Reading VFAT on OSX HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!

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Level 1

8 points

Reading VFAT on OSX HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!

Hi all,

I'm currently building my second DIY camcorder and thought this one should storage the video on a harddrive and found something that suited my demands...

One problem, however... It only operates with VFAT on its internal HDD and regardless of all my efforts... OSX just won't play ball with it and I only need to read from it.

Hopefully someone in here posseses the holy grale on how to make this happen...
I'm hoping for some sort of plugin, script, whatever...

Cheers
Happy New Year

P.S. Should anybody be interested in checking out the first DIY camcorder...
Have a looksee here.: www.c-h-a-o-s.com

Mabook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1)

Posted on Dec 29, 2007 2:15 PM

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Answer 1

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2007 4:54 AM in response to Klaus1

Ehh thanks...
I kind of figuret that... That doesn't mean it can't be done...
Please respond with solutions...
A few years back every body knew tha Apple could only read NFTS and Windows could absolutly nothing with the HFS+, Today all you need is a plugin on eighter platforms an problem solved...

Or as Henry Ford said.: I need men with the capacity of not knowing what can't be done.

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Answer 2

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2007 6:21 AM in response to Klaus1

Tuché

I know my answer was kinda harsh...

I just really need a way to this... It's not coold fusion or any thing.
I hope there was some dude in here with the infinite knowlegde of how to script a soulution for me or has seen something that would make this possible... not tell my that this is difficult, that I know!

But thanks for your enlightenment

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Answer 3

Dec 30, 2007 6:46 AM in response to Don K.

just to feed my curiosity, Don, but:
What is the 'advantage' of tacking a surveillance cam to some optics which isn't calculated to size of ccd?

I've read the site you'd linking to with great interest, I'm well known by friends as 'the guy with the hot-melt adhesive' .. 😉 , but those projects seem to me a lil' .. weird (a remote controlled pistol? blinding cams with lasers?? who needs that? aside Batman or Jack Bauer .. ). I understand the pride +when it's done+ .. but you get for very cheap money ready-made solutions with much better quality ..

these guys..
http://www.drachenfeder.com/aktuelles/draketechen.htm
built their own HiDef (=movie quality!) camcorder, the famous DRAKE .. ok, .. but that is way ahead that Danish guy is doing in his backyard ..

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Answer 4

Dec 30, 2007 7:30 AM in response to Don K.

Hi Don,

Have you looked at FireWireSDK23? I have had limited success with some of these. There is an error in the OS so things do not work as easily as they should. Being that the parts of the OS you are accesssing were originally ported to the Intel architecture it should be easier than it is.

Sweet Polly

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Answer 5

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2007 8:01 AM in response to Karsten Schlüter

Hehe... You're not the first saying that to me...

And there is some trouth in waht you're saying, alot of the thing i'm building has no logical usage and such.

How ever I'm one of the guys that still do it...
To get smarter, for the fun of it, to reuse old gadget in new ways and hopefully inspire other people to play and not give up on the silly ideas. What seems silly to one guy may be usefull inspiration to another guy building something important, lifesaving, whatever...

Thanks for your interest... I'm building a pair of nightvision googles soon, stay tuned

<edited by host>

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Answer 6

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 30, 2007 12:48 PM in response to sweetpollypurebred

It seems like FireWireSDK23 is about some video-codec wich isn't my problem...
It's the harddrive formatting that is causing me trouble.
But maybe I missundestud you... do you have any relevant links?

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Answer 7

Dec 30, 2007 5:48 PM in response to Don K.

Hi Don,

These are for creating SW to communicate with the type or class of device you are creating. A FireWire video capture device.. QuicKTime is where you'll find most of your answers for creating something compatible with the Mac platform. Install FWSkeletonKey on your machine and try some of the apps in the applications folder and you may be surprised at the results. Start with VirtualDVHS2 I didn't see the specs on the "optional hdd recorder" so can't suggest anything there.

OS X has always been able to read FAT filesystems so this isn't the issue yet even the big mfg's are having difficulty with Macs. Exactly what are you using for an external HDD recorder? The digital8 records in standard DV so one way or another the Mac can communicate with it.

Can you even see the HDD on your machine? What does system profiler identify the device as?

Sweet Polly

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Answer 8

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Dec 31, 2007 12:15 AM in response to sweetpollypurebred

You can read about the HDD-recorder in question here.: http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/hard-disk-video-recorder.htm

I can't even mount the **** thing and have also tried from disk utillities.
I can plug it in to any windoze and read it... but not mac though vfat is a unix format
The recorder spits out dvi(mpeg4encoded) and in great quality, no props there my mac loves the video files...

Thanks for your reply and happy New Year

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Answer 9

Jan 1, 2008 6:47 AM in response to Don K.

Hi John,

The recorder on this link is USB. Does this get changed to FW between the recorder and computer? It also indicated Mac compatibility and drivers available. Have you installed these? Does System Profiler recognize that something is plugged in? Do you use USB Prober?

There are a lot of NFTS plugins, which one are you looking at?

Sweet Polly

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Answer 10

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 1, 2008 11:27 AM in response to sweetpollypurebred

I don't use FW for this disk, USB only baby, there is no convertion cable from FW to USB, though the 4 pin FW plug resembles the mini-USB plug a bit...

I think drivers you are mentioning is the video-codec you can download for windows from the site wich isn't necessary for mac. There are no drives availeble from the site for mac... I'we spoken with the owner personally.

Again I must emphasize that the actual video-files is not the problem but the formatting of the harddrive...

I'we was just using the NFTS-plugin as an example... as I'm hoping for a sort of V-FAT plugin so I may read the drive and thereby have solved the problem...

I'm quite sure I'm using both my Mac and the device right... (I'we been a mac-service provider for quite some years now, old school ya know) but good call!

Thanks for your interest.

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Answer 11

Jan 1, 2008 2:03 PM in response to Don K.

Hi Don,

Sorry, I got hung on the FireWire from your site. "The really cool thing about these recorders is that you can record both from an analogue video source or digital (firewire) video source

But nothing I have referred you to has to do with codecs. I don't doubt that you are using your comp and the device properly but the OS isn't. Even in the days of the"old school" these disks were readable by the Mac. The current snafu has to do with the OS's inability to properly distinguish between a USBMassStorageDevice and a camera especially now that the two are often combined.

Currently from what I've read into iMovie 7 it still does not contain any direct connections with USB hardware though Image Capture does and 10.5 has added support for USB video cameras import and control. Being that Leopard has the same issues as 10.3. and 10.4 and iMovie has been stripped of any useful features I cannot justify wasting any more money on Apple's seriously flawed software so I don't know exactly how they implemented these changes. At this point I would check here to see if IC sees the device. If not, I would check System Profiler and see if it shows up and what the OS thinks it is. If it doesn't show there USB Prober should be able to locate it. This is the best place to start because it is a device that is supposed to be compatible with the OS yet is not showing up anywhere. Another utility that may be useful for you is CameraCheck although AFAIK it has not been updated in a number of years but you may want to see if the 10.5 install discs have a newer version.

What happens when you plug it into an older PPC Mac/OS?

Sweet Polly

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Answer 12

Don K. Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 2, 2008 12:15 AM in response to sweetpollypurebred

Dear sweet sweet Polly

Thank you for a very interesting and competent answer... I stand corrected!

I'we pluged the **** thing in and tjecked systemprofiler... It does come up as an USB2-Storage Device

Regarding iMovie... I'm not shure I'm going to use that at all for theese recordings and haven't installed iLife on my Mac this time... I'm looking towards Avid or Final Cut.

There is a lot of neet things on the leopard install disk, however no sign of CameraCheck...

No hope with the old school mac's as well.

Don K.
http://www.c-h-a-o-s.com/

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Answer 13

Jan 15, 2008 4:27 AM in response to Don K.

Hi Don,

Did you figure this out? With the machine plugged in go to Terminal and on copy and past the result of $ sudo mount. Another command you might try is mount_msdos or mount_nfs.

Sweet Polly

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