[Dan87]

Anyone had any success using an external FireWire HD with iMovie to capture video? Does it drop frames? If not, what HD are you using?

Thanks,
Dan

[bradoesch]

It would all depend on your hard drive. Firewire if of course, capable of 50MB/s, and digital video only requires 3.7/3.8MB/s. From what I've been reading, drives in Firewire enclosures have a sustainable transfer rate of over 10MB/s, no problem there. But as for realworld testing, I'm still dreaming about an external FW HD.

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Why 1984, won't be
like "1984"

[ibookuser2]

Computers that have the 100MHz bus typically perform better with the firewire drives as opposed to the 66MHz machines... What kind of Mac are you using?

[Dan87]

I have a Pismo PowerBook. It does have a 100MHz bus.

[drewman]

I'm using a Pismo Powerbook with a Pyro external firewire enclosure matched up with a WD 45GB 5400rpm hard drive.

Have edited several projects with iMovie 1.02 and Final Cut Pro 1.2 with no problems at all. This was capturing from my JVC DV camera directly to the firewire drive.

Get the latest firmware (2.7) and the latest firewire drivers (2.5). They really help with hot-plugging and stop the firewire from disappearing until a reboot.

drewman

I just found this topic which affects me as well. I have a Canon Ultura DV Camcorder and a 60GB FW drive. I have taken a couple of 60+ minute movies that I would like to edit using iMovie on my iMac DV SE (400 MHz). However, I cannot directly download the movie to the FW drive because it seems to drop frames in the process. The frames that are saved on the FW drive appear (when running the movie clip) to be at 2-3x normal rate (mostly likely due to the dropped frames).\

Does this have anything to do with the fact that both FW ports are in use on the iMac?

Any information would be appreciated!