Avid or FCP? Adobe has dropped the ball.

[Mitch Ives]

[gary adcock] “Sorry Mitch,
I am with Shane this is not the case with the Intel laptops,
With the G4 book using the 400 & 800 FW buses at the same time only gave FW 400 speeds.”

Gary, as stated in my post… the Intel MBPro is the only machine I had not yet tested this on, since the 17″ is only recently out and the 15″ had no FW800 port.

Your news is good news. Now, is the FW800 on the 17″ MBPro delivering twice the throughput of the FW400 port… or is it simply faster than the FW400 port as we had before? If anyone has tested this and has some numbers, I’m sure many of us would be interested in hearing them…

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com

Apple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5

[Mitch Ives]

[david Saraceno] “Yes, I think most people know that…”

Yes, they do Mitch.

But you seemed to have ignore it in the response to Shane when you stated:

He clearly indicated that a PCI FW card would create a second bus, and you discounted that by discussing the single FW controller chip on the motherboard.”

Jeez David. First I “seemed to” then I “outright did”. Which one is it? Since that is rather common knowledge, I interjected something less well known, to further the discussion. If you took it as me discounting the idea entirely, then apparently I should apologize… and promise to make any future posts longer and more detailed. Forgive me for assuming a certain level of knowledge on this forum.

Let me end my contribution to this thread by recommending that anyone editing DVCPro HD consider a SATA configuration over something FW. As an early pioneer in that area, I think you’ll find it much more gratifying. Since we edit a lot of DVCPro HD and P2, we find the FW solutions work fine on simple things involving very few tracks, whereas the SATA option offers more capability. Hopefully this opinion won’t offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities…

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com

Apple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5

[Scott Jenkins]

So, FCP then, and I guess wait for the desktop to come out with better firewire 800 support?

Thanks!

Scott Jenkins

[Shane Ross]

I simply have no trouble with my two 500GB G-Raids and DVCPRO HD. Not one dropped frame…so I don’t see what the problem is. And I am not alone.

I will run the test today and post my results.

My caveat is always this: Buy when you need. If you need it now, but it now. If you can wait, then wait. But waiting for the next big thing will always have you waiting as the next big thing is always 6 months away.

My Dual 2Ghz G5 handles uncompressed SD and DVCPRO HD just fine. And when I get a fast drive RAID, it will handle uncompressed HD fine. Sure, renders will be faster with a newer and faster Mac, so get that.

Just buy when you need.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Aburke]

Okay, I have the two 17- inchers side-by-side. A 1.67 PB and a 2.16 MacbookPro.

Starting the FW800 throughput test…

-a

[Shane Ross]

OK…with firewire 400 (EZQUest) i get:

Write: 25.3
Read: 31.4

FW800 (G-Raid):

Write: 54.4
Read: 83.3

So there is a big difference there. The FW400 drives are connected to the PCIx firewire card.

Dual 2Ghz G5.

Shane

Alokut Productions
http://www.lfhd.net

[Alex Viarnes]

Thanks for the test Shane…. my experience is the same as yours, no problems with DVCPRO HD or SD uncomp.
lots of hissie fits on this thread !
Aloha
-A

[Mark Burton]

Shane could you test the G-RAID on the G5’s FW400 port – use a FW800 to FW400 cable if the G-RAID has no FW400 port. This test would be much clearer if you test the same drive setup on the two ports.

many thanks
Mark

[Mitch Ives]

[Shane Ross] “OK…with firewire 400 (EZQUest) i get:

Write: 25.3
Read: 31.4

FW800 (G-Raid):

Write: 54.4
Read: 83.3

So there is a big difference there. The FW400 drives are connected to the PCIx firewire card.”

Shane, Is your EZQuest a single drive… the data rate would seem to indicate that? The G-Raid has two drives inside, so of course it’s faster in a dual drive raid configuration. Attributing this difference to 400 vs. 800 seems like a dubius conclusion to reach?

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com

Apple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5

[Mitch Ives]

[alex viarnes] “Thanks for the test Shane…. my experience is the same as yours, no problems with DVCPRO HD or SD uncomp.
lots of hissie fits on this thread !”

I never said a G-Raid wouldn’t work. It should, after all, it’s a two drive RAID. It should outperform a single drive, regardless of whether it’s a 400 or an 800.

What I said was, as your timelines become more complex, you may discover some limitations. We’ve managed to (on occassion) overload a four drive SATA array, which has a throughput of several times what Shane has listed for his G-Raid test. Shane’s right… you should only buy what you need, based on the kind of editing you do. Shane mentioned he has two G-Raids… creating a raid out of both of those should take him a very long way before he needs anything else.

Many people on this forum are editing DVCPro HD using raids a lot more sophisticated than the four drive array we have. Obviously, they have a reason for choosing those.

Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.
mitch@insightproductions.com

Apple Certified Trainer: Final Cut Pro 5