Help with Final Cut Xpress v3.5.1

[Lynnding]

Hello Mac Brains ... need your help.

I have Final Cut Xpress on my (old) Powerbk G4. Will be my first time editing w/this software, on this laptop.

Know I will need more space for video.

My Q is... can I capture video to an external hard drive? Looking at getting one of those crazy 1TG drives ... so can I capture right to the drive thats hooked up to my G4?

Yes, Im flirting with getting one of those sweet white macbooks (& get appature2!!) but for now...this old G4baby might have to do.

got suggestions?

And did I see a thread somewhere that said I can get an upgrade to FCXpress 4 on ebay? I thought Apple didnt do upgrades?

Thanks for whatever you can share!
Lynn

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes you can capture video using FCE to an external hard drive.
It is even highly suggested to do so, as the boot drive is already used for the OS to read and write from that drive.
So the video has a dedicated drive and the system (OS) won't interfere with that and the chance of dropped frames during capture is reduced.

A FW (FireWire) drive is recommended also, more so as USB is highly CPU intensive and doesn't have continuous read and write speed as FW (which has a dedicated chip on the Logic Board), and USB not even that fast on a G4. - USB 2.0 10-15 MB/s, FW 35-40 MB/s.

Although as you only will edit DV encoded video, it does only need 3.25 MB/s.
Anything higher than DV is not recommended with a PowerBook G4.

 

[Lynnding]

Thanks for the input

great info. Thanks!

Yup, I'm only editing mini-dv & was planning to use firewire & two external hard drives (plugged into my usb ports).

Have edited lots before but never on FCE so its a new world for me.
Any other tricks of the trade I should know about? Any websites (Utube) or books you recommend?

Thanks so very much for your help!
Lynn

 

[spinnerlys]

.....

Yup, I'm only editing mini-dv & was planning to use firewire & two external hard drives (plugged into my usb ports)

...

You should use FW drives, you can chain them together, and even connect your camera/deck to it.

USB drives might be okay for editing with DV material, but to capture it is recommended to use FW, as it can sustain its data rate more efficiently.