Linux for video professionals

[Frank-Michael Fischer]

Claude Jones wrote:
> I post the following query from a professional television producers list I 
> belong to - it speaks for itself:
>
> "why can't a mobile fire wire hard drive work as my storage unit for my video 
> camera, you need to buy that expensive external hardrive backup @$1500 for 
> 40/80 gigs. Isn't there someway of running a pre installed linux program on 
> the mobile firewire and save my video automatically, I'm not looking for all 
> the bells and whisles, maybe just independant folders every time I hit the 
> record button.
> Any linux, software gurus, help out."
>
> Any takers? Ideas? 
>   

I have developed my own solution for professional video backup: It can't
be firewire, since I have no idea how to boot a system from firewire. My
video system contains a USB 2.0 port, my external USB drive (250G) holds
a linux system. You connect it to the video system, boot the external
drive, (auto)mount whatever partitions you like and then you make your
backup.

If the video system is neither Intel/AMD nor PPC architecture, my
solution is most likely not going to work. Also not if the video system
cannot boot from an USB disk.

FMF