CompuServe Thread

Thomas, I've heard advice both ways on the hard drive issues as to whether to go internal or external. Heat however, was not an issue. I was very concerned about heat in the beginning, being in Louisiana. My studio is upstairs in a 2500 sq. ft. house, not the easiest place to cool. <g> Of the half dozen consultants I talked to, they all agreed that the new systems run cooler than the old ones. Most recommended using 2 fours as opposed to 1 nine. One of the reasons being, if one winds down, you may not lose everything. I ended up with two 4 gig Seagate drives for $3000. The only preference I've heard for using external over internal, was something about the exterals not running unless called on. Where as the internals will run on every boot up. I'm not real sure what that's all about, as I had already bought the internals when I heard this. I've heard a lot of different opinions as to how much footage you can get per gig. I beleive the general rule of thumb was about 5 minutes per gig. I've also heard that the closer you get to filling a disk, the more iffy they get. Please verify this with someone else before you take my word for it. It seems that the disk write from the inside out. So, the closer you get to the outside edge, the faster the disk surface is moving past the head. The greater the chances of dropout. It has been awhile since I was talking to folks about this, and it was in a forum where they were all having HD problems with the products they were working with. I hesitate to even write this. But use it more for some more questions to ASK, rather then the definitive answers to your questions. Just trying to help, Terry

Thomas, This is a quote from a Digital flyer. " The Betacam SP quality is achieved at about 4 minutes per gigabyte. The PVR operator is free to choose the proper quality vs. storage parameters. Unlike some systems, the PVR can play sequential video clips of varying compression ratios. A single frame of video might need as little as 30 Kbytes of disk space or as much as 260 Kbytes." Hope this helps, Terry

Tom, Take my opinions for what they are worth. While beta testing the PVR, I tried both the Micropolis drive and the Barracuda drive. The Micropolis died after about a week. The Barracuda is still going strong. I realize this may be an isolated incident, but I have always been happy with Seagate. Mike

See the thread PAR or FAST in the hardware/opsys section. See message # 181002 specifically for some numbers. Look for New Media, June '95, good article on A/V drives. Paul S.