Question for Macbook HDV editors & External Hard Drive

[monkeyboylee]

Hi, just planning out what else I need to go along with my macbook and HV20...

I have read that the file sizes using FCE (AIC) are 40GB per hour so as I only have 40GB free space left I was wondering how you all edit and what else I need ...

1) Do you only load 1 hour at a time, edit, export, and then delete off your macbook?

2) Can you use an external hard drive for real-time hdv editing as well as just storage (if so what spec - firwire400/USB2.0 etc.?)

Cheers

[skinnyboy]

I don't have a MacBook, and rarely edit on a laptop.

That being said - you generally do NOT want to edit off your boot drive. From an editing standpoint it slows you down. From a system standpoint it can crash your computer if you fill the drive too much. If you get to less than 2GB of free space on your boot drive, your Mac will begin to act erratically and slowly and eventually will crash.

On my G5 I have an extra internal drive for my current projects and several externals for storage/archiving older projects. And backup drives for all of them.

A laptop limits how you can handle this issue since all you can do is get external drives, and then portability goes out the window.
Get an external drive with Firewire (preferably Firewire 800 - assuming the MacBook has an 800 port) and use that for capturing and editing. Avoid USB 2.0 - it's slow.

If you absolutely have to capture on your boot drive (you're out where there's no place to plug in power for an external), copy the footage off to an external ASAP.

Hope this helps.

[wfeu]

i use fw800 drives and softraid software on my macbook pro.

[Lunchbox]

I adopt a "bait-and-switch" approach when editing with my Dell notebook. I re-encoded all the HDV or DV video to AVIs using MS-Video1 codec. The reseulting files are so much smaller. I stored them to a 2.5" USB portable drive. The 2.5" USB enclosure is usually around $10. The good thing for using the 2.5" USB enclosure is the USB bus also power up the external harddrive.

I can then do all the rough cut edits with Premiere Pro using my laptop while sitting at a starbucks. When I'm done with the rough cuts, I load the Premiere project file back to the desktop. When prompts to indicate where are all the video source files, I point them back to the original DV or HDV file.

[skinnyboy]

That's a good idea Taky.

[ToTo]

You can get a usb 2.0 or firewire powered portable drive for your macbook. Some are very small, and they require no other power source.

There are several to look at, but they are like this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/418524.jpg

Or this:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/largeimages/469106.jpg

The first one pictured is a Lacie, and it's firewire 400/800... the second is Western Digital and it's usb 2.0... the second one will be on sale at Costco for about $90-95 later this month (for 160 gigs).

And there are plenty of other options to consider out there also... oh, and many of them almost fit in the palm of your hand.

[pmpete]

I have the little WD 160GB USB 2.0 one from Costco. I use it to edit with iMovie on my MB 2.0 Core Duo. I had to reformat it using the disk utility into HFS+ to get it to work correctly with iMovie. I left a 10GB Fat32 partition to use the drive with Windows machines.
I'm staying away from FCE until they update it to the latest FC standards like they usually do a few months after big daddy gets upgraded.
Paul
Paul

[Pom16/10e]

Hi,
On a macbook, go for an external firewire hardrive : you have no other choice. (USB2 is no good for video : you might think it works at first but you'll quickly get sluggish performance)

Be sure to check out the firewire bridge chipset is an Oxford 911 (or 912+ if the external has multiple interfaces)

My advise would be to buy this one enclosure :
http://www.macway.com/fr/product/5141/boitier-hdd-35-safedisk-sata-vers-usb-20fw800esata.html

It's made in france but i'm pretty sure you can find the same model in the US/UK at reasonable price (they do ship worldwide however). Great enclosure : strong aluminum and shock-absorber mount for the drive, and the best currently available chipset.

And then you can put any 3.5" Sata hard drive in it.
I strongly advise this enclosure since it has also USB2, firewire 800 and most importantly eSATA interfaces.

On my macbook pro (2,2 santa-rosa), I use two of them with an eSATA expresscard adapter.
(the site I mentionned also sells one, cheap. may I say : i'm in no way affiliated with them, just very pleased with them for years).

They're just as fast as if they were in a macpro and Finalcut studio really takes off compared to editing from firewire.

but Don't You Ever edit from boot drive, boy !
wanna loose all your work ?