Anyone Stream over FW to Mac Book?

esperman

esperman

Well-known member
Has anyone streamed from the HVX to a newer intel mac book?
I'm considering getting one for interview work ...and it appears to me
to have more than enough horsepower to use with FCP 5.1.2.
Thanks for any info.
 
Works fairly well for everything but native formats obviously.

I upgraded to a Hitachi 100 Gb/7200 rpm drive and two gigabytes of RAM.

I capture to the internal drive. Of course, the real issues are the lack of a way to capture to an external drive given only one bus and the lack of a way to add a second.
 
I would use an external USB2 drive for capture scratch...that avoids the one bus problem.
Thanks for the input.
 
esperman said:
I would use an external USB2 drive for capture scratch...that avoids the one bus problem.
Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...

But it wouldn't address the throughput problem and the fundamental differences between the two protocols and how that affects capturing video.

USB 2.0's theoretical max is in a "burst" mode, not continuous data transfer, while firewire's max is constant. That is pivotal for video.

I don't know of anybody who feels that USB2 is reliable for consistent throughput for capturing video, especially DVCProHD and on a Mac.

For example:

http://www.barefeats.com/usb2.html

Or: http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

" FireWire vs. USB 2.0 Hard Drive Performance Comparison
Read and write tests to the same IDE hard drive connected using FireWire and then Hi-Speed USB 2.0 show:

Read Test:

5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 33% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 70% faster than USB 2.0
Write Test:

5000 files (300 MB total) FireWire was 16% faster than USB 2.0
160 files (650MB total) FireWire was 48% faster than USB 2.0"
 
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These all seem valid to me, however isnt DVCPRO HD max at 14 mb per sec?
I would think USB 2 could handle that data transfer (I hear 18 mbs constant
based on old powerpc architecture) , regardless if firewire is faster.
Also Intels chipset for USB was always faster than apples, so with intel
guts I wonder if in fact new mac's USB2 will be faster than the previous powerpc's.
Anyone use USB external for capture scratch?
 
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I have streamed through firewire to my mac book pro and it worked a charm. Did not exceed 6mins of capture due to HD space limitations.
 
Are there any 2.5in external drives that are powered by the laptop that you might be able to stream to (perhaps that means it must be usb which I guess would be a no). As for more ports is there no express card -> firewire available? Also can you record 720p and have the option to adjust frame rates? Is the only difference between p2 and streaming the ability to record native formats and save space?
 
Great, but WHO has used a Mac Book (not Pro) with a USB2 harddrive capture scratch for FCP?

Does the new Intel USB Chipset support over 18 mbs writing speeds?
 
esperman said:
Great, but WHO has used a Mac Book (not Pro) with a USB2 harddrive capture scratch for FCP?
Click to expand...
Well, according to Apple you can't. FCP won't run on a GMA950-graphics-card intelMac, and MacBooks are GMA950.

That said, I think there are people who have gotten it to run; I tried it and it didn't work, so maybe there's some hack or something?
 
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