[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

[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

[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

[Gary Taylor]

That is an interesting question. I asked on another forum if it would be possible to use the PP2 software renderer when working with the Axio Le on another forum here at the Cow but I never got an answer. Would Matrox really have disabled the software renderer in PP2?
Gary

[Gary Taylor]

Thanks for that update. I was actually thinking of the dual core Athlon64 X2 processors but that is good news about your early results with the Intel’s dual core chips.
I thought Cineform hadn’t validated the dual processor Xeon chips for ingest. It is interesting that a single dual core Pentium 4 would work when a dual processor Xeon wouldn’t. Can’t wait to hear more.
Thanks,
Gary

[Gary Taylor]

I usually buy my memory for Crucial but with these low end Macs I don’t know if it is really such a big deal. Apple only charges 300 bucks to have system come maxed out at 2 gig. I could see some people deciding to have Apple provide the memory.
Just a thought.
Gary

[Gary Taylor]

I could see alot of potential to using LE assuming there is reasonable real time. That is one of several reasons I am looking AJA’s Kona 3 right now.

With an AXIO is it possible to do real time editing with the card and then force a software render at a higher bit depth for the final edit? If so this could be a good workflow.
Gary

[Gary Taylor]

I’ll second what Bob on the insurance issue. In just about every State an insurance company will underwrite your policy and determine your premiums based on your health history. This means that a small company can be quote astronomical rates if one employee or dependent gets ill.

This can become a critical problem when it comes time to renew your policy as an independent contractor or as a small group. Depending on State laws and the insurance companies’ policies each families premium could increase to thousands of dollars per month when someone gets sick. Then your insurance doesn’t look very much like insurance.

In a very few State’s like Maryland the risk is pooled accross all groups in the State regardless of size and health history. Check your own State’s rules to see how you are affected if someone gets sick. I don’t think losing 25% of your income at the salary you are quoting is unreasonable is there is good benefit package. If it was 50% it would be a different story but to have some measure of protection for you and your family I could see it being a fair trade.

I am personally not very happy with insurance companies right now because of some of the issues discussed here. In fact my mother is fighting her insurance company because they are playing fast and loose now that my Sis has finally gotten a kidney transplant after being on a list for ten years. In a sentence I don’t think many of them are nice people.
Hope that helps,
Gary

[Gary Taylor]

I don’t think you are going to find many of the gurus here who work with Final Cut and the Kona cards using the new Quads. Many of those guys aren’t as brave as you are and are still sitting on the fence happily using their older systems. Gary Adcock did report that he was able to get one additional channel of DVCProHD usiing the Kona with his dual 2.5 at the end of the thread below.
Hope that helps,
Gary

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?univpostid=868125&forumid=8&postid=868514&pview=t

[Gary Taylor]

Hi Jason,
That would be a great comparison to make quantitively. Have you actually run Marco’s test to see what the white count etc would be for Prospect HD? I know Marco’s site hasn’t been updated for a while but it would be interesting to have an objective measure.

I certainly wasn’t trying to imply there was anything wrong with Prospect HD. It was just that praise was a little ambiguous. It certainly appears to be a killer package if you can afford it, and now that they are supporting the Xena LH I am really seeing a system in my future. I just waiting to find out if there if it will be possible to do ingest on a system with a single dual core processor.
Thanks,
Gary