User manual

Cypher Technology Ltd 2008

Master Creation

When making the Master disk, the whole contents of the Flash card are coped to the

CD/DVD. The transfer time is dependent on the Flash card size. A 4GByte card would

take about 5 minutes to transfer.

Master Verify

This involves re-reading the Flash card and comparing the data with the disk image.

This takes about 4 minutes for a 4 Gbyte card.

Working Copy Creation

This involves only copying the files themselves and the time taken will depend on the

amount of data contained in the files. A large RAW file of say 16 Mbytes would take

around 1 second to transfer.

Where a JPEG is created from the RAW file this will take from a few seconds to a few

tens of seconds per file depending on the size of the RAW file.

Flash Erasure

The erasing process involves writing a fixed binary pattern of data back to the Flash

media so that the original data cannot be recovered or un-erased under any

circumstances. This wiping process therefore depends on the write speed of the

particular Flash card. Write speeds are commonly up to about 10 Mbytes/s which gives

an erase time of about 6 minutes for a 4 Gbyte card.

Transfer Time for a Complete Automated Master and Working Copy

Example:

For a 4 Gbyte SD card with 6 x 16 Mbytes RAW files the transfer time would be:

Create Master 5 Mins

Master Verify 4 Mins

Create Working Copy 3 Mins (depends of RAW conversion speed)

Erase Flash 6 Mins(Depends of Flash card type and brand)

Total 18 Minutes

5.8 RAW File handling

RAW to JPEG converter

The system incorporates a RAW image file format converter. This automatically detects

the type of RAW file present and converts it to a standard JPEG image file which is

added to the Working Copy along with the original RAW format file. The JPEG will

typically be about 1/7

the size of the RAW file, and so will not add greatly to storage

requirements. This software is maintained and new formats are supported as they arise.

The JPEG file will have the same root name as the RAW file. For example, if the RAW

image file is D94L0948.DCR the JPEG will be D94L0948DCR.JPG

The cameras currently supported by the converter are listed in Appendix 1.