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themacko · Oct 21, 2001, 01:41 PM

Sup fellas. I'm a fairly new Mac user, I got an iBook 500 about 3 months and love it (I only use OSX). I just purchased myself a Canon ZR10 camcorder which I'm gonna use on a month-long backpacking trip through europe I'm taking this winter break, and I'll be making a video of the trip for a class.

Anyhoo, I only have like 6 gigs left my book's HD and I've heard that video editing takes a load of space. Here's my concern, obviously the camcorder is going to connect to the iBook with FireWire. If I need more HD space

, my best bet is probably an external FireWire drive. Will it be possible to work like this since my 'book only has one FireWire input?

What would you guys do? Thanks for any suggestions here.

The other question I have, is have you guys ever used extra lenses on your DV camcorders? I'm not looking for anything pro here, but I was concidering a panoramic lens or somethin like that...

Heh, I forgot one thing. Where would be a good place to get a FireWire cable from online?

-Scott Mackey

[ 10-21-2001: Message edited by: themacko ]

C.J. Moof · Oct 21, 2001, 03:31 PM

One port isn't a problem- you can daisy chain firewire devices. iBook-> FW drive -> camcorder.

The drives that are based on the Oxford 911 bridge chips are the fastest ones out there- shop for that for best speed. OtherWorld Computing (among others) has them.\

memento · Oct 21, 2001, 03:44 PM

There are 2 thing to think about.

1. 6GB is good for like 30 minutes of DV.
2. I've never tried it, but it isn't recommended that you input DV from a camera AND output it to a firewire drive directly. DV takes up roughly half of the 400mbps firewire bandwidth, so you would be saturating the firewire and probably drop frames.

The solution is that you could put 30 minutes on your internal hard drive, then back up to the external firewire later.

themacko · Oct 21, 2001, 03:46 PM

That's awesome, I didn't think about the possibility of daisy-chaining FireWire devices! Now I guess I need to know, how much HD space I should get. And what speed? A 20 Gig 7200 is about the same price as a 40 Gig 5400.

I'm not going to be making any motion pictures, but I'd like to comfortably have enough space to work with if I ever do something larger in the future.

memento · Oct 21, 2001, 06:09 PM

make sure you read my post carefully. I don't think that you can successfully daisy-chain if you are going to go directly from your camcorder to the firewire HD. You probably need to use your internal HD like a temporary buffer.

In response to your question, a 5400rpm drive should be fast enough for DV. In fact, I know it is because I use my 5400rpm 80GB drive for that.

themacko · Oct 21, 2001, 07:00 PM

thanks, I saw your post right after i had replied. I'm looking into having Apple upgrade my internal HD now, that may be the best in the long.

neutrino23 · Oct 21, 2001, 07:42 PM

I wouldn't dismiss recording to an external drive so quickly. DV isn't that intensive. DV is 200Mbytes/minute which is 3.3Mbytes/second. A fast FW external drive can take data at over 30Mbytes/second so there is plenty of room for this to work. Copying big files to my G3 powerbook in FW mode I see about 8Mbytes/second throughput and that it to a slow drive. Also, I recall reading a post somewhere in which someone reported recording to a daisy chained FW HD and it worked OK.

SunSeeker · Oct 21, 2001, 08:44 PM

I assume your camera has dv i/o, so just take a few spare tapes and archive your edited footage back onto tape.

You will lose some of the in and out points and clip names etc. but the footage will be intact and exactly the same quality as that which came off the tape

You can edit any amount of footage down to around 30 minutes, as many times as you need.

Buy an external Firewire drive instead of an internal you will get more space and speed for less money. Leave the drive at home and then you can use it to edit together the archived pieces when you get home.

themacko · Oct 21, 2001, 10:13 PM

The only problem I have with just reading all the clips directly off the tape is that I don't want to put all the wear and tear on the heads and stuff in the camcorder. If I can copy all my stuff the HD once, the work on it, and copy it all back to a dv tape then that'd be awesome.

I also suppose that recording bits onto the internal HD then copying them over the FireWire HD wouldn't be too bad, but that is kinda time-wasting and I'd like to what little space I have on my internal to be used for apps and not have to worry about keeping x-amount of space open simple for a dv exchange. heh, maybe i'm asking too much from firewire.

themacko · Oct 22, 2001, 02:38 PM

I just got back from the Apple Store that just opened here in Chandler. I asked one of the 'Mac Genius'' about my situation and he said that FireWire has more than enough power to transfer DV data from a camera directly to a FW drive. So he sold me a VST portable drive which I came home and hooked up.

I then plugged the camera into the drive and transferred some video over iMovie and voila! No dropped frames.

Just thought you guys might like to hear how it turned out.

memento · Oct 22, 2001, 02:56 PM

glad to have been proven wrong. So much for what the "experts" say.

I don't recall exactly where I got my info, but it was from somewhere that should know better. Anyway, thanks for the update. This will prove useful to me in the future.