sony EX1 and new brick mac book pro 15in problems
 

to all ... i just went thru 2 15in new MBP. what happens is having to install the sony SxS device driver makes your start up time in access of 4 mins [1min on spinning gear then 3-4 min on the blue screen] once i uninstalled the driver boot up was allmost instant. finally figured this out after going thru 2 MBP and 3 days of aggravation. seems that the new Nvidia chipset the mbp use is causing the hangup in boot time. this is just an heads up for anyone who plans on getting a new mbp and using sony EX1 will have. at least untill sony updates the drivers. im pretty sure pulling footage from camera or sxs card reader would work fine. but for me i dont want to pull my camera down for downloads [need to keep shooting] or may not have the facilities to use the card reader since it needs wall power .. again just a heads up

What are your exact specs?

I get no such problems, and my MacBook Pro is only 3 months old. All is working fine.

I did'nt know they upgraded since then - and you are talking about the new "brick" MacBook that was released last week?

yes the new brick mbp that was released last tuesday ....

From what I understand Sony is aware of the problem and is working on it. There's an issue with the SxS driver and the just released MacBookPro (released a few days ago). Not only is there long boot times but apparently you lose some of the multi finger trackpad functionality.

Don't understand also why Apple dropped the firewire 400 port from both the MBP and MB. The new MacBook is completely useless for DV and XDCAM HD users.

Alister, you do realise there is such a thing as a Firewire 800 to 400 cable. Firewire 800 Cables / FireWire 1394b Cables

Dan

Please keep any updates to this posted. I was just getting ready to get a new MacBook! Not sure what I will do now... wait I guess.

There is NO FIREWIRE PORT on the new MacBooks.

MacBookPros do have firewire 800 port.

The 400 to 800 cable should work but it's another thing people have to get (and forget) when trundling off to a shoot.

yea im gonna wait for all the smoke to clear before jumping in again. I have a 17in already that is working just fine drivers and all. but for locations i did want a smaller unit.

And if I'm not mistaken, there isn't even an ExpressCard slot so you couldn't even get an adapter card to add Firewire if you wanted to. Glad I have my MBP.

no it does have an express card slot ... and it will see the SxS card when driver is installed but if you can take the 5min boot up ...

Oops, apologies to all.....going by what someone else "thought" it had missing...never a good idea. ;)

Ron, have you thought about using SD cards and the Kingston expresscard adapters with a USB2 UDMA SD card reader as a temporary fix for your macbook pro woes? Not ideal I know but should have no boot issues.

The new Macbook Pro should be ideal once the driver issues are sorted out. Point taken about the Macbook but then I always considered the Macbook screen too small to use for video editing anyways. Would have made a better offload machine for SXS if they had put an expresscard slot in it though :)

Dan

yea i was just gonna use it for offload purpose only - using the express card slot [which they do have ] i have an sony sxs card reader that i guess i could of used the usb port but where i was shooting i would not have power and would been too much of hassle to run back to hotel and download then run back out ...

Exactly - this move is what baffles me the most.
Why not just leave out 800 and keep 400.

I have not seen any devices, not that they dont exist, with firewire 800 - but know a slew of products that have 400. So what gives?

Indeed, who needs to carry around adapters and stuff...that gets me about the new mini dv port - now I need an adapter for my monitor.

Thought the point was portability and less items...oh well. :)

Peace

dAlen

going from one fw800 and one fw400 to just one fw800 is a HUGE mistake. Losing one port for let's be honest, just aesthetics, is insane. All I can hope for is the 17" when it comes out early next year won't make the same mistake!

Is it a mistake, or a more efficient and effective design? Considering Firewire has amazing daisy-chain capability two ports are IMO quite unnecessary.. I regularly keep 2x1TB & 1x500GB drive attached to my 17" MBP.

My FW400 port is nothing more than a dust collector.

Addendum:
Ars Technica has a good article on this subject.

For those not wanting to read the article, but interested in Steve Jobs one line remark about FireWire 400: "Actually, all of the new HD camcorders of the past few years use USB 2."

They are right, the MacBook is a computer for the general consumer, not aimed for the professional market. AND if you still want a MB with firewire, they are still selling the old flavor, in white, for $100 less than the stylish new 'brick' model.

I agree, a single FW800 is not much of a loss in performance terms. I spent a few hours testing this with Apple guys at the Olympics. We daisy chained FW800 drive with a Lexar FW card reader. The compared it to the same drive on the FW800 port and the reader on the FW400 port. It turned out daisy chained one worked faster.

Also confused at the loss.
 

Since I use a Sonnet F2 (eSATA but powered by FW400) and have daisy chained Lexar CF drives to my FW800 port, I can't see this as a good move. Totally daft.

Jus.

With all that, it would look as though you would be a MacBook Pro user not the smaller Mac Book.

Yup. Vintage 06/07
 

I've been working off one for a couple of years now. I was hoping for a big power boost from the new range but it seems largely cosmetic at the moment. Perhaps with Snow Leopard and a possible 8GB memory option and the hope of using both the inbuilt nvidia gfx card along with the installed gfx card for extra display power. The changing socket configurations are a pain in the backside (as I imagine they are for thrid party vendors like Sonnet, Matrox, AJA, Blackmagic, Convergent and others) but not insurmountable. Personally, I'd happily lose all the firewire for an extra expresscard socket to take advantage of the much faster bus speeds and connection options.

Jus.

The new Sony Fix:
 

The new Sony fix can be found @:

SXS Drivers
Bj

This is very good news.

So Andy S., we must be neighbors....

Hi Bob, Yes... the view from my deck looks between Nanaimo and Victoria although it takes 2 ferries to get to your rock. When the weather warms up and I get my motorbike out again I'll look you up :)

Back on topic... I hope the original poster realizes that the SXS drivers until a day or so ago were incompatible with his Macbook Pro that he just bought. It has been documented on other forums. Hopefully Sony got it right!