Final Cut Pro and Iomega External Drive at DVinfo.net

Beth Pielert · October 8th, 2003, 01:49 PM

Howdy ho, I recently set up a portable editing system using a G4 Laptop w/ 1 GB of ram, a SONY GV-D1000 Mini-DV deck and the Adaptec card to expand my firewire ports from one to four.

Although my system has no problem recognizing the external drive named "GIGI" and I am able to operate the mini-dv deck from any of the four ports, Final Cut Pro 4 seems to have problems when it comes time to digitize. It hangs, seeming to decide where to put stuff. If I designate my internal drive as the scratch disk I have no problems, similarly, if I hit esc a few times when FCP seems to hang when GIGI is set as the scratch disk I am able to get media on the external drive. I am not however able to manually digitize.

Anyone out there have similar problems or ideas on how to make the Iomega work better with FCP4?

Thank you!

Denis Murphy · October 8th, 2003, 05:42 PM

apple does not officially support external firewire drives for FCP. However, if you visit the apple.com FCP support board (click on support>discussions>final cut pro) you will probably get enough help to solve your problem.

Beth Pielert · October 8th, 2003, 05:50 PM

Hey Denis, thanks for the tip. I will check it out.

October 10th, 2003, 04:24 PM

As you are using FireWire to import and this takes up bandwidth there is a blockage as you are also sending down the same FireWire line to import it to the external leaving little room for errors.

Beth Pielert · October 10th, 2003, 05:10 PM

Thanks Paul - yes, everything seems much slower and I have to handhold my digitizing tool.

Any suggestions on how to work this out? I don't want to have to use my internal drive to digitize and I can get the IOMEGA to work its just slow and I'm hardly able to run a batch up logged clips.

Steve Nunez · October 10th, 2003, 06:14 PM

How about capturing to your internal drive them moving the clips off to the ext HD when finished capturing?

Glenn Chan · October 10th, 2003, 08:26 PM

Have you tried plugging one device in the laptop's firewire port and the other device into the adaptec firewire card? This way they don't share the same bus.

The other thing I can think of is that the Iomega drive may not be that good a firewire drive. Do you know what chipset/bridge it uses? The oxford 911 chip is the best for firewire 400.

October 8th, 2003, 01:49 PM	#1
Beth Pielert New Boot Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: San Francisco Posts: 16	Final Cut Pro and Iomega External Drive Howdy ho, I recently set up a portable editing system using a G4 Laptop w/ 1 GB of ram, a SONY GV-D1000 Mini-DV deck and the Adaptec card to expand my firewire ports from one to four. Although my system has no problem recognizing the external drive named "GIGI" and I am able to operate the mini-dv deck from any of the four ports, Final Cut Pro 4 seems to have problems when it comes time to digitize. It hangs, seeming to decide where to put stuff. If I designate my internal drive as the scratch disk I have no problems, similarly, if I hit esc a few times when FCP seems to hang when GIGI is set as the scratch disk I am able to get media on the external drive. I am not however able to manually digitize. Anyone out there have similar problems or ideas on how to make the Iomega work better with FCP4? Thank you! __________________ Basa

October 8th, 2003, 05:42 PM	#2
Denis Murphy Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Dublin, Ireland Posts: 47	external firewire drives apple does not officially support external firewire drives for FCP. However, if you visit the apple.com FCP support board (click on support>discussions>final cut pro) you will probably get enough help to solve your problem.

October 8th, 2003, 05:50 PM	#3
Beth Pielert New Boot Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: San Francisco Posts: 16	FCP & Iomega Hey Denis, thanks for the tip. I will check it out. __________________ Basa

October 10th, 2003, 05:10 PM	#5
Beth Pielert New Boot Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: San Francisco Posts: 16	Iomega woes Thanks Paul - yes, everything seems much slower and I have to handhold my digitizing tool. Any suggestions on how to work this out? I don't want to have to use my internal drive to digitize and I can get the IOMEGA to work its just slow and I'm hardly able to run a batch up logged clips. __________________ Basa

October 10th, 2003, 06:14 PM	#6
Steve Nunez Trustee Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Pembroke Pines, Florida Posts: 1,418	How about capturing to your internal drive them moving the clips off to the ext HD when finished capturing? __________________ Steve Nunez-New York City www.stevenunez.com

October 10th, 2003, 04:24 PM	#4
Guest Posts: n/a	As you are using FireWire to import and this takes up bandwidth there is a blockage as you are also sending down the same FireWire line to import it to the external leaving little room for errors.

October 10th, 2003, 08:26 PM	#7
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Have you tried plugging one device in the laptop's firewire port and the other device into the adaptec firewire card? This way they don't share the same bus. The other thing I can think of is that the Iomega drive may not be that good a firewire drive. Do you know what chipset/bridge it uses? The oxford 911 chip is the best for firewire 400.