2.04 GB maximum, but in ntfs format you can write a file up to 16GB (probably , biggest image i took was only 7.93 GB). if you are using it for storing files has bigger than 2 GB use ntfs format.

Last edited by heterot; 08-01-2008 at 02:32 PM. Reason: parameter change
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Old 08-01-2008, 05:38 PM   #8
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This will be for only video. So the size limitation is not a problem. The other format is not supported by the Pinnacle box. Fry's has a sale 750gb Maxtor usb2 for $119 this week so I'll get that.

Apparently xp has a format command that asks if you want Fat32, only thing is to make sure I dont format my other 3 hard drives.

So far sounds like a non tekkie can do it. But considering my Top Gear talent, we will see.
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Old 08-01-2008, 08:31 PM   #9
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Ooooh, i thought there was a computer involved in there somewhere. But yes mere mortals do this all the time, on the link I pasted, follow the 'how to delete a partition' and then 'how to create a partition' sections. For the latter, you want to choose the 'Format this partition with the following settings' option and use fat32 when prompted.
Regarding choosing the right drive to delete/format, go to the windows explorer > my computer. Now plug in the hard drive u wanna format, you will see it pop up in there with a specific driver letter assigned. then just make sure that once you follow the link i pasted, you choose the same drive letter. You will also noticed that if you've named the drive, you will see it there, the same goes for size.
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Old 08-01-2008, 08:43 PM   #10
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Originally Posted by philip View Post
This will be for only video. So the size limitation is not a problem. The other format is not supported by the Pinnacle box. Fry's has a sale 750gb Maxtor usb2 for $119 this week so I'll get that.

Apparently xp has a format command that asks if you want Fat32, only thing is to make sure I dont format my other 3 hard drives.

So far sounds like a non tekkie can do it. But considering my Top Gear talent, we will see.
That external HD is a good option. But FAT32 is like leaf spring.
They work, but belong to the past.
I think you didn't buy a solution; you bought a problem.
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Old 08-02-2008, 02:04 AM   #11
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Originally Posted by heterot View Post
I suggest ntfs format rather than fat32 format, you can only write a file that is approx 2.04 GB maximum, but in ntfs format you can write a file up to 16GB (probably , biggest image i took was only 7.93 GB). if you are using it for storing files has bigger than 2 GB use ntfs format.
Philip really needs a Fat32 partition for his Pinnacle device to write to, so as "antiquated" as it is, that what is needed.

And the max practical file size limit on NTFS is 16TB not 16GB - which back in the early days of NTFS lifecycle may as well have been writn as "unlimited max size" .. people spoke of Terrabytes back the, but never dreamed there would be practical and affordable drives of a terrabyte or more - these days you can buy a terrabyte home office drive.
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Old 08-02-2008, 10:22 AM   #12
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Originally Posted by philip View Post
This will be for only video. So the size limitation is not a problem. The other format is not supported by the Pinnacle box. Fry's has a sale 750gb Maxtor usb2 for $119 this week so I'll get that.

Apparently xp has a format command that asks if you want Fat32, only thing is to make sure I dont format my other 3 hard drives.

So far sounds like a non tekkie can do it. But considering my Top Gear talent, we will see.
go to my computer, right click on your external drive letter, choose format from
the menu. then choose fat32 before you hit format. no command prompt necessary, its windows!

all the rest of you guys are just wasting his time.
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Old 08-02-2008, 12:19 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by dutchmasterflex View Post
go to my computer, right click on your external drive letter, choose format from
the menu. then choose fat32 before you hit format. no command prompt necessary, its windows!

all the rest of you guys are just wasting his time.
lol, tru dat
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Old 08-02-2008, 12:26 PM   #14
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yep, typical internet bullshit..
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Old 08-02-2008, 01:10 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by RC45 View Post

And the max practical file size limit on NTFS is 16TB not 16GB - which back in the early days of NTFS lifecycle may as well have been writn as "unlimited max size" .. people spoke of Terrabytes back the, but never dreamed there would be practical and affordable drives of a terrabyte or more - these days you can buy a terrabyte home office drive.
ecost.com has a 1TB external drive for $139 today. Never bought from ecost and I've heard bad reports, so I'm still going to Fry's today. When I first heard the word terrabyte, I thought someone had just made it up for a big number, never thought there would be a hard drive that size let alone one you could buy at Fry's. Last year I think they were a thousand dollars now $139 from ecost.

(caution old guy reminiscing) I had a neighbor at the office who were professional video guys http://www.spearedpeanut.com/graveyard/coolfilms/ a real long while back they got a new apple editing hard drive array, it was a bizzillion dollars, anyway it had ten 4 gig hard drives, it was the size of a filing cabinet and allowed them for the first time to digitally edit an entire 2 hours worth of video in real time.

Wish Enzo's would do this, but they don't. Back in the old days just about any car got cheaper as it got older, till it was a junker any anyone with $100 could buy it. I'm sure a Ferrari GTO or two sold for $1000 some time in its life.

Thanks dutch for the right click tip, I might be able to do that. (always forget about that right click feature thanks)
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