[Jeff Carpenter]

Go re-download all the drivers. Sony had a lot of problems with Snow Leopard and they had to put out new drivers to fix the problems.

I think that was mostly related to the built-in chip readers in the older Macbook Pros and not external readers, but even so, I know they had to make new drivers for Snow Leopard so you’ll probably benefit from those if you don’t have them already.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m not familiar with those, but that’s something at least.

If you have tons of time I’d suggest re-installing your OS and software. If that doesn’t seem like fun you should call Apple and at least you have something to report to them now and can ask what that means. Perhaps they’ll have a solution for you.

(Although I fear that “re-instal final cut” may be their solution since it’s the fastest way to get you off the phone!)

[Jeff Carpenter]

I personally do almost everything in 24p these days.

But honestly, for a funeral, I’d just suggest using what you know best. If you’ve used 24p and are comfortable with editing and shooting it, go for it. But if it’s your first time, I’d stick to 60i for this job and play with 24p on your own time.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Does this happen after a restart with NO other programs runnnig?

If so, use the spotlight search to bring up ‘Activity Monitor.’ It shows all the running processes. You can sort by processor usage or RAM usage. Try both and see if something is taking up a lot of processor or RAM use.

You didn’t change anything recently like sign up for an online backup service or seomthing else that would run in the background, did you?

Basically, my gut reaction guess is that something is using your computer behind your back. See if you can track it down.

Do you have AppleCare? It comes with a DVD that has a diagnostic program on it. Run that too if you have it.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I guess I didn’t write that clearly, what I meant was that you’d lose speed with Parallels.

Yeah, with Bootcamp hard drive space and re-booting time are the only things you lose.

If you only want Windows to work with files inside of the Windows partition, you’re fine. But if you want Windows to be able to work with files on the OS X half of the drive, or the RAID, or any firewire drives, then you need to buy Mac Drive 8 which will allow Windows to read and write to the Mac’s HFS+ formatted drives.

https://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/

[Jeff Carpenter]

I don’t know much about my friend’s drobo. I do know he shoots Canon HDV and captures it as HDV. (I capture Sony HDV into Apple Intermediate Codec. It takes up a lot more hard drive space but it renders a lot faster. So I trade drive space for speed. He goes the other way and uses less space but his compressions take longer.)

As for Windows, it really depends on what you want it for. If you’re running something really computer-intensive like a CAD program or video compressor I’d suggest using Boot Camp. You’d have to re-start the computer to use it but then you’d have full power when working. If you’re talking about something like a tax program then I’d suggest either Fusion or Parallels which will run Windows inside of OS X.

But in that case you’re sharing RAM and processor cycles and hard drive space to run this entire other OS. So that’s why I’m asking the “why” question. I’d want a VERY good reason for why I’m crippling my brand-new computer’s speed. If it’s something you HAVE to run in Windows then that’s the way it has to be. A lot of folks have no choice so that’s what they do. But if it’s something you can buy a Mac version of, that’s going to be the way to go if you want your computer working as fast as you can.

So many things can be bought for the Mac…Word, Photoshop, even the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar on macs all sync with Exchange services if you need them too. If you have the current versions, Adobe has a way to trade PC versions in for Mac versions. Give them a call if you have a lot of Adobe software and they’ll explain it to you.

But I know how it is…my mom runs Windows in her Mac just for Word Perfect because that’s what she’s used to! Yeah, she could get Word or Pages, but she likes Word Perfect!

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m not really clear on what you’ve done.

You said you’ve been installing all your software, but then you said you can’t get the OS to install? One part of that story can’t be correct.

Can you explain the steps you’ve done since you put in the new hard drive in more detail?

[Jeff Carpenter]

That’s it, but remember I gave you a VERY robust system there.

This gets a LOT cheaper if you do things with 1 TB drives instead of 2 TB drives. Look at the kind of projects you do. How much space do they take up? How long do you need to keep them on your computer? Also, for you does it make more sense to back up to 500 GB firewire drives instead of Blu-Ray? Then you can go back to old projects faster AND it may be cheaper than buying a lot of Blue-Ray disks! Compare prices there and consider that as an alternate idea.

My own setup is like what you’ve described but has about half the storage space in every part of it. I bought it all earlier when prices were higher so I suggested more for you. Perhaps you don’t need all that? If you can get by with less, don’t overspend. Cut it all down to smaller drives.

Some other random notes:

* I have a friend who edits HDV video off of a Drobo. I agree with you, it seems too slow to me, I only use it for backup. But he seems to get by fine! So I don’t know what to tell you…I don’t do it but I know someone who does. So you’ll have to make up your own mind there. Maybe Google can get you more stories of others who’ve tried it.

* The Drobo is actually a TRIPLE-fault protection. You have (1) the footage on your raid (2) the footage on your Drobo, and (3) the footage on another Drobo drive…it automatically keeps everything twice to prevent data loss if one drive fails.

* What are you using Windows for? My answer on how to deal with Windows changes A LOT depending on what you’re using it for.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Processors are too fast already. I have a 3 year old Mac Pro and when I render video the computer only works at about 80% speed most of the time. It just can’t get information off the hard drives any faster than that!

So unless you’re in a situation with a fibre connection to a fast server, I would not worry about getting the fastest processor at this time. Put the money into other stuff.

Also, be sure to look at the refurbished Macs on Apple.com. If you can wait for a refresh, watch that area for even better deals! Otherwise, I think this one looks great right now:

Refurbished Mac Pro 2.26GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon
Two 2.26GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors
6GB (6x1GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC memory
640GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200 rpm
18x SuperDrive (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512MB GDDR3 memory
$2,799

That leaves you $2,200 for other stuff which you’re going to need to spend on storage space. You ahve a couple of things to consider:

* RAIDING drives together for speed will help a lot. Can you put 3 different 2 TB drives in the Mac to make one big super-fast 6 TB drive?

* That more than doubles the chance of drive failure. What’s your backup plan? Perhaps get a Drobo unit and put 4 different 2 TB drives in it? (Or their super model and put FIVE drives in it?) And use that to back-up footage? Drobo is a pain to make it work with Time Machine. Get a program like Super Duper or Carbon cloner to back up footage to the Drobo automatically. (Or just do it manually.)

* Even if the Drobo is backing up your media files, I’d suggest getting a 1 TB firewire drive to use with Time Machine to back up your Macintosh HD. That way you can restore a system from Time Machine if the main HD ever dies.

* You’re shooting on memory cards, so no tapes. What’s your long-term storage solution? An external Blu-Ray data drive, perhaps?

– – – – – –

Those are all things you have to conisder and have answers to first. Figure that out and THEN decide on the computer based on the money you have left over. (And maybe I’ve overestimated your storage needs…work out the math and figure out how much space you actually need.)

Make sure the computer has 4 or 6 GB of RAM and you should be fine. That’s the only thing I’d worry about in any modern Mac. Everything else will be fast enough, for sure.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Try one of these. They’re the 2 big names in Mac FTP programs.

Perhaps whatever problem you’re having won’t affect them.

https://fetchsoftworks.com/
https://www.panic.com/TRANSMIT/