Touring - HD Video storage on tour

Hi all,

Setting out on a tour late this month (only about ten days on the road) and I intend to shoot HD video along the way - it will require a heap of storage and I've been looking at a couple of USB hard drives to bring along. Specifically these:
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/180149/index.asp (Transcend StoreJet)
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/176258/index.asp (Buffalo MiniStation)

I chose these because they purport to be shock resistant. Does anyone have any experience with either of these, or whether HDDs in general survive a tour? They'll be packed as safely as possible in the depths of my panniers.

Also, I was hoping to use library or friends computers to transfer my files, instead of carrying my own computer. Is this a sound strategy? Are there alternatives I haven't considered that work? I looked into some usb syncing devices, but they seem a little flaky.

Any direction or experiences would be appreciated! Ta.

I can't say anything about the USB hard drives, but public library computers are often SLOW. The last tour I did where I took a camera with me (2008), most of the libraries I stopped at still had USB1 connections, which generally limited transfer speeds to about 1 Mbit per second, and often ended up being slower. Hopefully, you can find USB2 now, which is a couple hundred times faster, but you might still be prepared for long periods of watching the screen.

I have the Buffalo unit for computer backup at home and I'm very pleased with it. The drive is shock mounted and it weighs only about six ounces. I don't tour with it though.

A few things you may have already thought of:

- record at 720P and/or a higher compression setting to reduce file size
- turn the camera off at the more boring stretches of the trip to save storage space as well as battery life

It would be a lot more convenient to buy a few 64GB SD cards and be done with it, if you can get your storage requirements down that low. I would think that is doable for a 10-day tour with setting a more moderate quality HD recording setting, plus it will free you from having to transfer video footage every day.

What will you use to shoot the HD video?

I don’t have any experience with the drives you are looking at. I have a Seagate that I tote around daily in my laptop case that gets more abuse than if I was on a bike and it was wrapped in bubble wrap in my pannier. Seagate has a new drive that talks thru Wi-Fi with iPad and iPhone and other smart phones. I don’t have one or know if the communication goes in both directions. Looked like a nice gizmo though.

Something that did direct transfer from your cam would be nice though.

I often carry a plain portable USB drive (WD elements) on my commute and it still works. I just put it on something relatively soft, sometimes not so soft. I don't think they're that fragile.

Another option is portable data storage (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Stand-Alone-Data-Storage/ci/3369/N/4138043893). They have a card reader but many are quite expensive.

You will still need several cards and you could simply bring a bunch of 32gb or 64gb cards. Transcends 32gb SD cards are 30$ at B&H and faster Sandisk are 44$. That's 160gb for 150$, with less hassle, size and weight. BTW, film capsules are great to carry SD cards. I think 64gb cards are SDXC only so make sure you're camera can take them.

Hi all,

Setting out on a tour late this month (only about ten days on the road) and I intend to shoot HD video along the way - it will require a heap of storage and I've been looking at a couple of USB hard drives to bring along. Specifically these:
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/180149/index.asp (Transcend StoreJet)
http://www.techbuy.com.au/p/176258/index.asp (Buffalo MiniStation)

I chose these because they purport to be shock resistant. Does anyone have any experience with either of these, or whether HDDs in general survive a tour? They'll be packed as safely as possible in the depths of my panniers.

Also, I was hoping to use library or friends computers to transfer my files, instead of carrying my own computer. Is this a sound strategy? Are there alternatives I haven't considered that work? I looked into some usb syncing devices, but they seem a little flaky.

Any direction or experiences would be appreciated! Ta.

I use Western Digital external USB drives. I've never taken either on a bike tour but one of them has been in the car as I've driven thousands of miles around the US and UK and flown back and forth over the Atlantic several times.

Whatever you do you'll need some form of computer to transfer from a memory card to a USB drive. That said, in years gone by (back in the days when 1GB was considered a large compact flash card) I bought a digital wallet that had a card reader built in and the means to copy it straight to a hard drive. At the time (we're talking 2003) it was a "whopping" 40GB. I don't know if you can still get such things, but something comparable with a built-in card reader and a 1TB hard drive should do what you need. Then all you need is a mains power source.

Thanks for the info everyone.

I'm riding with someone, so we'll have two cameras - a GoPro and a Canon 550D for off-the-bike stuff (of which there'll be plenty). I'll be shooting in 720p at 50/60 fps with both of them. Currently I have a 32GB, a 16GB and an 8GB SD card. So 56 GB. I could purchase about 4 32GB SD cards here in AUS for $150. That's 184GB. Seems heaps. But over ten days that's 55 minutes of recording a day (taking the 550D's data rate), and I'm actually going to be at my destination for another four days (non-cycling). So 40 minutes a day, over the two cameras.

I'm really torn. The convenience of the SD cards is great. But at the same time if I run out of memory, I won't think it's great. And I can't afford to buy 10 SD cards, and I like that I can use the Hard Drive for other things later. Maybe a combo of the HD and another 32GB card might do the trick.

Then again, maybe I'm kidding myself that I'll be recording that much video! I know that trawling through all that footage will be a pain...

Wow, really can't decide! Thanks again for the info.

If you had the carrying capacity a netbook like an Acer Aspire comes in at $249.00 (Cdn) and the upper model has a 320GB hard drive... you could also use this to handle other duties like e-mail, browsing, and editing.

My friends carried an Acer Aspire on a trans North America tour... this model was the same as mine and it has a 100GB solid state drive which is not available on the newer versions which have a standard 100GB drive.

Have you thought of more of a time lapse style shooting? ie, a still every 5 seconds on the GoPro
easy to make a movie from this afterwards....

I too face similar dilemma on my upcoming trip with my Hero2

I'd think a regular upload to a big online web server is the best save.

I'd think a regular upload to a big online web server is the best save.

The only issue here would be connection speeds and server limits if you are tapping into free wifi or other servers like libraries that may restrict this as well.

Video takes up good amounts of space and even with a fast internet connection the transfer rate can be slow.

The only issue here would be connection speeds and server limits if you are tapping into free wifi or other servers like libraries that may restrict this as well.

Video takes up good amounts of space and even with a fast internet connection the transfer rate can be slow.

I agree - a days shooting will be gigabytes. Free wifi places probably won't allow this, and it'd take forever anyway.

Have you thought of more of a time lapse style shooting? ie, a still every 5 seconds on the GoPro
easy to make a movie from this afterwards....

I too face similar dilemma on my upcoming trip with my Hero2

I will actually be doing some time lapse, but mainly off the bike, with the 550D. The kind of final edit I want requires full-blown filming. I'll let you know how my final decision ends up going...

why are you shooting at such a high fps? Pro movies at done at ~24 and TV is done at 30. Lower fps will give you some more space. Also using a netbook with a large hdd is a good idea if you need to keep large files. I would do hat before I bought a lot of storage.

why are you shooting at such a high fps? Pro movies at done at ~24 and TV is done at 30. Lower fps will give you some more space. Also using a netbook with a large hdd is a good idea if you need to keep large files. I would do hat before I bought a lot of storage.

Yeah, they do. There's a couple of reasons though. First, I find that just obeying the 180-degree shutter rule maintains the filmic quality that 24 fps is associated with. Secondly, it gives me more leeway with slowing down the film - I can get a 2x slo-mo with no third-party plugin effort. Third, it really doesn't add much weight to the files - the output of 1080p at 24 fps and 720p at 50/60 fps is the same with the 550D.

That said, I'm not set in my ways, so if you have more reasons for going 24 fps, please let me know.

Regarding storage, this is what it looks like it's going to be: my riding buddy was considering bringing his netbook. We've removed the battery to help with weight, and it's going to give me about 150 GB of storage. Added to my SD cards (including another I'm getting tomorrow, and another I'm borrowing - that's another 64GB), I should be fine. For good measure I thrown some light-weight editing software on so I can slice movies and remove anything that I know I won't want in post. I haven't fully tested it yet, and playback looks jerky, but it's hopefully usable.