[Silas]

I have a few questions for those of you who do work with video and audio. I reacently purchased an iMac G5 and expect it to ship at the end of the month. Before receiving it, I want to get as much information as I can concerning how to set up the machine to best fit my needs. I ordered a 17" with 512 MB RAM, Superdrive, 80 Gig hard drive, and Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

In the very near future, I would like to begin using iMovie for editing DV movies and Garageband for creating music and recording vocals. I would expect that my use in video would be creating approximately 8 iMovies per year and recording 1-2 songs per month in audio. My primary question concerns the hard drive and the best use of it's space.

Should I partition the drive when I receive it and use the partition for video and audio? If so, how much space should I dedicate? Should I use a partition for each, one for audio and one for video, or would one partition be sufficient? I currently own an older iMac and I have never used more than 30 Gigs of space at any time but I have never done audio or video work on it. Or would a non-partitioned drive be fine (my concerns are for fragmenting the hard drive without a partition)?

Would I be better off with purchasing a firewire hard drive for this type of use? My concern with this would be problems transferring video to firewire drives and the supposed loss of frames when editing.

I appreciate any suggestions offered. I would just like to have my machine set up appropriately because I have never done this type of work on my Mac.

[Spheric Harlot]

GET MORE RAM.

Lots of discussion regarding partitioning or not partitioning.

Verdict seems to be that it doesn't really matter all that much.

As for other advice:

GET MORE RAM.

I envy you for your soon-to-be machine.

Oh, and GET MORE RAM.

-s*(more RAM)

[Silas]

Yes, I definitely am going to be getting another 512 MB after receiving the machine.

[theJoKell]

I typically like to use a completely separate drive when working with audio (don't do any video, but the same principal would apply). I would say get a Firewire drive.

But if you're not going to do that, then partition as much space as you can for your audio/video. Remember that video takes up a TON of space, so you want that partition as large as possible (which is why I'd get a fw drive...I'd want at least 120 gigs free for video work).

[PacHead]

Yeah, partitions don't mean crap. It doesn't really matter, IMO. It's a matter of preference.

I used to partition all my drives back in the day (OS 9), but I don't bother anymore.

It wouldn't hurt getting a FW drive though, IMO. Simply put, get the biggest one you can. Drives are cheap nowadays anyway. You don't want to be working with a full/near full drive. That spells trouble.

80 gigs is nothing, if you're doing video, as you'll soon find out.

[Spheric Harlot]

FYI:

Generally, recording to Firewire drives is NOT a good idea if you're using a Firewire audio interface UNLESS the audio interface and disk drive are on separate Firewire busses (note that iMacs, iBooks, and Powerbooks only have a single Firewire bus, regardless of the number of actual sockets on the machine). The reason for this is that you are throttling Firewire bandwidth, which can result in clicks, pops, and dropouts.

If you're going to be working with many tracks and a Firewire interface, it is best to track to the internal disk and use a Firewire disk for archival purposes only.

This will probably not matter if you're going to be doing average stuff in GarageBand, but I wanted to mention it for completeness.

-s*

[PacHead]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
FYI:

Generally, recording to Firewire drives is NOT a good idea if you're using a Firewire audio interface UNLESS the audio interface and disk drive are on separate Firewire busses (note that iMacs, iBooks, and Powerbooks only have a single Firewire bus, regardless of the number of actual sockets on the machine). The reason for this is that you are throttling Firewire bandwidth, which can result in clicks, pops, and dropouts.

If you're going to be working with many tracks and a Firewire interface, it is best to track to the internal disk and use a Firewire disk for archival purposes only.

This will probably not matter if you're going to be doing average stuff in GarageBand, but I wanted to mention it for completeness.

-s*

I don't use a Firewire audio interface myself, but what you said makes perfect sense. He never mentioned what interface he's going to be using (USB, Firewire), or if he's going to be using an audio interface at all.

[dlefebvre]

If you plan on working on simultaneous projects, you will need a Firewire drive, it will give you breathing room, especially if you only take the 80Gb drive. One thing is sure, put as much RAM as you can. Working with audio an video, you will not regret it.

[Silas]

Thank you for the many responses. I really appreciate it.

I would not be recording audio through firewire. I would record to the internal and transfer any audio that I did to the firewire drive. I would assume that the most I would do in GarageBand would be using 4-6 tracks, nothing big.

I don't have any problem getting the drive, but I am concerned about the supposed loss of frames when importing DV to the firewire drive itself. I assume with audio, I could work on a track, save it to the internal drive, then place it on the firewire drive, and transfer back to the internal if I needed to add/edit the song in GarageBand.

Should I do the same with video? My primary concern is fragmenting the internal drive. I simply want to find the best solution for doing light work in both of these apps with the fewest possible complications.

This is how I see myself doing work with the video:
Record family/special events to camera
Import video from event
Create iMovie from footage of one to a few events
Burn DVD of iMovie
Trash footage, saving a few clips for another iMovie of longer period of time (for example, clips from the whole year of my child's life)

Does this sound like a reasonable way to go about it? As I said, I haven't done any video work yet.

[Spheric Harlot]

Actually, for that kind of audio load, it really doesn't matter whether you go directly from externeal or whatever. You are nowhere near maxing out bandwidth.

Other than that, it sounds like you're all set - good plan.

[James L]

Just to put it into perspective, 5 mins of DV footage roughly equates to 1 GB of ram! So, if you have 40 minutes of footage, that would come out to 8GB, more likely 9 or 10. That is just for the raw capture, not editing, soundtracking, etc.

External drives work fine and are used by pro's all over the place. Make sure to get a big one, fast (10,000rpm would be great), and one that has FW400 at a minimum.

Oh, and get more ram!



James

[k_munic]

get RAM
get harddriveS (<< yes, many!)

80Gigs is nothing for work with video (I#m doing that for hobby, I have 500 Gigs on three hds); as mentioned, 1h = 12Gigs; AND perhaps you want to make nice titleing with Photoshop? maybe, you want to change to FCE (grrrreat app)? you collect music? you add photos/stills to your project (I'm using a digicam while camcordering)? you need spaaace!

VERY important:
usage of iDVD needs 12 Gigs of HIDDEN hd space on your starting partition! i made the mistake, formatted my internal drive, "hm 6Gb for system is enough!" - nooooo! iDVD quit working. theses 12gigs are not seen in the finder and will vanish after competling the project.

so, many people say, partitioning is not necassairy (i CANNOT spell this word bloody German alien).

what i would do:
add Ram... ah, I mentione that before...

use a BIG external drive for projects - why not one 200 monster for video, another cheaper 120gigs for all your audio? you get them at your local PCshop for less cash.

Btw: I'm jealous - me want iMacG5 too

[Silas]

Thanks again for all of the responses and tips. I believe what I am going to do is use the internal drive for audio and purchase an external firewire drive of 160GB for video and photo work. This seems like a good balance for the beginning to me. If I find that it is not enough space, I will simply purchase a larger drive for video and use the older external for audio and photo.

kmunic wrote:
VERY important:
usage of iDVD needs 12 Gigs of HIDDEN hd space on your starting partition! i made the mistake, formatted my internal drive, "hm 6Gb for system is enough!" - nooooo! iDVD quit working. theses 12gigs are not seen in the finder and will vanish after competling the project.

Will this "hidden" 12 Gigs be on the internal or the external?

[k_munic]

Originally posted by Silas:
…

kmunic wrote:
VERY important:
usage of iDVD needs 12 Gigs of HIDDEN hd space on your starting partition! i made the mistake, formatted my internal drive, "hm 6Gb for system is enough!" - nooooo! iDVD quit working. theses 12gigs are not seen in the finder and will vanish after competling the project.

Will this "hidden" 12 Gigs be on the internal or the external?

it's on the system partition - so, in your case the internal!...