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Switching to FCP – Hardware question
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I’m confused. Why would I need the FW bus card if I purchased the Powerbook? Doesn’t the Powerbook already come with FW?
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The FW bus card gives you another complete FW bus.
The FW “recipe for headaches” is derived from trying to cram a whole lot of data both ways across the one FW bus that comes on all Macs.
The card gives you another whole pathway to send data down so that you can avoid such problems as sync loss and dropped frames, among other FW headaches, that happen when one tries to push data in two different directions across a single FW bus.
Yes, Macs come with several FW ports, but they all go through the same internal hardware. It’s like putting two linebackers on a city bus and having them try to pass one another in the aisle. Put ’em on separate busses, and there are far fewer problems.
Towers don’t have as many of these issues because they can have a separate internal SATA drive, or if you go the higher end route, dedicated I/O cards for passing media. If you wanted to use FW on a tower, you should also invest in a FW card for the tower, as well.
debe
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[debe] “you are stuck using FW drives and a deck or camera on the same FW bus. That’s a recipe for all sorts of headaches.”
It’s true that having a seperate bus for a drive and deck is recommended, but I have not seen all the problems that you have with running both a firewire drive and deck off of the same bus, as I’ve been using that set up for two years and have never felt the need to add another FW card. The Powerbook also comes with two FW ports, but since both the FW 400 & 800 ports are on the same bus, the FW 800 port slows to the slowest device on the bus. This means if you have a deck and a drive attached, the FW 800 port slows to FW 400. So if you need to hook up two devices, the Powerbooks two ports are essentially the same as the iMacs. If you want to use the PBs FW 800 port you need to buy another FW bus, which adds cost to the extra $800. If an editor is only using DV then FW 800 is overkill anyway. I still don’t understand how having a faster procesor, faster hard drive, faster memory, faster frontside bus and possibly a faster graphics card makes an iMac something to futz around with. Again, I disagree with your assesment of the performance of the single FW bus. It seems to me that if the Powerbook had the same processor, memory, etc. specs that the iMac has, PB owners would be thrilled.
Thanks,
Tim -
My FW bus card cost me $89.95 at weibetech.com. I don’t know where you’re shopping! (and I got free shipping, too!)
Yes, it’s true that some folks use one FW bus and have no problems, but for every one of you, I’d wager there are at least five folks who DO have the problems I’ve outlined.
This is why the use of FW drives is not approved by Apple. They can’t be made stable for all. FW drives are inherently unreliable. It works for some, but not for all, and there’s no real way to explain why it works for some but not all that I’ve ever heard.
I don’t disbelieve that you, personally, do not have problems with your setup. As a professional, I can’t recommend to any other professional that he/she work that way, because it’s not a system that can be made reliable.
I certainly don’t want the original poster to come back and say, “hey, I’m dropping frames like crazy, and I can’t output to tape in sync, what’s wrong?!?!”, because then my answer would have to be, “oh, are you using FW drives on a single bus? That isn’t reliable”, after I told him/her that it should work just fine! That’s just mean!
debe
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I use a G5 iMac at home with a G-RAID firewire drive, footage is captured from a J30 via FW, I have found no issues at all over the lsat 5 months it edits DV very well and you gets loads of RT!
Steve Connor
Cardinal HDPlease fill in your profile – it helps US to help YOU!
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debe,
can you give me a link to a sata bus card? looking to go this route for dvcprohd editing. thanks!
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https://www.wiebetech.com/products/cardbus.php
This page has both FW PCMCIA cards and at the bottom is a SATA PCMCIA card.
If the link doesn’t work, just go to http://www.wiebetech.com and in the Products Finder dropdown in the upper right hand corner of the page, go to the bottom of the list, in the Miscellaneous category, and choose CardBus host cards.
Good luck!
debe
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https://www.wiebetech.com/products/cardbus.php
This page has both FW PCMCIA cards and at the bottom is a SATA PCMCIA card.
If the link doesn’t work, just go to http://www.wiebetech.com and in the Products Finder dropdown in the upper right hand corner of the page, go to the bottom of the list, in the Miscellaneous category, and choose CardBus host cards.
Good luck!
debe
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Steve,
I’m sure you are aware that the G-RAID is FireWire 800 being slowed down to FireWire 400 speed since you are pumping data off the same bus as the JDeck. Your win lies in that since you do have a higher quality deck, the speed is maintained at FW400, plenty for DV. Many people use a cheap camcorder that are only at FW200 speed. The cheap camcorder daisy chained to any FW device is going to cause problems slowing it down to FW200 speed, whereas a better deck and FireWire drive combo will give better results. This is just one of the reasons some people have success with FireWire and some don’t.Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Seminar!
fcpworld.com -
[Tim O’Grady] “. Talking strickly specs and presumably the ability to run FCP, the iMac seems to me to be the better machine.”
No
without multiple independent FW ports you will bottle neck your system by only having one FW channel.
no expansion, no portability.Gary Adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation
Chicago, IL USA
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