I do it all the time with my old MBP and old FW drive. But yes, on large project may be not the most robust path.

I feel your pain. But in your case, a powered firewire hub is of no use then. It's all still going over the same single firewire bus.

Can you capture temporarily to a USB drive, using the firewire to connect the camera?

Sucks to have to figure out these workarounds, though. I'm sticking with my 2008 Macbook Pro for sure, as long as it can do the job.

No doubt, with everything Apple isn't doing the one thing they cannot be chided about is their build quality.

Case in point: I'm smack in the middle of doing the MCE Tech Optibay "upgrade" for a 2nd internal HDD in my new unibody (it's really the only logical option for not having a second discrete external connection for captures- and the usability review is coming this weekend) and after opening up the lower case the MBP is exactly as every other Mac I've dove into in the past 8 years inside: Near perfect layout and logical cable/connector paths. I've never seen *any* Win-tel machine so wonderfully laid out - except maybe one top-drawer Sony Vaio a few years ago.

It's disappointing that Apple forces workarounds for "pro" machines and there isn't an elegant PC-replacement (not yet) but for now all I - and any pro-apps Mac user - can do is fill in the blanks with third-party devices for what Apple refuses to do natively.

Now if we can just get good 'ol Steve J. to play nice with Flash, BR and the rest of the "stupid community" people he despises so much we'd all have a much better Mac-computing experience. I'm not holding my breath. (laughs)

oh yeah and it doesn't even work out of the box:

Apple Already Issuing Patches for New MacBooks | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Thanks Apple

Ay, every manufacturer has had a DOA or near-dead new product on release, no biggie. At least it's not a devil-possessed Prius trying to kill you off by not braking! (^_*) And unlike Toyota at least Apple came out immediately and said, "oops, sorry people..." and offered the fix.

Not great PR but it's handled.

No bluray?

Really; hundreds less?!

Hmmm, maybe I'm not configuring or adding correctly here....but a look at the Lenovo site, I priced out their ThinkPad w701 configured about the same specs as the MBP 17":

8gb RAM
500gb/7200rpm HDD

And the Lenovo came up to about the same price as the MBP; actually a hundred dollars more..give or take a few dollars. And the Lenovo charges extra for a camera and Bluetooth.

Well unfortunately it's not the hardware that needs to be updated, it's the OS. Obviously the hardware is BR-capable otherwise BR burners wouldn't work in BootCamp, which they do just fine. So until Apple - Steve Jobs - decides he doesn't hate BR anymore we won't see it implemented. It's that simple.

Actually it's not a direct 17" inch comparison because only Apple's 17" inch offers things like the Expresscard slot. You can get an i7 CPU with all the goodies/EC slot etc and RAM in a 15" inch for hundreds less - why anyone would specifically want a 17" inch laptop is unclear to me, it's just too bulky-wide.

But if you really want to PC-to-Mac comparison shop - especially from an aesthetics/build quality/usability standpoint then, take a look at the "F" series from Sony Vaio: you can get a great system with Win 7 Pro - 64 bit, 16.4" inch LCD, 6GB RAM; Nivida 300M w/1GB VRAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD, EC-34 slot, and eSATA port (!), HDMI and VGA ports oh and right...a BR burner for under $1600!.

C'mon now, that's a compelling cost comparison to any Apple offering - tons more connectivity options *built-in*, no adapters needed and for literally hundreds less. But that's not a fair comparison, is it, because it includes things Apple just doesn't offer anywhere, like eSATA, BR and HDMI all built-in.

Like I say, Apple MBP's are pretty but the PC stuff is totally built for serious work. No bones about it.

If Apple followed suit with that kind of laptop offering it would be "game over" for the question of whether or not to use a Mac or PC. But as it stands now, PC's offer a very cost-effective and compelling option no matter how you look at it.

You're spot on with that assessment above. Apple only need to offer ONE 15 inch MBP with some of the connectivity Pros really need like we've been outlining (i.e. like they used to!!! - so it can't be that hard!!! - a 'MBSuperPro' or whatever the Marketing geeks want to call it...not that I'm sure!) and it would be game over...but they are so focussed on slick consumer stuff I doubt they'll regain their former place at the top of the pile.

I would think Apple needs to rethink its MBP line and go back to the innovative offerings that made it so great. Adding to the line another model would force them to price it too hi, I would think.

But the thing is, like it's been pointed out more than once in this thread, Apple just is not anymore the company some of us was used to offering innovative products for a select group of users even at a higher price because we could easily justify it. Now, with the advent of the iPod and stuff, it's merely a consumer company...ah, too bad. We just need the new Apple.

How about an eSata port? That can't be that hard and it would reduce the call for an ExpressPort on the 15". Put your external drive on the eSata and the camera/capture hardware on the FW800.

On another topic, why hasn't anybody ever made a simple VTR to file codec of your choice hardware conversion box? Like the FireStore but simpler. Hook it up to an off the shelf external drive and capture. Switch the drive to your computer and edit.

You mean like this?:

Ki Pro Recorder - AJA Video Systems

Almost... The electronics in one of these things should only take up the size of a deck of cards, with battery. The connectors take up more room. I want to hook up an off the shelf hard drive and not a "storage unit" that the company retails. This way we would be free of the need to use a computer to capture video and we can use the drives of our choice. And a MacBook Pro would work fine as is. Still needs an eSATA port.

Where ever Jobs is going at least he sets a course for the company and relies on his instincts (however faulty they may prove to be or not). How many companies do that anymore? It's all marketing now with layers of focus groups and lawyers. Visionaries don't always envision practical things but at least Jobs has had a good average so far.

I'm still using FCP6 and see no reason to upgrade, and i'd sooner buy a 2 year old MBP on ebay than fork out for the latest one. That suggests to me that Apple have truly taken their eye off the ball for people such as myself.\

Robert Lane.
Good posts. Couldn't agree more, i've not yet reached the stage when i can seriously stomach a return to Windows, but Apple need to raise their game for Video people IMO.