[MacDV] Re: one firewire port, two devices

[Michael Winter]

On Jan 14, 2004, at 10:40 AM, YangZone at aol.com wrote:

>
>> Can I import the video via the external drive's firewire port without
>> problems? Or would a firewire hub be a better option?
>
> The drive connects to the iBook and the camera connects to the second 
> FW port of the drive. Even though this kinda looks like the camera is 
> plugging into the drive - what's happening is: the camera is 
> connecting to Firewire, a data transfer protocol built in to the 
> iBook.

Another way to look at it is that the external drive acts like a 
two-port hub.

> Using an external drive,  with, hopefully, a speed of at least 7,200 
> rpm handling just your captured/saved video files (with the Apple 
> Operating System (OS X) and Video Application(s) (iMovie) on the 
> iBook's drive) should allow the G4 processor to choreograph internal 
> and external drive heads to successfully execute the weighty business 
> of Video transfer

If he has that, he's more than ready. I routinely captured to an 
external FW drive with a 5400 rpm mechanism using a 450 MHz iMac DV 
(that's a G3) -originally using OS 9 and iMovie 2. These days I think 
you'd have trouble putting together a system that wouldn't be 
sufficient.

> ... and this arangement should allow trouble-free editing too... ... .

Yep. Just don't try editing on an old iMac like the one mentioned above 
unless you're only cutting and splicing.

-Mike