Jane's Photography Stuff
Archives
April 2003July 2003
October 2003
August 2004
October 2004
July 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
August 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
May 2009
June 2009
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 -
Braun Pixelmate may not work with HD cards
It has been about 10 months since I bought and reviewed my Braun Pixelmate and overall I still find it useful and handy.
A couple of months ago I had quite a backlog of photos to clear, and as my habit is not to clear down a card until after I've processed and backed up the images I had run out of media. I decided to buy a nice, shiny new 4GB SD HD card and headed off on my holiday armed with that, some other cards and my Pixelmate. After taking a days worth of photos I turned it on, plugged in my card and pressed the play button... and nothing happened... usually it starts copying the files and I get to watch the percentage increase (slowly!). But this time it didn't recognise the card at all. I haven't really got a way of double checking that it is a HD problem rather than that specific card, but that is my assumption as all the other non SD cards work ok, and the HD card works fine in the camera.
A couple of months ago I had quite a backlog of photos to clear, and as my habit is not to clear down a card until after I've processed and backed up the images I had run out of media. I decided to buy a nice, shiny new 4GB SD HD card and headed off on my holiday armed with that, some other cards and my Pixelmate. After taking a days worth of photos I turned it on, plugged in my card and pressed the play button... and nothing happened... usually it starts copying the files and I get to watch the percentage increase (slowly!). But this time it didn't recognise the card at all. I haven't really got a way of double checking that it is a HD problem rather than that specific card, but that is my assumption as all the other non SD cards work ok, and the HD card works fine in the camera.
Saturday, January 26, 2008 -
Braun PixelBank - first impressions
I have recently bought a Braun PixelBank as a backup for my photographs whilst I'm on the move. I had a set of criteria which were:
I unpacked the box and found some nice features - they've included screws and a screwdriver so that you can change the hard drive if you so wish - it takes a standard 2.5" one. One disappointment was that the power supply has a European plug so an adapter is necessary. I couldn't find one around the house, so used the provided USB cable to charge the unit up initially. I left it charging overnight, to ensure it got a good solid charge, and when I looked at it this morning the LED had changed from red (charging) to green (charged).
I took a selection of photographs on 2 different SD cards, and 1 xD card and put the cards in one at a time. Next to the power button there is a play button, and pressing this starts the copying process. There is a % count displayed whilst the copying happening, ending at 100%. If you leave the machine to do this, don't be surprised if it turns itself off after doing the copy, it has an auto shut off to protect battery life. Displayed on the right of the unit is the remaining capacity of the unit. It is probably worth doing some mental arithmetic to validate the saving by checking that the capacity is decreasing as you'd expect.
Attaching the PixelBank to the computer via the USB cable results in the screen lighting up, with just the HDD and USB signs being displayed.
Opening the drive in Finder, shows a top level folder named CARDS. Under this is a folder for every card copy that has been done. The folders are prefixed with SD for an SD card (presumably also for MMC and MS), SM for an xD card (presumably also for SM) and according to the manual CF for CF or MD cards. The cards are then numbered sequentially, so the first card is SD0001, the second SD0002 etc. There is no different naming conventions for different physical cards - I copied my first SD card twice (SD0001 and SD0002), and the second one once (SD0003). The data stored is a full copy of the disc, so includes any extra files that get stored by the camera (e.g. NIKON001.DSC for my Nikon D80).
So, there ends the first impressions. I'll add more thoughts as I use it and rely on it more.
- Reads SD cards
- Reads xD cards
- Accepts Nikon Raw format
- Works with a Mac
- At least 40GB
I unpacked the box and found some nice features - they've included screws and a screwdriver so that you can change the hard drive if you so wish - it takes a standard 2.5" one. One disappointment was that the power supply has a European plug so an adapter is necessary. I couldn't find one around the house, so used the provided USB cable to charge the unit up initially. I left it charging overnight, to ensure it got a good solid charge, and when I looked at it this morning the LED had changed from red (charging) to green (charged).
I took a selection of photographs on 2 different SD cards, and 1 xD card and put the cards in one at a time. Next to the power button there is a play button, and pressing this starts the copying process. There is a % count displayed whilst the copying happening, ending at 100%. If you leave the machine to do this, don't be surprised if it turns itself off after doing the copy, it has an auto shut off to protect battery life. Displayed on the right of the unit is the remaining capacity of the unit. It is probably worth doing some mental arithmetic to validate the saving by checking that the capacity is decreasing as you'd expect.
Attaching the PixelBank to the computer via the USB cable results in the screen lighting up, with just the HDD and USB signs being displayed.
Opening the drive in Finder, shows a top level folder named CARDS. Under this is a folder for every card copy that has been done. The folders are prefixed with SD for an SD card (presumably also for MMC and MS), SM for an xD card (presumably also for SM) and according to the manual CF for CF or MD cards. The cards are then numbered sequentially, so the first card is SD0001, the second SD0002 etc. There is no different naming conventions for different physical cards - I copied my first SD card twice (SD0001 and SD0002), and the second one once (SD0003). The data stored is a full copy of the disc, so includes any extra files that get stored by the camera (e.g. NIKON001.DSC for my Nikon D80).
So, there ends the first impressions. I'll add more thoughts as I use it and rely on it more.
// posted by Jane @ 12:29 PM
Comments:
Hi Jane,
I bought exactly the same storagedevice like you. I´m happy with it. You can change the harddrive if you want and the battery is changeable too. I use this for my holidays last summer. It´s doing his job well. Just the transfer rate could be faster :-)
Have fun with it!
I bought exactly the same storagedevice like you. I´m happy with it. You can change the harddrive if you want and the battery is changeable too. I use this for my holidays last summer. It´s doing his job well. Just the transfer rate could be faster :-)
Have fun with it!
# posted by 
: January 30, 2008 8:13 PM
: January 30, 2008 8:13 PM
Hi Jane
By coincidence I have just bought one of these devices, also from Park Cameras - though I collected mine in person. You might want to contact them, because the one I got contains a UK power lead as well as a European one.
What attracted me was the prospect of being able to change the disk drive and the battery. Such a change from the usual "no user serviceable parts" syndrome. In a few years much bigger drives will be cheaply available; indeed I already have a dead laptop with a perfectly good drive in it.
Michael Hooker, Surrey
By coincidence I have just bought one of these devices, also from Park Cameras - though I collected mine in person. You might want to contact them, because the one I got contains a UK power lead as well as a European one.
What attracted me was the prospect of being able to change the disk drive and the battery. Such a change from the usual "no user serviceable parts" syndrome. In a few years much bigger drives will be cheaply available; indeed I already have a dead laptop with a perfectly good drive in it.
Michael Hooker, Surrey
