Wrong Machine?

I have a friend who's using a Power Mac with the following stats: MAC OS X - Version 10.4.8; Processor - 867 MHz Power PC G4; 2 MB L3 Cache; Memory - 1.5 GB SDRAM; Final Cut Pro - Version 5.0.4

Upon playing back the unedited clips, it kind of skips, but the sound is untouched. We were succesfully editing and playing back without problems for awhile then we started getting Drop Frame warnings. I turned off Mirror, closed unneeded sequences, and even used the smallest timeline setting. I also reduced the canvas image size. I suspect that the problem lies in the fact that my friend didn't get a dedicated drive for the footage.

Is it possible to retrieve the edited footage in spite of the problem? Can adding an external drive at this point do any good? Are we up the creek? Thank you.

his machine is a bit "gimpy" but no, youre still in DECENT shape.

your biggest problem is that youre using your boot drive to both capture and work from, AND its FILLING UP - thats why you used to work fine, but now youre seeing issues. get a second internal sata drive (im not sure if that g4 model has internal sata connections or not) or get a good external firewire drive (cost an average of $250-$500 to start).

copy all your media to that, set it as your scratch disk, and you'll be much happier.

do a serach of the forum for "firewire drive" and we have listed good brands a number of times.

you can also, do a pci/esata situation, but they are somewhat more complicated and a bit more costly...

You can put up to three additional 3.5" drives inside that G4 system. I suggest a couple of 500 GB drives and a internal SATA card. There is no native support inside that box for additional drives past the second one as an ATA-100 drive, but SATA drives work real nice off that systems PCI bus. As for cost factor, not really more costly, either. You don't need an external enclosure but just add a SATA controller card and some cables.

Firewire drives will untimately give you problems, from my experience and I recommend SATA exclusively now.

keep in mind daniel, that just about any advice you'll get is based on someones "personal experience" i agree that sata will perform better, but you cant beat firewire for simplicity and portability.

john foley and i butt heads about this all the time. but myself, and another fellow here, derek mok have been using firewire since the late 90's with little to no issues... but IF you choose that route, search the forum and get one from a good established manufacturer that various happy owners suggest.

however by far, the best drive soultion (better than firewire or internal sata) ive seen for the money is the caldigit svrduo (www.caldigit.com). you can get a 500 gig, hot-swap, dual drive box with a pci esata card for just over $500 - call them and tell them what mac you have and they will send the appropriate card.

wayne granzin Wrote:
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> keep in mind daniel, that just about any advice
> you'll get is based on someones "personal
> experience" i agree that sata will perform
> better, but you cant beat firewire for simplicity
> and portability.
>
> john foley and i butt heads about this all the
> time. but myself, and another fellow here, derek
> mok have been using firewire since the late 90's
> with little to no issues...

Yes, well a good friend of mine just had another catastrophy with a Firewire drive holding all their content. Perhaps you are very good with Firewire or have developed a mantra that seems to work.

The fact that Apple has never supported Firewire for Log and Capture or Editing, should say something. I am very glad that you have not experienced a major HIT but others have and still continue to do so.

My position must remain that Firewire drives are a problem waiting to happen and as such should be trusted very lightly. My problems with finiky Firewire drives has ceased!