[MacDV] Re: Mobile Setup

[Daniel Beck]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2003, at 09:18 AM, Erica Sadun wrote:

>> Well, if you're not having trouble, then don't worry about it. But, I 
>> have, and I have read in books by Michael Rubin,  and Michael Wohl 
>> (and I believe Lisa Brenneis) that capturing to and exporting from 
>> the OS disk/partition is asking for trouble.
>
> Really? Do you have a cite?

OK, I'm home now. Final Cut Pro 3 by Lisa Brenneis. Page 22: "It is 
recommended that you saved captured media files on a different disk 
than the disk where Final Cut Pro is installed." And page 81: "You 
should use your fastest disk drives as your scratch disk. For best 
performance, avoid setting the system hard disk as the scratch disk."

Beginner's Final Cut Pro by Michael Rubin. Page 213: "In traditional 
professional systems, it is considered good form to have your 
application software on one hard disk and your video media on another." 
And page 214: "Many professionals I know cannot divorce themselves from 
the need to maintain these separations. Apple even recommends them for 
best system performance. The ideal Mac configuration includes a small 
hard disk with OS, applications, and other files that might be on the 
computer...and then one or more large drives for the video media files."

And then for the advice that made you boo and hiss, also page 214: "If 
you only have one hard disk in your Mac and don't expect to purchase 
another anytime soon, the next best thing is to fake it. Using a 
hardware utility available on all Macs, you can establish partitions on 
a single drive, so that the Mac thinks it has a number of 
drives...Doubling up the media files and the rest of the OS and apps 
all on one drive can result in dropped frames during playback; and 
irritation that many choose to accept, and others endure unsure of why 
it's happening."

I didn't find anything about capture/scratch disks in Editing 
Techniques with Final Cut Pro by Michael Wohl.

And from the FCP Manual, vol 1, page 33: "In most cases you should use 
dedicated volumes for capturing and playing back your digital video and 
other media files. You can use separate disks or partitions of your 
internal disk to store the Final Cut Pro software and other media. 
Separate volumes provide a lower chance of fragmentation and faster 
performance than your computer's internal disk." And page 59: "Note: It 
is best to use a separate disk dedicated to video capture."

Daniel
**************************
Daniel Beck
danielbeck at mac.com
http://homepage.mac.com/danielbeck/

Tadayoshi Video Productions
dbeck at tvp.jp.com
http://tvp.jp.com
Video solutions in Tokyo