no more in stock it seems....
too bad i was transfering money to my girlfriend so she can buy me some....now too late

David,

Do note that loading CFs to one of those portable storage is very slow slow process-something like loading them to laptop via normal 16-bit PCMCIA adapter.

Think that's the same until some manufacturers start to use the 32-bit interface like ASKA/Delkin ones.

I have an 30Gb "X-Drive II" and it works a treat for dumping 256mb CF data to it but as Tim mentioned it is slow.

I havnt timed it but it would be close to 4 minutes to load a full 256mb card on the X-Drive which I dont see as an issue because with a second 256mb card in the camera I would have trouble filling it in under 5 minutes anyway.

The X-drive II is USB-2 so it writes from X-Drive to the PC pretty quick.

I just called my friend over at Creative, and they said that their employee discount doesn't have the Muvo2 yet :-(

How fast is the microdrive that you took out of the mp3 player?

oeyvind wrote:
David,

Do note that loading CFs to one of those portable storage is very slow slow process-something like loading them to laptop via normal 16-bit PCMCIA adapter.

Think that's the same until some manufacturers start to use the 32-bit interface like ASKA/Delkin ones.


Hi Tim,

Thanks for that and I am aware of that. The are both USB 2, and will take about 6-8 minutes for a 512M CF Card. However, that's not really an issue for me as I have two of those 512M cards and I can continue shooting while the other one downloads to the hard drive. I don't believe I will fill a 512M card in 10min.

A 32 Bit interface will be lovely. Unfortnately.... I don't have the time.... I have a wedding to shoot soon and will need that... the last time I shot a wedding... I use a Laptop and that's pretty inconvience.

AndyFreeman wrote:
I have an 30Gb "X-Drive II" and it works a treat for dumping 256mb CF data to it but as Tim mentioned it is slow.

I havnt timed it but it would be close to 4 minutes to load a full 256mb card on the X-Drive which I dont see as an issue because with a second 256mb card in the camera I would have trouble filling it in under 5 minutes anyway.

The X-drive II is USB-2 so it writes from X-Drive to the PC pretty quick.

Andy,

Thanks for that info. and I am in a very simlar situation as you. ie. 2 cards and a X-Drive Pro/Cinema Disk (depends on which one I am going for). So 8 minutes data transfer time is not a bit issue for me. Of course it would be nice to be able to havea fater tx time. I am also intending to use it as a portable Hard disk on my laptop. You have tried using it as a portable hard drive? (ie. plug the X-drive to your PC/Laptap and leave it there to use as an extended hard drive). If so, can you please advise if you have heat problem? (ie. for leaving the hard drive run for so long). One of the reasons why I tend to go for te Cinema Disk is because it has a fan ( to cool the hard drive). Can you please tell me if the X-Drive II have that? Thanks.

Where did you buy it from?

Mac

To anyone thinking of getting the mini ipod and taking out the drive and replacing it with a smaller card i wouldn't bother. I do not know a way of opening the current ipods case without damaging it beond repair! You can get the card out but not another in! If i am wrong, please share your info!

Chris

I think you are mistaken Chris. It's pretty simple to open up a current iPod case, many people do it to change out the battery. I just saw a demonstration on The Screen Savers on TechTV a few days go.

edtang wrote:
I think you are mistaken Chris. It's pretty simple to open up a current iPod case, many people do it to change out the battery. I just saw a demonstration on The Screen Savers on TechTV a few days go.

I'm using a 20gb series one, and it has the glass/plastic front and the chrome back, the only place it joins in between these 2 elements, there are no screws/no clips/ no nothing!

Chris

Has anyone filled up a 4Gb Card (From the MuVo) with Raw images or used it in the real world?

search under battery replacement for the IPOD... there was ( is ) a very detailed
description of it with pics out on the web... saw it about 6 months ago...

here is one site... http://www.ipodbattery.com/ipodinstall.htm but it does not show the drive in the pics...

Found one at ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2979913670&category=50519&sspagename=STRK%3AMEBWA%3AIT&rd=1

Careful to look picture of 4gb microdrive at ebay and compare to http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/65456/0

I do not know what to say....

chris78cpr wrote:

I'm using a 20gb series one, and it has the glass/plastic front and the chrome back, the only place it joins in between these 2 elements, there are no screws/no clips/ no nothing!

Chris

Yup, you can pry apart a corner with a small flathead, and the rest just pops off. I saw a demo on TV, it looked super easy.

Yeah dreams, I figured this would happen as much. I actually looked at one of those auctions and felt like sending an email to the seller congratulating him for his "keen business sense". But you would have to be crazy to turn down the possibility of earning $200 a pop with the 4GB microdrives, I mean it's what came to my mind when I saw them. The only thing now is who is going to pay for these drives knowing full well that they came from an Ipod mini/MuVo. Unfortunately I don't think sellers will put the real picture of the different looking drives from the mp3 players, they will instead use the company photo for the $499 one. Such is the nature of the beast...

The real question at hand now is what is Hitachi's next move. They can either discontinue the usage of the microdrive in the mp3 players, create some sort of tamper-proof device that will ruin the drive if it is removed, or they can lower the price of the retail microdrive. It is an interesting situation, in my opinion, as it is obviously something they did not expect, however they are going to have to deal with the consequences now. I should hope that they lower the price of the retail version, because this little shortcut is showing us exactly how much we are being overcharged . IMHO prestige pricing is not the way to attract a clientel. One could take into account the capabilities of the mp3 player as a value of say, $50. This leaves the drive as the major component, at around $200. Versus $499. This means that Hitachi could retail the drive for less than Lexar's (1/4 as large) 1GB 40x WA card. I am sure that Hitachi would be able to devastate Lexar with such a lower price by the sheer volume of sales and therefore compensate for the price drop.

Mark

Makes you wonder if Creative Labs or Apple really care if you buy there players just to part them out. If more people who NEED/WANT a 4Gb Microdrive start buying mp3 players they would have to be happy about the "popularity" of their player but it might not really effect sales of the players because cameras that support microdrives for the average consumer isn't that high and people who would spend $299 for an MP3 player only to take the drive out of it would be real small percentage. Although Hitachi might have a problem with it. I just ordered a MuVo 4Gb at CES for $199.

Augie

Please forgive my ignorance but what is CES? I can’t find the 4GB Muvo for sale anywhere. The best I could find was at the creative labs site where they show a price of $299 but are out of stock.

Greg

Creative Labes was selling a lot of products at their booth. Yeah so far I have only found it available for $299 on their website. But look for it to possibly drop in price as the iPod Mini sells for $249 and they care competting products and the iPod Mini is thinner than the MuVo 4gb.

Greg, CES is the Consumer Electronics Show that was held last week in LasVegas.

Rob, you can get them in Germany. I found one at www.cyberport.de for Euro 314,-. Good luck, Emmerich

Are they out of stock already? Heck, I should get a commission for those sales!

oeyvind wrote:
Not sure about that John... might work but first you need to figure out how to xfer the firmware to the new storage...
Someone in other forums stated that the mp3 player does not support CF card. However no one can confirm the case yet.

In the UK here's a link

Enter Muvo in the search box

http://www.simply.co.uk/?sn=2084984188




Looks like a good idea

Thanx

rsoemarsono wrote:
I read in other forums somewhere that the portable MP3 player Nomad MuVo2 4GB uses a Hitachi Microdrive for its storage.

So I plunked down $299.99 to buy the MuVo (instead of $499.99 for the 4GB MD), got it today, did an emergency surgery, and extracted the microdrive from the MP3 player. Then I put it in my 10D, formatted the card, and happily saw the frame counter went up to 647 for RAW images!!!!! Not bad at all.