powerbook work flow

I have been looking into purchasing a g4 powerbook with the idea of being to edit with FCP4 in SD DV mode. I understand that it is unadvisable to use the system drive for a capture scratch destination and that external drives are iffy also. So how do you edit using a g4 powerbook? I know that this topic has been discussed in the past but I am looking for some newer thoughts on the subject. Thanx Barry

> I understand that it is unadvisable to use the system drive for a capture
> scratch destination and that external drives are iffy also.

Not really. A small per centage of people recommend against using external drives, and strictly speaking they're not wrong (in so far as external drives are less stable than internal non-system drives or SATA RAID arrays) but I'd say a majority of us can use them without major problems. Just make sure you're using a reputable brand (not Lacie or Maxtor -- the death merchants), and make sure it's a FireWire drive, not USB. Format the drive properly before putting any files on it whatsoever, and any user of external drives must have a legitimate copy of DiskWarrior handy.

Thanx Derek, Why MUST I have Disk Warrior? Barry

Hi all.


Barry, first, do you want to buy a used or a new computer?

I ask this because, for the money, I would buy one of the new Intel Duo based Mac Books. The lowest model is currently priced at $1099. The lowest priced model that burns DVDs is $1299. Plus, the Intel based Mac Books are, from my personal research and research of others, are generally faster than the old Powerbooks, and in some cases/benchmark tests, four times as fast. You may want to do some research of your own.

Lastly, with Apple's Boot Camp software, you will have the best of both worlds, as you will be able to run both Mac OS X and Windows XP on the same computer.

I, and I'm sure a lot of others, have safely used their Powerbooks/Mac Books to capture and edit. Basically, I believe that if your system is set up properly, and you practice good disk management and maintenance, you should not have any problems, or, your problems should be minimized. Some people have had problems with external FireWire drives, and some swear by them. While it is always better to capture to an internal drive, you can safely capture to an external FireWire drive and use it as capture scratch.

Where my Powerbook is concerned, what I do is to capture to my external FireWire drive when I am on-site, and then download to my main machine when I'm at home. I built the external FireWire drive using a Maxtor 16 MB Cache UDMA 133 7200 RPM hard drive and a generic USB 2.0/FireWire 1394 external enclosure which uses the Oxford 911 chipset. To date, I have never had a problem with this setup.

If you do not already have an external FireWire drive, you can always buy a well known brand. If you are adventurous and want to save some money, you can build your own external FireWire solution. The money I saved was used to buy an even bigger hard disk for the enclosure.

If building your own external FireWire solution, make sure that the enclosure you purchase uses the Oxford 911 chipset, and has at least one fan to cool the drive. Also, it helps if the enclosure casing is aluminum, as it dissipates heat much better than other materials. Lastly, it also helps if the drive speed is at least 7200 RPM and that the cache is 16 MB.

To be quite honest, I have never captured to my Powerbook's system drive. Plus, the native drive is only 4200 RPM. I'm not even sure if this provides nearly enough bandwidth to maintain the 27Mbps that DV requires. Perhaps as a test, someday I will try it, just before I get ready to rebuild my machine with a newer version of OS X. I do not believe that capturing to the system drive is wise, since corruption can set in. What are other people's thoughts?

In closing, editing on a Powerbook G4 is possible, as plenty of people have done it. If you are buying a used Powerbook, you may want to think about spending a little more money and buying a Mac Book. This is just my opinion, plus I think you will be happier with a faster and more current machine.


I hope this information helped.


Take care.

-DH

Hi all.


Barry, while I have never had to use it (knock on wood), I have read many posts in this forum where Disk Warrior has saved people's bacon.

It is an extremely powerful hard disk tool that has bailed many people out of what seemed to be a hopeless disk solution, especially where irreplacible data is at risk.

Case and point, a friend of mine recently used Disk Warrior to rebuild another friend's hard disk index, etc. This hard disk contained every e-mail she had ever sent/received. Plus every help desk I know that works on Macs has Disk Warrior in their arsenal.


Take care.

-DH

On the older G4 PB's there is a PC card slot into which you can install an appropriate card ($50-70) with 800 and 400 FW connections. This, in combination with a reliable external hard drive (s) is a very stable system. This method allows deck connection to the rear FW PB port and media and backup drives to the separate PC card slot, avoiding deck-storage "confusion" in data transmission.
But, clearly, the new intel-based products seem to have the speed advantage.



FE Meek

Hi all.


Frank, to make sure I understand what you mean by deck-storage "confusion," do you mean the tranmission contention that is caused by FireWire deck and FireWire hard disk sending data down the same FireWire bus?

If not, please explain. I want to make sure I understand.


Thanks in advance.

-DH

DH
That is exactly what I mean. There are numerous issues, many talked about here, (check the search function), about the negative effects of having the deck and storage drives "daisy-chained" on the same FW port.
It's always better to separate these and the PC card will do just that on the older PB's.
I have had success with the method I described, but I suspect that there are other formulae for set ups. Perhaps some other, more discerning folks will chime in.
Good luck,
FE Meek



FE Meek