workflow with MacBook Pro

Tony_Reyes

Tony_Reyes

Well-known member
Ok, I have a MacBook Pro and I love it however I overlooked the fact that it only has 1 firewire port and I didn't upgrade to the larger hard drive.
SO, my issue is and I think the only thing I can do is capture everything or what I can to my internal HD then when I have filled it up change my settings (capture scratch, waveform cache, etc.) over to my external HD and repeat the process (wipe out what I captured on my internal HD then begin capturing again.

Is their an easier process?

I should have 2 USB 2.0 ports open but my HD is firewire, as is the camera. I read that firewire is more consistent than USB, as I expected.

Thanks for any help with this,
Tony
 
I'd be a by concerned by this. It's not totally clear. Is this hub plugged into your USB or Firewire port on your mac? If it's USB then you may have throughut problems even with USB 2. If it's Firewire it's defeating the purpose of getting an external connection.
The problem with firewire on a Mac is thta all connectiosn are actually one internal port. (i.e. eveything fighting over the same connection if you will) With a cardbus it creates another internal port (i.e. different pathway) into the computer. With a hub all devices are still trying to make it through the computer on oen connection.
 
It's my understanding it plugs into BOTH the USB and Firewire. Are you saying that the extra firewire ports would be basically splitting the efficiency of the one firewire port? That would be a problem! Have you seen a card with both USB and Firewire?
 
On the first link check the system req.

System Requirements
  • Notebook or desktop system with an available ExpressCard slot
  • Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003
no mention of mac compatability.
 
Diasy chaining ends up using one port. If the ocmputer has to capture the camera and then pump out the data to a firewire drive you have traffic going both ways at the same time on the same firewire port. Traffic tends to be based on the slowest device.

That's why if an option permits, especially for slower systems/drives, to have a cardbus firewire port is an advantage.

Regarding USB - note that I don't think FCP officially supports USB camera caprute anyway. You might(?) be able to use it for a drive but it's unlikely to meet the performance you'd like.
 
I daisy chain like this all the time and there is no throughput issues or lost frames. Here is my setup:

Powerbook G4-> 2.5" portable FW drive (7200RPM) -> DVX100

Works great. I have captured full 60 minute tapes and then have edited full videos on a plane. The drive even draws it's power from the Pbook.
 
tbanucci said:
I daisy chain like this all the time and there is no throughput issues or lost frames. Here is my setup:

Powerbook G4-> 2.5" portable FW drive (7200RPM) -> DVX100

Works great. I have captured full 60 minute tapes and then have edited full videos on a plane. The drive even draws it's power from the Pbook.
Click to expand...


what hard drive is it you use?
 
tbanucci, that's a pretty sweet setup. & thanks for the links ross.

i'll probably end up going with a express card eventually though. the fact that it will be on it's own bus is really attractive to me.
 
tbanucci said:
I use this: Hitachi 60 GB but it is 2 years old now. You can probably find a 100 GB drive for the same price now.

Here, I found this one: Hitachi 100 GB

And then you put it into an external enclosure firewire case like this: Enclosure

Ted
Click to expand...


got a quick question again for you. how can you tell whether or not the hard drive you get to put in the enclosure supports being able to be powered by the firewire bus?
 
All of the HD's you put in are supported by the firewire bus. It's the enclosure that matters. Usually, the guide on the enclosure will tell you before you buy it. The one I linked to says it.

The only thing about the hard drive that you should be concerned about is that a 7200 RPM hard drive is usually better to edit with, although most of the Firestores and such are made with 5400 RPM drives and the Apple internal drives are 4200 RPM although they may have recently changed that....

Ted
 
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