Pimp My MacBook Pro! – connection questions

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob O’Brien] “-Seagate External HD – USB”

USB external hard drives are not for editing video. FW400 is the minimum you want. If the drive has a FW400 or FW800 port use that.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob O’brien]

Thank Walter.

Since the laptop only has one firewire 400 port, that’s where I hook up my deck. The Seagate has both firewire 400 and USB2. Since USB2 is 480Mb/sec, isn’t it faster than firewire400?

Bob

[Jeff Carpenter]

No, USB2 is not suitable for video. You have a couple of options.

1) If the drive has 2 firewire ports, plug the deck into the drive with firewire and the drive into the computer with firewire.

2) If it only has 1 port, buy a firewire hub and plug the deck and the hard drive into the hub.

3) Buy an adapter cable and plug the hard drive’s Firewire 400 cable into the laptop’s firewire 800 port. They’re backwards compatable as long as you have a 400 to 800 cable. Then use the 400 port for the deck.

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob O’Brien] “Since USB2 is 480Mb/sec, isn’t it faster than firewire400?”

Burst speed only, not sustained. You can connect your deck to the back of the drive. Though the much better route is to get a FW800 drive.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob O’brien]

Shall do. Thanks guys!

Bob

[Editwizard1]

I’ve heard the same thing with FW vs. USB. Yes FW kicks USB in the throughput dept. But I’ve had great results from an external usb-powered Western Digital 60gig. The transfer rate is not fantastic – about 16MB/s but plenty for editing dv in the field. I’ve just cranked 3 different tv spots using just this setup while sitting comfortably in bed, at the car dealership waiting for an oil change, or at a coffee shop.

No, it doesn’t keep up with a firewire drive but since it’s usb-powered its completely portable. Now I wasn’t working in HD and it wasnt’ long-form but for short stuff without a ton of footage it works great. Multiple layers do need to be rendered but most everything plays back realtime just fine on my 15.4″ MBP Core Duo 2.16 w/2 GB ram.

I have never experienced a dropped-frame on capturing DV onto that drive.

Also, these are the type of projects where I can transfer them to and from our big MacPro system (by keeping all footage in a single folder) and finish editing there. But what a convenience to take some work with me or work on something in the field without carrying a huge heavy FW drive or looking for a power plug.

I’m not recommending this for your mainstay… you do need to keep higher performance drives but some of these usb’s are just so cheap for the occasional small-form use.

Best Buy has a 60gig on sale this Friday for $50.

[Wilsonedit]

A note about your external drive falling asleep – you will want to set your computer to NEVER go to sleep in your Energy Settings. I have found this is the only way to keep external drives from falling asleep.

[Will Salley]

Also check to see if FCP is using your Mac HD as a cache drive. Usually this presents no problems for short lengths as it can buffer this data, but can sometimes result in dropped frames when the drive can’t keep up with request from the OS, FCP and whatever else may be runnng.

System Info – G5/Dual 2 – 10.4.8 – QT v7.1.3 – 8GB ram – Radeon 9800Pro – External SATA Raid – Decklink Extreme – Wacom 6×8

[Bob O’brien]

Thank you again to all who took the time to help.

I transferred everything to a Lacie D2 drive with Firewire 800. The timeline seems MUCH more responsive when jumping through it… no doubt about it.

I bought the Seagates for archiving purposes, just didn’t know the USB2 had such limitations.

Bob

[Walter Biscardi]

[Bob O’Brien] “I transferred everything to a Lacie D2 drive with Firewire 800. The timeline seems MUCH more responsive when jumping through it… no doubt about it.”

That’s the big secret with FCP. Processor speed is actually less important than drive speed when editing. Processors render faster. Faster drives give you more realtime and better editing responsiveness.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters