G5 verses MacBookPro shootout (You are not going to believe this!)

[Mike Curtis]

For HD video, the data rates are huge – up to 160 MB/sec raw data rate, disk subsystems need to be capable of about 200 MB/sec to account for overhead etc. No FireWire solution gets that fast – gotta go SATA or fiber channel (or SCSI, even less likely). You’d need an HD-SDI in, and port multiplying eSATA out most likely, and I don’t think the bus even goes that fast to be able to support that much throughput. I also am not aware of any one company that has the expertise in SDI and storage throughput to put out a single card with all them smarts on it. So I don’t think it’ll happen.

SD video, on the other hand – that might be doable – use FireWire 400 with a Kona I/O (presuming there are drivers soon), and a SATA card to go in the slot in the MBP and that could theoretically work OK.

-mike

[Mitchji]

[George Loch] “SATA raid through the single Express 34 slot and I am not aware of such a card that offers mac support at this point.”

Hi George,

If it is shipping (“Available Mid Q1-2006”) here is a card:
https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1sm2/

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Gary Taylor]

Hi Mitch,
I think that is a Cardbus card and if it is it isn’t the same form factor as the Express Card 34. Hopefully someone will release a good card in the near near future.

Another concern about the ExpressCard is it allows the vendor to interface with either the USB 2.0 bus or the PCIe bus. Does anyone know which one the MacBook Pro interfaces with? If it is USB 2.0 I will be very disappointed.

I for one am VERY disspointed that Apple didn’t release the MacBook Pro with FW800. I for one hope they release a 17 inch with FW800 soon. I know they are trying to segment their products but I personally think think they added that port to all their systems it would do a lot to speed adoption of the spec. I can’t imagine it would cost them that much to add to everything from the iMac to the Power Macs.
Gary

[Erik Lindahl]

I read an intervju about the abcense of FW800 on the MacBook Pro and the answer was simple: Intel don’t do that at the moment. They don’t have a motherboard with FW800 on it and doing a specialliced Mac-version of a motherboard was going up the price of the final product.

Apple sees the “grand market” for sales and they actually are OK with USB2-drives (look at your standard PC). A few of us REALLY would like to see FW800 and it’s sad Apple left us out there

[George Loch]

After the initial shock, I came to realize that FW800 was not agreat loss. I think eSata will be the immediate future anyway.

-gl

[Gary Taylor]

I not saying they aren’t great systems. I just think Apple could have made my life alot easier by including a couple of FW800 ports.

I did find this PCIe card from SIIG for sale by Dell. I would have done the link in TinyURL but the last time I tried TinyURL here at the Cow it didn’t work.

https://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=A0597378&Page=productlisting.aspx&spagenum=1&items_per_page=50&orderby=&sortdirection=&image_flag=True&show_summary=True&category_id=&brandid=127&mnfsku=&SearchType=&Pageb4Search=&ModelSelection=&iCompatid=&selectiontypeids=&l=en&c=us&cs=19&SubmitSearch=&servicetag=&ManufactSelection=&ModelName=&category_name=&RPU=&reset=True&k=&mnf=&prst=&prEnd=&InStock=&refurbished=&fe

This is a 1394b card.

https://www.xterasys.com/e94b.htm

Gary

[George Loch]

The problem with that card is it’s Express 54 (meaning 54mm wide) which will not work in the MBP’s Express 34 slot.

That may be the biggest limitation with the slot for expansion purposes.

-gl

[Gary Taylor]

Hi George,
I didn’t notice that but you are right that it wouldn’t work. From what I understand, the ExpressCard 54 narrows down to the 34’s size where it connects so maybe someone could make an external adapter.

I think you are also right about that possibly being a future problem with the MacBook Pro. At this point I don’t see much besides portability that makes the Macbooks better than the iMacs for editing.
Gary

[George Loch]

[Gary Taylor] “I think you are also right about that possibly being a future problem with the MacBook Pro. At this point I don’t see much besides portability that makes the Macbooks better than the iMacs for editing.”

Well, yes and no. The iMac *may* be better than the MBP in stock form for DV editing due to it’s dual FW ports (Not sure if that will still ensure the ability to reliably capture from a DV deck to a FW drive or not). However, the MBP will have the potential to connect faster storage while the iMac never will. I am confident that we will see eSATA in the Express 34 form. therefore, I would still prefer the MBP as an editing solution if presented with the pair. I do think the iMac duo will make an excellen value for a 1 man DV editing station…especially considering you can run the complete FCS suite of tools on it. A $1,500 20″ Duo is really a bargain for that scenario.

-gl

[George Loch]

There are two manufactures that are working on Express 34 SATA2 cards for the MBP. One of them is nearly ready with it.

So, rest assured that there *will* be options fro the MBP and we will soon not even care that FW800 has gone the way of other flash in the pan technologies.

-gl