ORIGINAL: Geokauf

OT--

I guess I chose an easier route, in getting a camcorder. I have one that records to a compact flash card, directly into video files (MPEG-2). I have not recorded long enough to find out, but I suspect if the file one was recording to became 1GB in size, a new file would be started. When you press the pause button, then re-start, a new file is created, handy for chapters, songs, etc. Much easier than dealing with transferring from miniDV.

Hello,

That is why I would not use a camcorder like the one you have. MPEG-2 is not the format you want your video to start out, if you are going to edit it. MPEG-2 is a compressed format (like MP3 is to audio). When I capture DV from a DV camcorder or my Canopus ADVC110 the format is a lightly compressed AVI file. When you load edit your MPEG-2 file and then compile for DVD your video editor will re-MPEG it (like decompressing an MP3 then saving it again as an MP3, you've thrown away more information. The camcorder makers have actually opted for lower quality video in new camcorders in order to accommodate using flash memory or writing directly to DVD media. The consumer video industry's deep dark secret.

GK

Still OT, but I'll continue with this side discussion. I'm sure you are right, that one can get better quality from mini-DV. (Whether that difference in quality would be noticeable to most eyes is a different point, however.)

To me, however, the difference in convenience is immense, and I'll put up with the theoretically lower quality for that difference in convenience. The quality of the video I recorded looks good to me. (You may be more of a professional in video recording, and of course then your priorities would be different.)

One major complaint I have about my camcorder (one of the first HDD JVC Everio models, using a CF microdrive--the newer ones all have internal hard drives) is the sound quality. There is no option for adding an external microphone, no way to set recording levels, and the sound all ends up clipped and distorted. It might be alright for someone to say "hi, mom" in a home movie, but is not good for recording concerts. (It records in stereo AC3, but the quality is terrible.) Does anyone know of a HDD camcorder that has decent sound for recording music? (I don't mean necessarily for professional recordings, but one that sounds OK at least for music?

Back to the original topic--I'd still be curious to hear more in the discussion about NTFS vs. FAT32?

yup...

NTFS for INTERNAL DRIVES!!!

but, if you plan to move your external drive around, share it with MAC or Linux desktops (especially when trying to WRITE to that drive from MAC or Linux) etc...then FAT32 is more compatible. My external 300G USB mobile recording drive is FAT32, simply for the fact I can plug it into any computer and read/write data...

ORIGINAL: maikii

Do most folks format to the largest cluster size, 4096 bytes? I think larger cluster sizes are supposed to be faster, although due to slack, would give one somewhat less storage space, depending on how many small files you have.

Once you defrag your drive, and hence have contiguous files, cluster size will not matter. I believe each file will be represented by a single pointer giving start position and size. Where it will almost certainly matter is when you are creating a file - recording. Each time you fill up a cluster the system will have to go find another and update all the file tables to reflect that it is now being used by the file you are writing to. This is an overhead that can be reduced by pre-allocating when you create the file and then growing it in large chunks or, alternatively, using a large cluster size.

cheers

I have 8 partitions total on my system, one of which is FAT32. The reason is so I can boot into Linux using a Knoppix CD, then save my work to the FAT32 partition. It is possible for Linux to write to an NTFS partition, but it's much safer and more straightforward to simply write to a FAT32 partition.

IMO wormser has some of it the wrong way round. NTFS is more reliable because it is a transacted file system, meaning that change operations have an audit log that's used to restore the system if it boots in the middle. FAT32 has none of this.
More info: http://www.ntfs.com/data-integrity.htm

ORIGINAL: subtlearts

ORIGINAL: jay_zhead
... All those advantages are lost when using a partitioned drive, you will end up with one drive that is always slow by default, and the access times for the fast drive will be hurt by partitioning as well.
If you just want another drive letter, then mount an NTFS folder as a drive using windows' disk management control panel; you'll have another virtual drive, with no need to partition anything.

... see, THIS is why I come to this forum (since I'm not going to post in that thread, or the other one for that matter)... you learn something new every day. Here I've been blithely partitioning drives for the past few years, never suspecting that it could be messing up my disk performance.

This is timely too, since I am about to go and pick up my new quad machine and begin setting things up, and I would doubtless have partitioned the system drive at least. Now I won't. Thanks for the info!

Don't be in too much a rush to abandon pertitioning. I have seen no performance issues on 2 of my 160 gb drives partitioned 3-ways each, for organizational purposes. I have also never seen any technical articles or papers supporting the position that partitioning is that bad a thing. If I did, I would certainly reconsider my position.

NTFS is more reliable because it is a transacted file system, meaning that change operations have an audit log that's used to restore the system if it boots in the middle.

This is also why NTFS is slower than FAT, especially with large files. Great for a file server, not so great for streaming audio or video. Ditto for the advanced file permissions, not relevant on a DAW.

However, Windows has some artificial limitations built in that make it difficult to format large FAT32 partitions. Chairman Bill wants you to use NTFS. Don't argue with the Chairman. (OK, so he's retired from that job now, but "Chief Architect Bill" doesn't have the same ring to it) Best to go along with the MS world-domination program and go NTFS.

Regardless of the file system, make your audio drive one big partition and format it with the largest block size available. Yes, it's wasteful of disk space, but it'll give you the best performance for a DAW.

ORIGINAL: Progmatist

I have 8 partitions total on my system, one of which is FAT32. The reason is so I can boot into Linux using a Knoppix CD, then save my work to the FAT32 partition. It is possible for Linux to write to an NTFS partition, but it's much safer and more straightforward to simply write to a FAT32 partition.

+1

ORIGINAL: PhilW

IMO wormser has some of it the wrong way round. NTFS is more reliable because it is a transacted file system, meaning that change operations have an audit log that's used to restore the system if it boots in the middle. FAT32 has none of this.
More info: http://www.ntfs.com/data-integrity.htm

Read my message again..
I didn't say FAT32 was more reliable, I said it was easier to recover if problems occurred.
NTFS is more reliable.

My poor description may have led to that conclusion however.
All I was doing was presenting both sides of the equation.

In a nutshell:

NTFS more reliable, slightly greater overhead, very difficult to recover but has better built in tools to prevent failure.
FAT32 easier to recover, less overhead, smaller file size, more transportable between OS or platforms.

ORIGINAL: bitflipper


However, Windows has some artificial limitations built in that make it difficult to format large FAT32 partitions. Chairman Bill wants you to use NTFS. Don't argue with the Chairman. (OK, so he's retired from that job now, but "Chief Architect Bill" doesn't have the same ring to it) Best to go along with the MS world-domination program and go NTFS.

Yeah, at least mac lets you format a FAT32 partition any size you want. I split 250G externals into a FAT32 and mac partitions of the same size, 116.4G. Seems to me leopard reads and writes to NFTS but I'll wait on that one.