Greetings, d00ds/d00dettes.
Well, the European vacation went well (and I'll talk more about it in
another message), but one of the things I missed while on vacation was
the ability to take ridiculous numbers of digital photos. I was hoping
to acquire a JOBO "Giga Vu PRO evolution" (yes, that is indeed its full
title, and yes, it's a cumbersome title, and yes, I will refer to it as
the GVPe from now on), with its massive hard drive and image-editing
capabilities, to alleviate the problem of insufficient CF cards, but it
didn't become available at retail in North America until almost a month
after I returned. And I didn't want to "settle" for an EPSON P-2000 or
P-4000. **HEAVY SIGH**
Anyways, B&H finally got some stock, so I went and ordered the 120
Gigabyte version. I'm pleased to say that the hype is generally
deserved for the device -- it's small, relatively light, *very* well
thought-out, and reasonably rugged considering. It reads Olympus RAW
from the E-1 flawlessly, as far as I can tell. The screen's almost
shockingly bright and contrasty, and the on-screen menus and softkeys
seem to have just the right amount of prompting to tell you what to do
next. And because the kernel of the software is Linux-based, and
because JOBO has released a development kit to the general public, there
could be really cool secondary apps for this device down the road.
There is, however, one glaring problem. One of the attractions of the
GVPe is its much-ballyhooed ability to act as a USB 2.0 master and
control another portable hard drive. If true, this would allow the GVPe
to store and process essentially unlimited amounts of photos, because
you could carry inexpensive high-capacity portable hard drives and use
them for backup or offloading of files from the GVPe. A true, ultimate
replacement for lugging around a laptop!
Would that it were so. I own four portable USB 2.0-compliant hard
drives from three separate manufacturers (Maxtor, Seagate and Western
Digital), and the GVPe recognizes none of them. A closer perusal of the
User's Manual plus some Internet digging reveals why.
It's not just a USB 2.0-compliant portable drive the GVPe is supposed to
control -- it's a so-called "USB OTG (On-The-Go)" portable drive that
will work as described. The OTG spec is an "add-on" (as far as I can
tell) to the USB 2.0 specs, which introduces two new protocols for
allowing portable drives to establish a client-server relationship
betwixt and between them. If the portable drive you own isn't
OTG-compliant, you're essentially out of luck, and will either need a
new drive that *is* OTG-compliant (they're thin on the ground -- I've
found one for sale in the UK but nothing over here in North America), or
an adapter (sometimes called an "OTG bridge") which gets interposed
between two devices to make them act as if they're OTG-compliant.
I've checked out the biggest USB site on the Web, USBGear, and they list
precisely two devices, one a bridge (which may not even be available any
longer), and the other a shell for a 3.5-inch drive that contains the
necessary smarts to convert it into a USB OTG drive. I'm checking into
availability of the bridge now, but I'm not hopeful. And I *really*
don't feel like cobbling together my very own portable HD.
I've also tried to contact JOBO's North American distributor for info,
but have heard nothing yet. As it happens, JOBO themselves sell an OTG
drive called the JOBO Giga One, but it's overpriced (IMNSHO) and the
maximum capacity is an already-obsolete 80 Gigs. It's also not very
portable compared to, say, the Western Digital 120 Gig Passport drive I
own (a marvel of miniaturization! -- you can literally slip it into a
shirt pocket).
This is too bad. For my own uses, 120 Gigs represents about 10,000 Oly
RAW files from the E-1, but I have a friend who tends to take photos
like there's no tomorrow (he took 55 Gigs of photos with his Canon 5D in
just four days at Jasper National Park recently), and he's starting to
lose hope that he'll ever be free of a laptop and dozens of CF cards
when he goes on long photo trips. Which he typically does several times
a year as opportunity presents itself.
So overall, I like the JOBO GVPe, and for me, it's an almost ideal
device for storing photos in the field. But even I would like the
option of using the ultra-lightweight, ultra-small,
super-duper-inexpensive USB drives that are out there now as a safety
backup, if nothing else...
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|