7200 rpm firewire 800 powered by Mac?

9/20/05 2:22 PM

I want to record HD DVCPro50 1080-24p on location direct into FCP5 using a Powerbook. The trouble is that Apple only supplies 5400 rpm drives for Powerbooks. Does anyone know of a portable 7200rpm - and at least 120gig - firewire drive which doesn't need a power supply other than the Mac, which would be suitable?

Or do you guys out there have any other bright ideas?

Many thanks

Harry.

Harry Bromley-Davenport

good luck, doing that on a powerbook! - especially with an internal drive...

ok then -- how about an external drive?

The good folks at Panasonic say there is no reason this can't be done provided I can run FCP properly.

Surely there is someone out there who runs FCP on a Powwerbook???

Best

H.

Harry Bromley-Davenport

yeah, i run FCP on a powerbook all the time with no problems. but at the DV level - NOT DVCproHD! a powerbook (with an external firewire drive) does reasonably well with fcp - but rendering and exporting are PAINFULLY SLOW!

i cant even imagine doing HD 1080 work on a powerbook. i bet the little baby would just melt!

Hmmm.

Maybe I'll have to buy batteries and an inverter to run a desktop Mac, then.

But Jan Crittenden at Panasonic says it can be done on a Powerbook with no big deal provided I can get the 7200 rpm drive.

Anyway, thanks, Wayne, for the reply.

Anyone else with any ideas?

i dont think the title you gave this thread is going to get the attention of all the HD gurus here. i would repost it with the following title:

"HD DVCPro50 1080-24p on a powerbook???"

Well, for DVCPRO HD you will need a FW800 drive. As far as I know the powerbook doesn't have a FW800 port...and I don't know if they make a PCIMIA (whatever the abbrev) FW800 card.

There are plenty of Fw400 drives that run at 7200 rpm out there. But are they capable of DVCPRO HD? Not in my experience....

[www.wiebetech.com]

I'd check to see if this works with a powerbook though...

Trans intl
[www.transintl.com]
Has 60 GB 2.5 inch 7200 rpm drive that you could put into a fw 400 box that would be bus powered, those box' cost about $40.00
[eshop.macsales.com]



------------------------
Dean

"When I see you floating down the gutter I'll give you a bottle of wine."
Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica.

There are a couple of Powerbooks that run 800 firewire.

I'm going to re-post using Wayne's title.

Thanks all,

H

Harry Bromley-Davenport

FWIW I have run a DVCPROHD 720p 60 project on my G4 powerbook with 1 gig RAM. I didn't even attempt to capture it, although they say you can!

Of course it is slower than one of my G5's, and I wouldn't want to cut intensively on it, but it does playback without dropped frames.

Again, that was 720p... so I'm not sure about 1080p.

It's PCMCIA. "Pulse Code Modulation Central Intelligence Agency".

clarence, i really hope you were kidding about that.

Personal Computer Memory Card International Association

I like Clarence's answer better.

:^)

Hey, thanks for all the suggestions. Keep them coming

Best

Harry

Harry Bromley-Davenport

Okay, which PCMCIA version is the easiest to remember?

Another option to consider is an external SATA HD with a PCMCIA SATA adapter. Here's an example: [www.ppa-usa.com] Newegg sells it as well as good SATA enclosures and OEM HD's to go in them.

I have another make card on a PC notebook. It required drivers to be installed (supplied) but they were PC, with no mention of OS X. The card linked above does list OS X. According to Barefeats, SATA does as well if not a little better than FW 800. My external setup performs like a champ, although I've worked with DV25 only. However I timed the transfer of a 3.7 GB file from the external SATA HD to 2 RAID 0 internal SATA HD's and calculated an overall rate of 53 MB/sec.