[Heady]

Hi,

Owning a G4 and knowing someone with a DV camcorder, I have not been able to resist the urge to hop in the DV bandwagon. Now the main problem I am facing starts with "M" and ends with "y HD is full".

A free GB will only take you so far when it comes to DV, so I obviously need a decent storage solution. Currently I'm evaluating two options:

€ Option A - Get a CD-RW, backup the HD, free up 6ish GBs on it for DV editing, and later archive DV projects on CDs.
€ Option B - Get a 20 GB FireWire HD, use it exclusively for DV editing. Use current 10 GB HD as boot volume and to hold project files.

Both solutions appear vaguely decent to me, but I have very little experience in the field of DV, and I don't know, for instance, if 6 GB is enough for editing, if my current ATA HD is fast enough, if a FireWire HD is fast enough, etc. Basically, I'm looking for an affordable solution which will allow me to put together the occasional short film.

Help, comments, tips, and donations will be greatly appreciated.

-Heady

[C-Eye]

If you have a G4 tower, you should have plenty of room for an additional internal hard drive. Large 20 to 40 gig drives can be purchased for around $200 - about half the price of a comparable Firewire HD. I would suggest more than 6 gigs if you're planning on working with uncompressed DV, and I think an ATA HD is plenty fast enough.

"What kind of hard drive for Final Cut Pro" has some good info: http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/....25.17.5.0.1.8

"Power Mac G4: Installing Internal Storage Devices" http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/....17.11.1.0.1.8

Hope this helps!

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[Heady]

Originally posted by C-Eye:
If you have a G4 tower, you should have plenty of room for an additional internal hard drive. Large 20 to 40 gig drives can be purchased for around $200 - about half the price of a comparable Firewire HD. I would suggest more than 6 gigs if you're planning on working with uncompressed DV, and I think an ATA HD is plenty fast enough.

For some obscure reason, I had not even thought about adding an internal hard drive... I'll check that out. I'm a tad concerned about the speed of an ATA HD, though. I know buzzword-compliant SCSI is usually the way to go for serious work, but does someone know how low one can go and still get decent performance? Basically I just want to be sure that no frames are dropped; I can handle slow response and lenghty loading times.

BTW, I couldn't seem to reach the URLs you mentionned, but I should find my way to the articles as you provided the titles.

Hope this helps!

Yes, and thanks for the quick response!

-Heady

[GreenMnM]

If you do a search in the Apple Knowledge Base you get a dynamic link that doesn't work ever again. But at the bottom of the page is a link that will take you to a bookmarkable link. Hard drive & FCP document: http://kbase.info.apple.com/cgi-bin/...?extKCID=58636

I would recommend a visit to XLR8YourMac, they have a searchable database of Mac owners who have upgraded their hard drives. You can do a search for people with your same Mac model and the type (IDE for internal) and even brand of hard drive they've used. There are also comments about their experiences. There is also a very helpful guide to installing a second drive: http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/IDE/Add_2nd_drive/index.html

I think a second internal drive is the way to go. They are SO cheap now and even the Mac's ATA/66 bus is fast enough for DV capture and playback. You may want to get a CD writer in the future, but it is not a solution for backing up your video projects, just the other data on your hard drive (the DV files are just too big). Not all external FireWire drives are fast enough for DV editing (look on XLR8YourMac for stories on the new Oxford 911 chip bridge).

-Doug

[This message has been edited by GreenMnM (edited 05-06-2001).]

[Heady]

Thanks. I think I'll go for the internal HD. I'm glad to hear that standard-fare ATA/66 HDs are quick enough for DV...

-Heady

[zigzag]

If you have a tower, definitely go for a second internal drive. 5400 RPM will suffice, but 7200 RPM is preferable. I just put a 60 GB 7200 RPM Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 model in my Cube for $240 and it works great with DV. Other good makes are IBM, Western Digital, Quantum.

Get the biggest drive you can afford. You will use up 60 GB in no time if you're really enthusiastic. I upload back to DV tape for cheap long-term storage. CD is not a realistic solution.

[Dogma]

Word of warning -
Most cheaper HDs are 5400rpm and just find it too hard to keep up with all but the smallest DV projects, make sure it is 7200rpm or higher. (most high capacity drives are 7200 anyway but make sure before you splash the cash)
Just a tip!

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"If you can't stand the flames, get out of the bulletin board!"

[osiris]

I have an IBM 75GXP 75gb for DV editing. It took about ten minutes to install and it works well.

The external firewire drives are ok for smaller jobs, but are expensive & slower. For $200 you could by a
nice7200 Maxtor or a smaller sized IBM GXP.