A reader is going to spend three months in Africa and wants to know how to store his audio and video recordings

I will be in Africa for three months and want to shoot some simple documentary films. Since I will live locally, I have decided to take my Flip HD camera, a Tascam DR-05 and my Olympus XA2 with me. Now I am thinking about how to transfer and store the footage. Shall I take a netbook or a 7-inch Samsung tablet? I probably need a USB port so it all points to the netbook but I feel that netbooks are a bit outdated already. I don't think I would even use the netbook much, other than to save to it temporarily and then transfer files to a small external hard drive.

Anonymous



Flip camcorders, and their FlipShare software, have been specifically designed to plug into a laptop's USB port in order to copy movies across, so this would be the most natural way to use one. Also, laptops and netbooks have mass storage built in, often in the form of a 320GB or 500GB hard drive. Tablets don't have as much built in storage, typically from 8GB to 64GB. Copying movies from a tablet to an external hard drive would be an extra step, and would not actually provide a backup.

Flip says a third-generation Flip Mino HD can capture 120 minutes of video on its 8GB of built-in memory. If you can know roughly how much you might shoot, you can estimate how much storage you will need. An hour of video per week would take up about 50GB.

I haven't tried using a Flip HD camcorder with a tablet, so perhaps readers can report how well it works. However, the idea raises some potential problems. First, if the tablet has a USB port, can it provide enough power to handle a Flip HD for a sustained period? (File copying can be a bit slow.) Bear in mind that the Flip HD expects the USB port to recharge it, and I doubt that's what the tablet's designers had in mind!

Second, can the tablet play files in the Flip HD's native video format? If the tablet can play them, can it edit them? You probably won't want to attempt any sophisticated video editing while you're away, but the ability to "top and tail" videos is a big advantage and can save you a lot of storage space. You can do this with FlipShare, and you can also grab "stills" from your videos. (There's a Flip Video app for Android but it can't edit videos and almost half of its ratings are one star.)

If you're serious about taking a tablet rather than a laptop, you'll need to test its Flip HD compatibility extra-thoroughly before you set off ... though of course, you should do that anyway.

SD cards for sound

The Tascam DR-05 digital sound recorder saves recordings on SD (Secure Digital) cards. Again, it has a USB port for transferring files to a laptop, and if you run out of batteries, you can run the DR-05 plugged into a laptop's USB port. However, it's probably simpler to remove the SD card and slot it into your main device, which might be a laptop or a tablet with an SD card slot.

Tascam DR-05: uses SD cards as storage. Photograph: Tascam

If you record MP3 files, then storage shouldn't be a problem. Check to see how big your existing files are, and guess how many recordings you might make. I suspect that a couple of 8GB or 16GB cards will get you through. If you intend to record uncompressed WAV files, then you will probably have to budget space on your PC's hard drive.

Film matters

If you are really taking an Olympus XA2 – meaning the compact camera from the 1980s – then you don't have to worry about digital storage for photos. However, 35mm colour films are susceptible to heat, which is why serious photographers store their films in the fridge.

Olympus XA2: 35mm film camera launched in 1980. Photograph: Olympus

Kodak's technical note on Maintaining Film Quality with Refrigeration says films can be kept in original sealed cans for up to six months at 13°C (55°F) and a relative humidity below 60%. For exposed but unprocessed films, it recommends -18 to -23°C. Also, the faster the film, the more susceptible it will be to heat damage. You don't need Hollywood levels of quality or reliability, but three months of intense heat isn't going to improve your results.

It's relatively expensive to shoot 35mm nowadays, compared with the zero cost of digital. The only obvious advantage is that some 35mm cameras work without batteries – except for watch-type S76 silver oxide cells in the XA2. I'd suggest you take stills with the Flip HD as well, or take a decent digital compact.

Netbook or laptop?

It's not clear from your question whether you already have a netbook. If you do, I can't see any problem with taking it. If you were planning to carry it everywhere, then yes, a tablet would be lighter. If you're only taking it to store films and photos, it will spend all its time at your home base and it won't matter how heavy it is. Although it's not a good choice for photo, video or audio editing, a netbook can also handle "topping and tailing".

I agree that "netbooks are a bit outdated" now and I wouldn't recommend buying a new one for an adult, unless price is the overriding consideration. Microsoft has allowed the specification of netbooks to advance over the past five or six years, but not by much. Manufacturers are still constrained in what they can ship if they wish to include a cheaper version of Windows. The main drawbacks are the limited processing power, no more than 1GB of memory, the maximum hard drive size (was 160GB, now 320GB), and the 1024 x 600 pixel screen resolution. Also, netbook manufacturers can no longer use the very cheap Windows XP Home ULCPC (Ultra Low Cost PC) Edition that some buyers might prefer to the more expensive Windows 7 Starter Edition.

For a little more money, you can get a low-end laptop with a much better specification (4GB of memory, 500GB hard drive, 1366 x 768-pixel screen) and a full version of Microsoft Windows 8. A recent example is the Acer Aspire V5-121 with an 11.6in screen, which is currently discounted to £249.99 at Amazon.co.uk. Yes, it has a very slow 1GHz AMD C70 processor, but it's only slightly slower than a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N2600, and has better graphics.

Portable and cloud storage

It would be nice to add a small, portable external hard drive for extra backups, but think about taking 32GB SD memory cards instead. You can buy name brand 32GB cards for about £15 each, or possibly less if you shop around. SD cards don't need a power supply, have no moving parts, are not vulnerable to heat or dust, and take up very little space. A couple of 32GB SD cards would store your most important files, if not everything.

There are, of course, some portable storage devices that are aimed at travelling photographers, which I'll mention for the sake of completeness. They are attractive in combining a hard drive with a small screen display, but they tend to be expensive. For example, a 500GB HyperDrive ColorSpace could set you back £370 (there are models from about £340 to £430).

You don't mention whether you will have online access. If so, you may be able to upload files to an online (cloud) service such as Dropbox or Microsoft's SkyDrive. I have not been to Africa, but in most countries, you can either use free Wi-Fi hotspots or buy pay-as-you-go dongles that connect via a mobile phone network. All these USB dongles seem to include Windows software that gets you online without much effort or technical knowledge, which may be another reason to favour a netbook or laptop for storage.

One big advantage of SD cards is that they are very easy to hide. Even if some of your equipment is lost or stolen, you should still be able to hang on to your irreplaceable data. One big advantage of online storage is that it can't be lost or stolen, as long as you remember your ID and secure password.