[Mitchji]

Hi Kevin,

[Kevin Monahan] “How cool is that? I think this means that current Mac Pro guys can upgrade to Clovertown procs when they come out, no?”

Because Mac’s hold there value so well and because Apple gets a much better price on CPU’s than a user could I don’t think that will be cost effective. To me this means it is a slam dunk that Apple will be releasing Mac Pro’s with Dual Quad Core Chips by January or February at the latest. At that point sell your Duo system on Ebay and replace it with a Quad Core model.

Toms Hardware did some pretty exhaustive benchmarks on the Quad Core Chips here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/10/four_cores_on_the_rampage/

Some very brief excerpts:
“Compared with the already not-too-shabby Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme, the Core 2 Quadro can give performance a mighty tweak…”

“The future belongs to HD content. If we take our benchmarks into consideration you can no longer get by without a quad-core processor. Test results with the software packages Main Concept with H.264 encoding and the WMV-HD conversion make this very clear. We noticed performance jumps of up to 80% when compared to the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed (2.66 GHz)…

” For me, working with one of the first quad core systems was amazing. No matter how many applications you run at the same time, the system reacts to user commands quickly. Some applications require half the time to finish tasks. To me, it’s like being catapulted a year into the future and is unlike the past few years when computing power increased only marginally. Intel pumped out 30% more performance with Core 2 Duo and will double that again with Core 2 Quadro soon.”

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

[JoStand] “I can go with PCI X or PCIe”

Hi,

If you go PCIe you will probably be able to continue to use it when you purchase newer Mac’s. Also for that reason resale value should be higher if you ever want to sell it.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

[Scott Davis] “Wayne, Apple is tough to get deals on when buying new. Prices are pretty much the same everywhere.”

Hi,

Not exactly. Amazon frequently has large $150 to $200 rebates with no sales tax and no shipping. Apple, Smalldog, Expercom and at least one other company sell refurbs (full waranty) for about a 20% discount.

Here are some links you can check for discounts:
https://dealmac.com/categories/Computer/Apple-Systems/41.html
https://www.macprices.com/desktops.shtml
https://www.macprices.com/refurblaptops.shtml
https://www.macprices.com/powermactracker.shtml
https://www.macprices.com/macbookpro.shtml

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

[Nathan Troester] “You should be able to capture either tapes.

Are you wanting to automate/control your decks to tranfer the footage? For example, set your capture length to 60 minutes, walk away, and come back when it’s done?

If your tapes don’t have time code, that won’t be possible. You can set the Device Control in Log and Capture to “Non-Controlable Device” and capture with the “Now” button. You’ll have to stop the capture when it’s done.
If the tapes have timecode and the TC drops, you can disable “Abort capture on dropped frames” in the User Preferences.”

Hi Nathan,

Batch capture, setting the capture length and having FCP automatically capture exactly 60 minutes is not necessary.

As long as I can capture the entire tape (which doesn’t sound like it will be a problem) I can do what I need.

When I captured through the Canopus FCP never saw the dropped frames or Timecode break. I was hoping IO would work the same but turning off “Abort Capture…” is fine.

Thank You Very Much!

Mitch

[Mitchji]

[Mitchji]

Hi,

It can be done with the following, still in Beta so a few rough edges.

Complete article is here (excerpts below):
https://www.macworld.com/news/2006/04/06/parallels/index.php

Dual-booting isn

[Mitchji]

[JeremyG] “Alright, now what do I do? I will probably go with Hitachi as it’s what I know and am used to, are there any in those sizes that I need to look out for that have SSC enabled?”

Hi,

Barefeats had a list of models with and without SSC. I’m not sure if its current.

Firmtek has this list (probably not a totally current list since it doesn’t mention 500 gig drives):
https://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-1ve4/
At this time, the following Hitachi Deskstar hard drives have the SSC feature disabled, and are compatible with the SeriTek/1VE4 host adapter:

* Model 7K400 (400GB)

[Mitchji]

[Ed] “SeriTek’s SATA card(s) also have an SSC Chip
on them.”

Hi Ed,

According to barefeats and amug the Seritek cards DO NOT support SSC:
https://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/firmtek/1eve4/
FirmTek has four 64-bit SATA host adapter models available. They include the SeriTek/1eVE4 ($139.95) which has four eSATA (Type I) external ports, the SeriTek/1VE4 ($139.95) which has four SATA (Type L) external ports, the SeriTek/1VE2+2 ($139.95) which has two internal and two external SATA (Type L) ports and the FirmTek SeriTek/1V4 ($119.95) which has four SATA (Type L) internal ports. All of these host adapters work very well. You simply make your choice based on whether you want internal, external or both types of connections. The SeriTek/1eVE4 is identical to the SeriTek/1VE4 with the one exception that the 1eVE4 has external eSATA type “I” connectors. They both use the same exact firmware.

Controller & Hard Drives
The FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 SATA host adapter utilizes the Intel 31244 PCI-X to Serial ATA Controller chip. It provides a dedicated DMA channel for each SATA port, supports hot-plug SATA drives and is compliant with both SATA 1.0 and SATA II including Native Command Queuing (NCQ). In addition, the Intel 31244 PCI Expansion ROM enables boot-up capability in the SeriTek/1eVE4 host adapter. The one issue with the Intel 31244 chip is that it does not support Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). This means that SATA hard drives which have SSC turned on will need to be configured to turn SSC off in order to work with the SeriTek/1eVE4 host adapter. Most SATA hard drives currently in production have SSC turned off by default. However, those models that have SSC turned on usually have a method to turn SSC off so that they will work properly with the FirmTek host adapter. I have used Seagate 300GB 7200.8, all models of Maxtor hard drives, Hitachi drives with SSC turned off, and Western Digital 250GB SATA hard drives with the FirmTek SeriTek/1eVE4 host adapter with great success.

BTW If you have a PC (with a SATA port) you can turn off SSC on Hitachi and Seagate drives. You can’t do that with the Western Digital Drives that have SSC.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

Hi Bob,

I saved the following (I think it also applies to the Seritek controllers) from a Web Post, probably
https://hdforindies.com/

“In the course of researching a hard drive purchase, I got the following information
from Seagate presales support:

“All Seagate 7200.9 SATA drives with the Part Numbers that end in the suffix -301 have
SSC enabled and are not compatible with the Apple controllers. (as mentioned previously
here – SSC (Spread Spectrum Clocking) is not compatible with the Mac onboard SATA.
Seagate also has a PC/windows utility to disable this but not a Mac version of it.-Mike)

All other suffixes other than -301 on the Part Numbers are compatible
( -302, -303,-401, -402 etc).

Here is a list of part number with SSC disabled for ST3500641AS:
9BD148-302
9BD148-303
9BD148-401”

I ended up purchasing the hard drive from OWC, and it works fine. (OWC noted last fall
when this issue first came up they disable SSC on their stock of 7200.9 drives-Mike)
There is that occasional drive sleepiness that occurs when the computer wakes up
from sleep, but the wait doesn’t last 90+ seconds. 20 seconds tops.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

Hi,

An iMac (G5 or Intel) could be a good choice. A friend got an iMac G5 for location editing. This is what he had to say:
“I just got my iMac today – infinitely faster than any powerbook I could have bought at three times the cost. I got the cheapest I could find: a new 1.6gHz 17″ with a CDRW/DVD and 256 RAM on eBay. I upgraded to 1GB RAM and got the iLugger bag.”

and:
Can you capture DV with the G5 iMac to a drive other than the boot drive (one firewire bus)? If so are there any problems or tricks?
“Absolutely no problems. I upgraded the imac’s drive to a 320gb and could capture to that drive but I have a firewire drive workflow. I capture to a FWHD on the iMac. I use a Buslink 6 port FW hub on the imac. I really like the imac G5.

This is the bag he got for location use:
https://luggerbags.com/G5.htm

Best Wishes,

Mitch