Memory Stick Virgin

[Benjamin]

Never bought one of these in my life.

A friend is offering to copy films, TV programmes etc. from a hard disk they have (yes they all currently play back) to a memory stick for us for out Winter stay in Spain. There is a bewildering choice out there. Any recommendations for a good quality 16/32GB brand to buy?

[Clair]

I recently bought a "Cruzer Blade 32GB" USB stick/flash drive made by SanDisk for 20€.

I use it to transfer recordings from our Humax and Skybox to my laptop.

Go for 32GB for HD recordings. They need a lot of space...

Link added.

[dave21478]

Dont worry too much about brand, look at access speed.

USB = slow

USB 2 = faster

USB 3 = fastest.

Oh, and buy bigger - 4 films at decent quality will pretty much fill a 16gb stick. Lowest watchable quality for a full length film generally still takes up 750mb, so you will get more on, but still not a huge amount.

I downloaded the first three seasons of Game of Thrones (Why yes, of course I have permission from the copyright holder!) and each season of ten episodes is about 9gb.

[Théière]

Still quite slow access, solid state drives are coming down in price at the moment and 64GB is available for reasonable money, just slip it into a 2.5" caddy case and you are away.

 

[Benjamin]

dave21478

If you only have USB 2 slots on the TV will buying a USB 3 make any difference in using the memory stick to play back films and TV programmes in the way we want to?

 

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

Open up a dropbox or google cloud account and put them up there.

[dave21478]

Being USB 3 will not affect playback on the telly, it will just greatly reduce the time to transfer the files onto the stick from your friends computer.

[Théière]

[quote user="Mr Ceour de Lion II"]Open up a dropbox or google cloud account and put them up there.
[/quote]

Even better idea.

[Lehaut]

Having it on the cloud where ever presupposes the OP has an internet connection in Spain with sufficient dl and capacity to access the films. Will you not also have to pay for such a large capacity cloud storeage, the free ones are quite limited? Copyright problems too unless you RAR protect?

32 Gb is about 40 CD quality films, If its a long stay, why not just buy an external HDD the same size as the friends and copy the lot. It will not go to waste as it can be used as an external back up for the OPs files, photos etc.

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

If both do have internet access, it's simple. Google's cloud normally allows about 7gb of free storage. Upload 7gb of movies from one end, share with the other person, and then once downloaded at the other end, delete, upload the next lot and repeat.

And what copyright problems would exist using the cloud as opposed to a memory stick?

[dave21478]

The memory stick is in his pocket, its contents known only to him.

His files on the cloud are most certainly not.

If you are going to break the law and are worried about repercussions, don't do it publically.

Besides, a memory stick is quick, easy, convenient and not reliant on net connections that may turn out to be slow as hell.

Cloud storage for lots of large files is fine if you live in a town with decent adsl speed, but for those of us who live in areas where "high speed internet" is often only just faster than dial-up used to be, its far from a usable solution,

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

I really don't think the authorities will be too concerned about half a dozen movies.

Plus with the cloud he doesn't even need to go round.

[HoneySuckleDreams]

you can  buy a 3TB USB3 external drive now for around 70quid

 

3TB !!! I started programming when 64K was the norm and external data was stored on a tape drive!

[Pickles]

[quote user="HoneySuckleDreams"]3TB !!! I started programming when 64K was the norm and external data was stored on a tape drive! [/quote]

Was the 64K as ferrite core store?

I ran programs on an ICL 1903S which had 64 K in two 32K banks that it switched between. And I'm NOT that old, really ...

[Judith]

[quote user="dave21478"]The memory stick is in his pocket, its contents known only to him.

His files on the cloud are most certainly not.

If you are going to break the law and are worried about repercussions, don't do it publically.

Besides, a memory stick is quick, easy, convenient and not reliant on net connections that may turn out to be slow as hell.

Cloud storage for lots of large files is fine if you live in a town with decent adsl speed, but for those of us who live in areas where "high speed internet" is often only just faster than dial-up used to be, its far from a usable solution,[/quote]

Nice to see a bit of sense spoken here.  Cloud storage is fine - until you cannot get an internet connection.

Memory sticks are easy, very portable, and, hey, you can have more than one!!

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

Of course you need an internet connection for cloud. The majority of people do have it.

If not, then it would probably be cheaper to rent or buy said movies than physically going to his friends house to copy them.

If both have decent internet connections, cloud is much simpler and quicker.

[AnOther]

Without a decent ADSL connection 'the cloud' is utterly useless for storing large files.

Work out how long it will take to upload files here remembering that your upload speed is NOT the same as your download, that's why it's called Assymetrical Digital Subscriber Line [;-)]

http://www.meridianoutpost.com/resources/etools/calculators/calculator-file-download-time.php

An external drive or USB stick is the best solution, your data is totally private and 100% under your control.

[Mr Ceour de Lion II]

But if he has decent speed cloud is easier.

[dave21478]

YES, someone gets it!

as ANother points out, upload and download speed are NOT the same. I pay for a 2 meg connection, which gives a real world 1.2meg download on a very good day (more like 400 - 500k most evenings, and occasionally just stalls away to zero - the joys of living in the countryside where the telecoms network consists of a series of broken old grey boxes along the roadside, most of which are hanging open with the birds nest tangle of wiring exposed to the elements) , but upload is only about 100k. at absolute best

Uploading 64gig+ at that sort of speeds.....I would be quicker driving to the shop, buying a memory stick and going to the friends house and swapping the files physically.

As for ease....method 1 - friend plugs stick into his computer, drags n drops the files, hands me the stick, I go on holiday, plug the stick into the telly and thats it done.

method 2 - i research which cloud storage provider gives the required storage capacity for free. I sign up an account and pass the details on to my friend, who has never even heard of could storage. They get it though and start uploading at a painfully slow rate. I go on holiday and find that the net connection is less reliable than a 70's BL car on a cold morning. I download the files in fits and starts onto my computer. I still need to get them to the TV though, which requires a memory stick..........

Cloud storage has its uses, and one day 20 years from now when everywhere has super-fast connections, not just those who live in cities, then it will be great for this sort of thing.

[AnOther]

Of course just because you may have an HD TV to play your movies on it does not mean that you have to store them in that hugely space hungry format and in a lower resolution you could perhaps fit up to 8 or 10x films into the same space just one HD movie might need [;-)]

And what are you trying to say about 70's BL cars [:P]

[Quillan]

An alternative is if if the OP has an Android phone or tablet. Both my phone and tablet have 32gb of storage which for normal use is massive. However you can copy films into the memory, watch them on either device and when plugged in to the TV is seen as an external drive just like a memory stick. The only issue I have found is the file and sound format. TV's seem to have a much limited codec selection and you can't download new codecs in to them (well mine you can't) so you may have to convert them. Android devices however have loads and loads of codecs and I have not come across any film that I cannot watch on either of my Android devices. For conversion of codecs there are many free programs around to do this.

[YCCMB]

I love it when a bunch of blokes get together to talk about something technological. Before you know where you are, the answer to a simple question has become more complicated than advice about splitting the atom, or an explanation of Black Holes.....

[Pickles]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I love it when a bunch of blokes get together to talk about something technological. Before you know where you are, the answer to a simple question has become more complicated than advice about splitting the atom, or an explanation of Black Holes.....

[/quote]

Splitting the atom? Ah well, now, that's not necessarily as difficult as you might presume: the problem is in harvesting the energy ... Oh, sorry, you were making a point there, weren't you? I'll close the door behind me as I leave ...

[Lehaut]

Just for the heck of it, I created a new Gmail account and uploaded a RAR password protected film 720mb or so onto G drive yesterday. We have 12 mb down and 1.2 up. It took 3 hours to upload the film, and 1 minute 30 seconds for my son to download it at his French seat of learning. (they have just installed fibre optics for the whole establishment).

Microsoft have, I understand, a zero tolerance policy to nude photos, so they must scan everythiing uploaded to Skydrive. I pay 8 euros a year for 27 gb which is just enough for my current digital photos. They were the only outfit to explain their backup procedures. After all the cloud is just another bunch of HDDs which, being mechanical objects, will fail eventually.

[Clarkkent]

[quote user="Clair"]

I use it to transfer recordings from our Humax and Skybox to my laptop.
Go for 32GB for HD recordings. They need a lot of space...

[/quote]

Forgive me for going back to the beginning. I am a little confused.

I have a Humax Fox T2 (with which I am very pleased) and have on its hard disk a number of tv programmes I would like to preserve - preferably on dvd.

My understanding is that recordings on the T2 are encrypted, and that the encryption code is unique to each machine. Although it is possible to download SD material, to download HD material it is necessary to decrypt the recording.

Clair's comment appears to infer that the process of transfer is straightforward. Can anyone here clarify this matter? And if so, guide me towards my goal without using complex technical terminology?