Help - using Final Cut when editing!!
 

Hello all,

Could really use some advice on how set this up properly.
I havent attempted it yet. Wanted advice before beginning.

I want to picture edit on my powerbook (two years old, 17'') using FInal Cut Pro 4 HD 4.5 using a Canon MVX25i dv camera to play in media and using my Lacie d2 extreme to store media and play it out...ie as
the scratch disk.
My powerbook only has one FW400 port. The Lacie is either FW400 or 800 and the camera works with FW400 too.
How should I set up the chain?

Do I get a Lacie FW400 PCI card (I have a PCI slot) and connect the the camera to the
card and use the native port to connect the d2 hard drive?
Or is there another, better way?

Welcome to DVinfo Sammy. First, please do not post the same question to two different forums, it's against DVinfo policy. Your other post was removed.

The powerbook only has one firewire bus and it is shared internally by the FW400 and FW800 connectors. I've read that some people have problems using a FW800 drive at the same time as a camera. But give it a try and see what happens. You could also try plugging the camera into the disk drive if it has a daisy-chained port.

Otherwise, the cardbus (PC card) slot is a good solution, I have one of these myself. You might also try using the USB2 interface if the drive has one. See the following for some more info:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....40&postcount=9

One more question....
 

Thanks, sorry about multiple posts! Realised I had put on wrong forum before!

My Powerbook doesn't have FW800 just one FW400 port in total.
So I have to create an extra port to allow me to plug in both external drive and the camera.
The PCI card seems the solution for this. Would it be better for the external drive to go into the card or the native port?
I don't know if it makes any difference.

Also, when you say a ''daisy-chained'' port, what does that mean? Does that mean I would plug the camera into the Lacie external drive not the Powerbook?
Would FCP see the camera this way?

thanks again for help!!

Yes, daisy chaining is when you plug one device into another one. Of course that assumes that the disk drive has two connectors. I think they're called "PC cards" or "Cardbus cards" and not PCI cards (which are the larger cards that fit into internal slots in the PowerMacs," but I could be wrong there. Anyway, make sure you're ordering the right kind of card for your laptop.

If you get a firewire 800 card and your disk drive can handle it, then that would probably be ideal. The card in my link was only firewire 400, although I've never had problems with FW400 and FCP. Does your drive have USB2? If so then it's worth trying that.

Unfortunately, Canon camcorders seem to have a lot of firewire issues on the Mac for some reason. So try the daisy chain idea and see what happens. You may have problems which would be manifested by aborted captures or playback glitches. Does the drive also have USB2? If so then you can give that a try too.

Minor breakthrough
 

So I've discovered (don't know why I thought otherwise) that my laptop has one FW800 and one FW400 port. So can use both...this should be fine I presume?
Hence not necessitating the PCMCIA card.....

And sorry Boyd on a separate issue I am going to be using the Lacie drive as my scratch disc.
Did I read something about journaling or something that you wrote?

"BTW, when you format an external media drive as MacOS Extended be sure that you turn journaling OFF. I've never had capture problems on a journaled drive, but I've had problems with print to video (even on a fast internal drive)."

Does that apply to me. If so, what do I have to do? I'm not aware of having formatted the Lacie at all. So far I have just plugged it in, partitioned it (have one partition that I back up on) put an FCP Documents folder in it and am ready to go...

Partitioning drives for use in FCP is generally considered a bad idea. Partitions aren't like separate physical drives; the heads have to cross over the unusued tracks when they seek.

Yes, you should format the drive with journaling turned off which is not the default. Journaling made its appearance with MacOSX 10.3, so it depends on when you got the drive and how it was formatted by the manufacturer. Use the disk utility program to check this, and reformat if needed.

If it works OK for you this way then go for it. But it may exhibit problems as it gets more full and could be more complicated to fix at that point. All I can speak from is my own experience, and I had problems with dropped frames on playback until I turned off journaling. Others have experienced the same. I just don't partition drives under OSX because I don't think it makes any sense personally, but your mileage may vary...

I *thought* all 17" powerbooks had both FW400 and FW800, but just figured you knew something I didn't there :-) However, as I pointed out above, even though you have separate plugs for FW400 and 800, internally they share the same bus. In fact, as I understand it, the slowest firewire device on the bus creates a bottleneck.

But again, TRY IT and see if it works for you. If not then you can try some of my other suggestions....

Partitioning
 

The only reason I partitioned was to have a bootable back-up of my hard disc as well...didn't want to buy another firewire drive!

That's all fine, but it may impact your drive's performance. But hey, if it works then go for it!

I'll give it a go. Don't envisage filling it with too much so hopefully will be ok!
Have turned journaling off for the external HD partition and left it enabled for my backup partition.
Hopefully that will help a bit with that side of things