Anybody ever edit with a MBP on battery with an external drive or 2 HDDs inside?

[Michael Garber]

About an hour or two is about right. I occasionally go without power if I’m editing at home on my laptop and LaCie rugged drive. Take that, LADWP! I’m on a 2012 13″ MBP, so you might get more time out of your 17″ with the larger battery. How much time to you get currently without the drive?

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company

[Dave Gage]

[Michael Garber] “How much time to you get currently without the drive?”

I’ve not edited before on battery, but when I’ve gone to the library to work, I think I’ve easily gotten 4 hours out of it. If I’m using it sporadically throughout the day, I can go a day or two.

[Michael Garber] “LaCie rugged drive.”

What drive do you have in that LaCie? Is it 5400 or 7200 and how does it handle video? Ever run into FCP X slowdowns with it?

Thanks,
Dave

P.S You mentioned LADWP. Weren’t you the fellow that did the video some months ago about a local Los Angeles record store?

[Jason Brown]

U can eject the 2nd internal drive when u aren’t using it. Then remount in disk utility when u want it online.

[Michael Garber]

If it’s bus powered, it’s probably a 5400rpm drive. I have found that it’s better to edit from proxies on that drive when using FCPX. With the same drive, FCP7 handles full raster prores better than FCPX, but is still a little slow. Premiere also works well enough from the drive, but again, a bit chunky on FF and RW.

[Dave Gage] “P.S You mentioned LADWP. Weren’t you the fellow that did the video some months ago about a local Los Angeles record store?”

I am indeed that fellow :). Thanks for remembering. Just did a side piece from the same footage about one of the stores, Wombleton Records. Started it months ago just to test out FCPX when 10.0.3 came out. Finished it up with 10.0.6 so I could test out multichannel audio.

https://vimeo.com/53375924

Michael Garber
5th Wall – a post production company

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[Dave Gage]

[Jason Brown] ” U can eject the 2nd internal drive when u aren’t using it. Then remount in disk utility when u want it online.”

I did a Google search on this subject yesterday and got mixed answers on this topic. I also talked with OWC today and the tech said he didn’t know nor could he test it there, but didn’t think you would be able to eject an internal drive in a MBP. It makes sense to me that you could.

Have you tested this yourself? I haven’t been able to take with anyone that has actually done it.

Thanks,
Dave

[Dave Gage]

[Michael Garber] “If it’s bus powered, it’s probably a 5400rpm drive. I have found that it’s better to edit from proxies on that drive when using FCPX.”

Actually, this drive/enclosure combo has a 750GB/7200 rpm in it. I would likely go the proxy route also. I’m happy to know this solution works for you. I just need something that will work for when I take the kids to soccer or water polo practice and I can then sit in the car or at a Starbucks and get a little work done.

[Michael Garber] “Just did a side piece from the same footage about one of the stores, Wombleton Records.”

I like the main shot of Ian. It looks to be a wide angle, but doesn’t have a distorted wide angle look to it. Boy, there’s a niche out there for everyone. Who knew a whole store solely devoted to British music was out there. It’s a bit of drive for me, but if I’m ever in Highland Park, I’ll have to stop in and take a look around.

Dave

[Andreas Kiel]

I have to be with my MBP on locations were no power supply is available several times a year. And I’ve to work longer then 2 hours.
So I bought some little moto bike gel batteries and a power converter. This allows to run the system (MBP + HD + FW camera – running 6 streams) for more than 8 hours – compared to less then 1 hour
It’s some additional weight, but it’s worth it for me.

Spherico
https://www.spherico.com/filmtools

[Jason Brown]

Yes. I replaced internal with ssd and took out optical to put in original 750gb internal. I can eject it.

[Dave Gage]

Jason,

Perfect! That was all I needed to know. I’m glad to hear ejecting worked in the Optical drive slot too. As I said, I was getting mixed opinions on whether it would work or not.

Thanks again,
Dave

[Dave Gage]

[Andreas Kiel] “This allows to run the system (MBP + HD + FW camera – running 6 streams) for more than 8 hours – compared to less then 1 hour
It’s some additional weight, but it’s worth it for me.”

Very cool solution. I literally only need an hour or two, so that would be way overkill for me. What kind of HD solution are you using with this setup? Bus-powered or AC?

Thanks,
Dave