Ocean11 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 I can just see it on the news... ...grim faced announcers... ...crime by foreigners on the rise... ...rushed into a 7-11 wearing goggles and brandishing a ski pole... ... in custody said he 'needed the money for video editing equipment'... ...parents often spoke of a "money tree"... ...identified by the corny line he said to the female clerk about 'what winks and screws like a tiger'... Link to post Share on other sites
sunrise 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 That's why I like the hot swap drive. The concept is like a giant zip drive if you know what I mean. La Cie is good, but pricey and you have to buy a whole new external unit every time you need more space. The Firedock probably the cheapest. It's $125 for the dock, and probably about $20-30 for each extra case. This is cheaper than buying an external case for each new drive. The Granite Digital Firevue hot swap drive is a bit more pricey. I got mine a year and a half ago when they were the only company making hot swap drives. They have FW800 units for sale. I don't know if FW800 is compatible with older Macs (such are ours). You can also still get the older FW400 model but if you're going to get a FW400 it's will be cheaper to get the other brand. The extra bays are cheap. Buy a bunch with the unit . Then buy the actual 3.5" 7200rpm drives in Tokyo - whatever brand you prefer - IBM/Hitachi or I think Western Digital are the ones are the preferred ones for audio at the moment. A new 7200rpm IBM/Hitachi will cost between 12-18,000 yen depending on size. Then, whenever you're running out of space, just buy a new drive, put it in a spare bay. This works out a lot cheaper than buying a complete new external 7200rpm FW drive each time you need to get a new drive. If you think you only need to have one external drive for recording, (assuming you will archive everything else to DVD) you mightn't want to get a hot swap bay. Personally I think anyone doing video or audio can always use more space and for the price you can't go wrong with the Firedock. However if you just want to get one standalone unit just make sure that whatever you get has the Oxford 911 chip in it, otherwise it won't be fast enough for your needs. I would imagine that the La Cie would have the Oxford chip in it, but check it out first. If you're able, it's definitely a good idea, as miteyak says, to have a dedicated drive just for video. I'm not sure how it works with vid, but for audio, I still tend to partition for recording drives. I've read conflicting reports that on the drives available today the speed difference is not as noticable as it used to be in an 80 gig or 40 gig drive or partition. I can't say if this is so or not. At any rate the way my drives are set up seem to work just fine. I have several IBM drives, a 120 and 2 x 80s. With the hot swap FW dock, I simply use a new drive for each new project. I want to get a DVD burner soon so I can start archiving onto DVD. Another important thing to bear in mind is the speed of your internal HD in the PB. Nowadays you can get 2.5" 7200rpm internal drives. The 667s shipped with a 4500rpm drive. I also have a 667 PB (1st generation). got mine used and it came with a 5400 drive which has been quite adequate for my audio needs (I've only been doing a bit of light recording and editing, nothing too heavy duty this year). My next purchase will be an internal 7200rpm drive. This will speed things up for video (and audio) work as the whole system will run faster (and Panther should speed that up even further). There's also at least one brand of 2.5" pocket drive case that has the Oxford chip in it.... I've been eyeing it wishfully in Sofmap and Bic Camera.... Those things are so damn cool if you have to travel around with an external. As for DVDR drives - I agree, superdrive is the way to go. I'm still sorting out which DVDR/superdrive is best for PBs that don't already have a superdrive because many external brands aren't supported by apple's cheaper DVD burning software (archiving is fine, you can probably use any brand that wlil work on a Mac, but for burning DVD movies you have the check it out). The audio pros recommend getting a Pioneer superdrive - Pioneer is the brand that apple use (or used to use) for their superdrives. I think the current model is the A05 (or 105 - same thing). Check with the people in the shop to find out which software the drive you choose will run with. I don't know if external superdrives are supported in iDVD on a PB, however DVD studio pro will definitely work on Pioneer drives. Link to post Share on other sites
sunrise 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Miteyak - is FW800 backward compatible to 400? Link to post Share on other sites
mogski 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 sunrise great stuff thanks! I suspect that my PB is the same model as yours. Got mine last year and it is already 2 generations behind! Re the 800 vs 400 the connnectors are different for the computer so I would suspect that the periphials are not back compatible. As far as iDVD and external burners go I have done endless searching and it looks like those without the Superdrive are out of luck. LaCie and one other are the only Mac compatible burners that ship with drivers to allow buring movies to DVD. Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Sorry screwed up me numbers. FW 400 case (the one you want)-9000 yen IBM/Hitachi 120gb/7200rpm-9000 yen... Check out sofmap Link to post Share on other sites
sunrise 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 Miteyak - wow, those drives got a whole lot cheaper!!!! Kool! Mogs - mine is the first generation 667, it wasn't until after I bought it that I discovered it's the loudest of all the G4 PB models, nicknamed The Leafblower The second generation has more L2 cache. I suspect that you might have the 2G model. The Pioneer must be the other model ext. superdrive you're referring to, along with the La Cie. Well, guess that means you'll just have to get DVD studio pro so you can burn your DVD movies ......... Link to post Share on other sites
miteyak 0 Posted October 28, 2003 Share Posted October 28, 2003 yeah, mine (120) cost 12000 not that long ago. Time for a new one... on the company, of course! Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 I'm gonna try to be there. Link to post Share on other sites
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