For Willrob: Plextor announces a SATA 16x DVD Burner

[terryj]

Posted this because I know you are looking for a fast Burner for a Mac.
150mb/sec throughput....
And it meets the RoS standards also... :P ...not that that matters...

[willrob]

I am? You mean my 16x Pioneer 110 and 111 aren't fast enough? What i really need is a faster computer to muxify (my own term) dvds prior to burning. I can sand the 8-10 minutes oi burn time; it's the hours that lead up to that that kill

I also wish Apple would get off their butt and send out the Final Cut Suite upgrades.

[terryj]

What I was referring to was the whole hoopla you
had went through with the ATA 66/33 bus affair,
I know at one point IIRC I had something about using
a PCI Tempo Trio to achieve ATA/133 speeds to the
drive....I should probably search the forum to bring it
all back up again, but as you say now, you've grown/are happy
with the bus speeds you are getting...I was just pointing
it out as (1) you tend to be our "speed demon" here,
(2) it was a slight razz/nod to that fact.

As for the hours that lead up to it....Is this from a
FCP/DVDSP/Compressor standpoint, or is this from
a MTR/DTOX view?
Changing your work habits and organizing things into
clusters were they fit can help that.
AEHRC, I build DVDs of Shows I digitize into my Mac:
Currently I have 5 shows a week I do.
By organizing my tasks, I manage to cut down on my
Waste/waiting time to get to the "BTD" stage.

As far as FCP Universal binaries, rumors I heard were
after tax day ( April 15th) but don't quote me...I still
personally believe it will be on the day of Apple's Keynote
at NAB ( April 24th)

[willrob]

The ATA PCI card wasn't reliable for the hard drives I connected to it. So I couldn't free up my ATA-66 bus., and thus am still writing slower than the drive's specs promise.

I'm not yet using DVDSP, only iDVD. So the compression time before the disk image is created (I usually don't burn until after I mount and test the project) is my big hang up. I only have a dual 1G G4 [only is a relative term]. A dual G5 may someday be adordable [used;reburbished], or when I win the lottery, a new state of the art current tower Mac of the future.

Currently I have nothing but ATA drives, so a move to a G5 would require some major upgrading aside from the computer itself.

[terryj]

The ATA PCI card wasn't reliable for the hard drives I connected to it. So I couldn't free up my ATA-66 bus., and thus am still writing slower than the drive's specs promise.

Was it a Sonnett Tempo Trio? I've had/have good luck with this brand of ATA-133 cards.

I'm not yet using DVDSP, only iDVD. So the compression time before the disk image is created (I usually don't burn until after I mount and test the project) is my big hang up. I only have a dual 1G G4 [only is a relative term]. A dual G5 may someday be adordable [used;reburbished], or when I win the lottery, a new state of the art current tower Mac of the future.

I also have a Dual 1ghz G4 ( MDD model) with 2 GB of Ram.
Have yu given thought to just using maybe ffmpegx to mux and make your Video-TS folders,
then drag and drop into Toast to burn? Not as elegant as iDVD, but could speed
up the process somewhat...also what about ditching iDVD for Toast 7?

Currently I have nothing but ATA drives, so a move to a G5 would require some major upgrading aside from the computer itself.

an unfortunate side effect of moving up my friend.

[willrob]

The PCI card was a SIIG. I wanted to create a RAID, which it can't do. So I settled on two individual drives. But both drives wouldn't mount consistently when the computer booted.

Is ffmpegx noticeably faster than iDVD? And what about DVDSP? Does the advantage of controlling bitrates translate into longer muxing times?

I do use Toast 7, although mostly to burn backups. I've never used it to mux.

[terryj]

Is ffmpegx noticeably faster than iDVD?
And what about DVDSP?
Does the advantage of controlling bitrates translate into longer muxing times?

I do use Toast 7, although mostly to burn backups. I've never used it to mux.

IMHO, they rank as follows:

Source : 2hr DV Stream
output: MPEG-2 for DVD

Compressor ( Constant VBR 1 pass)
DVDSP from Timeline ( Constant VBR 1 pass)
ffmpegx
QT 7
Toast 7
iDVD

Source: 2 hr avi, encoded DIVX 6
output: MPEG-2

ffmpegx
Toast 7
QT 7
Compressor ( Constant VBR 1 pass)
DVDSP from timeline ( Constant VBR 1 pass)( brought in as QT MOV, DVDSP doesn't accept DV stream)
iDVD

( and in the above scenario, I would export the audio out as AIFF from QT 7 regardless of the method)

Using a BitRate Calc with ffmpegx, compressor, or DVDSP will help speed it up,
as you can pre-figure the bitrate to get it exact to fit the disc, and then
setting CBR or VBR 1pass depending on the source footage also cuts your time.
Most VHS input footage will not get any better encoding 2 pass, so often
you can just use 1 pass VBR or even CBR and get good quality, with
a drop in time to encode.

[terryj]

As far as FCP Universal binaries, rumors I heard were
after tax day ( April 15th) but don't quote me...I still
personally believe it will be on the day of Apple's Keynote
at NAB ( April 24th)

well looks like I was mistaken, and so was the rumours I heard:
Apple ships Final Cut Universal 8)

[willrob]

So my guess is the Intel towers will be announced on the anniversary. Currently what can a Univrsal binary run on? Not the Intel Mini, not the Intel iMac... And PowerPC users didn't need a Universal. So Apple must be close. Or is putting the cart before the ________(insert favorite animal here).

[willrob]

I received my upgrade to Final Cut Studio , but am dissapointed there are no manuals included. Haven't insalled it all yet, due to the 10.4.6 update.

[terryj]

1. Are you saying you haven't installed because you are afraid of what the .4.6 update will/won't do to your mac?
or that it requires .4.6? Most reports i've read thus far point to
10.4.4 being the bare minimum OS needed.

2. Manuals are in PDF format someone mentioned in the
Apple Forums. Printed manuals can be ordered, but
for the cost of doing so, you'd be better off just getting
Lisa's Book.

looks also like the anniversary came and went without fanfare.
My guess: Desktops won't be until October.

[willrob]

I haven't installed them because I wanted to make sure I wasn't having problems with the 10.4.6 update. Also wanted to do a Diskwarrior check on the drive. And then there's the issue of the down time as one waits for the optimizing of five applications, two tutorial disks and the media files.

Thanks for the link to Lisa's book. I do have the FCP 4.5 manuals. It would be nice to have DVDSP, Motion, etc. manuals. But peerhaps once I look at the help files I might decided that's all I need. Especially if there are pdf versions of the manuals included.ed..