[James Bayliss-smith]

So I’ve done some more research and I thought I had decided on this card from Sonnet: TEMPO SATA PRO

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html

but then I saw this advice from you David,

Get your express card from Firmtek. There are many expres cards on the market, but only a few that work reliably on a Macbook/Macbook Pro. https://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/seritek2sm2e.html

Is this still valid it was from 3 years ago?

Cheers

[James Bayliss-smith]

Hi David (or anyone out there!) I’ve been doing a little more research prompted by your excellent advice and I came to the realization that I have a ExpressCard/34 slot on my MacBook Pro at work. The RAID enclosure I have been looking at has a eSata connection so does that now make my proposed RAID 5 set up viable?

If so I will need to buy a eSata to ExpressCard/34 slot converter. Any recommendations? (I’ll look myself but of the top of your head)

Newbie question: can I daisy chain firewire 800 through eSata connected drives?

All the best

James

[James Bayliss-smith]

[David Roth Weiss] “If a hard drive fails, a FW800 RAID simply may or may not rebuild itself properly.”

Hi thanks David, that is the sort of info that makes me stand up and listen! I appreciate your advice. Is this the case for RAID 1 over firewire 800. I could live with 4TB of space with the same set up.

If RAID 1 is ok, is it still prudent to buy an extra drive when I buy all the others so that I can replace any potential failed drive with an exact copy or is this not so significant with RAID 1?

Cheers in advance,

James

[James Bayliss-smith]

Hi David thanks for the info. I totally understand that there are better, faster products more reliable products out there. I am really seeking advice on my specific ultra budget solution. If I don’t get a cheap one I don’t get one. Simple as. So I’m wanting to find out if my specific solution will work or not.

You speak about reliability. Do you refer to disk failure or efficiency of user experience. I’ll only be editing DVCPro for the foreseeable future and it is can be used mainly as a back up. I could easily get away with not even using it for editing. I edit short news pieces so I can just edit them right here on my laptop (MacBook Pro 2009) and backup the footage up onto the RAID. I chose RAID 5 because it has the least redundancy so I get more back-up for my buck so to speak.

If using RAD 5 means a few dropped frames here and there I can live with that. But if I fundamentally should not be using a RAID 5 disk array over fire wire then that is a different situation. Is there the same issue with a RAID 1 set up? It would be a pity to loose those two TB but I could live with that.

I’m really keen to do this inexpensively or my work will just tell me to back up re-useable archive to tape then re-capture as I need it. (we shoot on P2) I’m keen to build a digital archive then use FCPX to manage this archive and use it for editing. RAID 5 (in a stand alone unit) seemed the way to go with my limited budget. Perhaps RAID 1?

Any more thoughts much appreciated,

James

[James Bayliss-smith]

Thanks for your advice David. Can you clarify the difference between software and hardware configurations. Obviously hardware is when you have hard drives built into a tower and then set up as a raid array. My set up would be using a special enclosure to connect the drives that, as far as I know, does not need any software to run it just switches on the back. Also my main reason for wanting raid 5 is so that everything is backed up with minimum redundancy. 6gb out of 8gb worth of drives. Also when you talk about reliability are you referring to disk failure. Are you saying that disks are more likely to fail in my proposed set up? I thought the whole benefit of raid 5 (or any raid for that matter) is the ease of replacing a disc should one fail. I have no thunderbolt on my iMac or MacBook pro that I will be editing on. Thanks, j

[James Bayliss-smith]

Thanks for your advice but I still can’t add a clip and make it join the end of a secondary storyline once I’ve laid it down to the timeline. Dragging straight down from the browser it will happily join the end of the secondary storyline as you suggest but if I use a connect edit Q then it doesn’t do it. I then have to select all the clips in the secondary storyline (the whole track effectively) then select the new clip and then ‘create storyline’ so I have to use drag and drop if I want to lay clips down in the way you suggest using a secondary storyline. They need a shortcut for ‘connect to secondary storyline’. Any way I will proceed with dragging and dropping.

So to take it back to the original debate about how to cut music videos, would editing the pictures in the main storyline be easier or just learn to drag and drop. I fear this will slow me down

[James Bayliss-smith]

Okay I got it now but I still don’t understand what you mean by dragging. I need to select the clip and also the secondary story line I want (by selecting the grey bar at the top NOT dragging) I then command G.

All good but…..

So something strange is happening. I have a time line with a music track as the Primary storyline. I then have 10 clips connected to the primary storyline as a connected secondary story line.

Each time I add a clip I am using the range tool to select the bit of music I want to overlay the clip on to then hitting Q to make it a connected clip.

I am then selecting the new clip and the group of clips joined as a secondary storyline and hitting command G to add my new clip to that storyline.

So far so good

But…. on the first clip of the secondary storyline I have a fade from black 3 frames long. Every time I try to add the new clip I just laid, on to that secondary storyline the whole secondary storyline ripples back two frames (not three)

Why is this. If I delete the transition from the beginning then the sequence does not behave this way when I am adding new clips to my secondary storyline.

Is this a bug or my workflow? Am I missing something here? Surely it cannot be the case that you have to wait until the end of the edit to ad transitions for fear of messing up the sync.

Thanks I hope that made sense

[James Bayliss-smith]

[Simon Ubsdell] “It’s pretty easy to combine the clips from one secondary into another by dragging from one to the other and once they’re in the same storyline you can roll all you want. Would that not work in this case?”

Sorry how do you do this I can’t work it out, Thanks

[James Bayliss-smith]

Sure understood but how do you line up a clip to this audio. Are you saying you can put a marker at the halfway point between two frames then line up a clip to that?

[James Bayliss-smith]

[Simon Ubsdell] “you can trim the ends of shots without having to roll the edit points”

Hi guys, great thread. I’m currently editing a music promo. I’ve gone with Simon’s advice and laid down my music track as the primary story line. I started the other way and it threw me because I’m not familiar enough with the magnetic timeline. My only problem is I have now lost the ability to do a roll edit on the connected clips……

……Ok I just worked it out, I made them a storyline.

Previously the first clip in the sequence I put a cross dissolve on (fade from black) That seemed to make it a storyline as well at the time. So now I have two storylines above the primary storyline containing my audio. Can I link these two into one? I cannot roll between them. What is the best workflow? I’d like to fine edit as I go but if I have to keep making all these little storylines that don’t talk to each other very well just to do roll edit’s what’s the point?

Is this an argument to do it the otherway? (i.e. have the music track as a connected clip not the primary storyline)

I love this programme but it keeps throwing me man!