Setting up a MacBook Pro for a Windows environment...

[Superfletch 1]

Hey guys. I'm a long time Mac User and a ZERO windows user. I'd like some suggestions from some of you that perhaps are doing the same thing as me.

I have a 17" MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz Santa Rosa, 4GB RAM, Upgraded to a 320GB 7200rpm Internal HD with a LaCie 1TB FW800 external Drive. I've set up Boot Camp with a 100 GB Partition for my Windows Environment. Is this enough? Too Much?

I do most of my editing in iMovie 6 HD and output with iDVD. I'd like to play around with FCE or Pro, but I just haven't got around to it yet. :P I burn my stills using Toast 10.

I shoot with a Sony PC105 and a Rebel XT. I'm considering moving into HD perhaps and a tapeless work flow. But for now I'll stick with what I have.

I've set up my mac for Dual Boot via Boot Camp. Mac OS X 10.5.6 & Windows Vista Ultimate. I have Fusion. If I'm understanding things correctly I can open my boot camp partition with Fusion in those cases where I might want to access my windows side via my mac. Anyone doing this? Does installing the Fusion Tools on the boot camp windows partition upset the Windows side of things when I boot up windows via Boot Camp. I haven't tried it yet and would like a bit more insight on the process before I do.

My questions are:

1. I've installed Sony Vegas 8 and Nero 9 on my Vista Partition. Is there any other "must have" software for Windows that a Videographer would need? Is this software sufficient? What is the Media Manager software from Sony and should I worry about installing it?

2. Am I on the right track here? What sort of "complications" should I look for and try to avoid on the Windows side of things?

3. If I do decide to go tapeless with say a CX100 or something, what's the best way to get the "vids" into my computer. Will my USB 2.0 card reader be sufficient or should I invest in an Express/34 slot reader?

4. Will installing Call of Duty 5 on the windows side of things mess up my computer for editing purposes?

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[Icon134 0]

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1. I've installed Sony Vegas 8 and Nero 9 on my Vista Partition. Is there any other "must have" software for Windows that a Videographer would need? Is this software sufficient? What is the Media Manager software from Sony and should I worry about installing it?

you can probably get by fine with those if all you're doing is editing video... I use Lightroom to manage and process photos but it sounds like you're doing that on the Mac side of the computer.

I do like the PMB software that is supplied with the camera... it allows me to sort my videos by the date they are shot and provides a method to efficiently sort and import my videos.

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2. Am I on the right track here? What sort of "complications" should I look for and try to avoid on the Windows side of things?

It sounds to me like you are doing fine at creating a sony video editing station... I'm not sure I understand the second question...

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3. If I do decide to go tapeless with say a CX100 or something, what's the best way to get the "vids" into my computer. Will my USB 2.0 card reader be sufficient or should I invest in an Express/34 slot reader?

for "capturing" video a usb 2.0 card reader should be more then enough to copy and download files to the computer.

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4. Will installing Call of Duty 5 on the windows side of things mess up my computer for editing purposes?

yes... it will result in you spending far too much time playing in the windows operating system and you won't want to use your Mac any more...

As for the 100GB of hard drive for Windows... you probably can get by with that but... you might want a bit more space... of course I imagine you will keep videos/photos on the external hard drive... and if that's the case than you should be fine giving Windows 100 GB.

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[Superfletch 1]

I still plan on using my Mac side MOST of the time. I'm completely comfortable with the environment and it does everything I need. I'm sure I'll do all my skydiving projects on the mac side as well. I'm hoping to gain a working knowledge of Final Cut. I use iMovie exclusively at the moment because it's so powerful and EASY. It amazes me how much more difficult a PROFESSIONAL editing suite is to use. Perhaps I'm over thinking it. But it's hard to move away from iMovie because of it's ease of use.

I only installed the Vista partition for doing tandem videos in hopes of speeding up my workflow. As of now I'm spitting out a final product on the mac side in about 45 minutes. I'd like to cut that time by a significant amount. I just don't see how I can really do it any faster in iMovie. I'd like to be able to edit and hand to the customer and still make every other load.

I also wanted to gain a better working knowledge of Windows. I don't do much gaming but I loved Call of Duty 4 on my mac, so I wanted to check out COD:WoW on the PC.

Another question... If I were to go tapeless, What's the best way to archive my footage? I'd expect that it would be to purchase an external drive for archival purposes but I am unsure of the size... Would it be better to say get a 320GB-500GB for each season or just get a monster drive and fill it with as many seasons as I can. Since going to an NLE type of edit for videos I don't shoot as much video as I used to perhaps 4-6 minutes per vid. I think I used in the neighborhood of 12 tapes last year. (I'm at a small Cessna dropzone with 3 other video guys). How many GB's does 12 hours of footage generally take up? SD and HD?

Thanks for all the input guys, I really appreciate it. I've been "winging" it for years now and I'd like to be more educated.

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[DSE 3]

DV and HDV are both in the 12.5 GB Per Hour range....
My recommendation is that you not attempt to use Parallels for your editing, it's just not fast enough.
Scotty Burns finished this process only yesterday. He's a Macolyte too, and found Vegas so fast and easy, he's now got it on two different Macs running Bootcamp, and one running Parallels so he can COPY video over while processing in Lightroom, but he's not attempting to edit over both OS's.
If you go tapeless, my best recommendation is to go with an enterprise-class external. Don't go cheap.
I had the misfortune of one of my very important portable drives go down last week; very little backed up One of the guys from this forum has been helping me work towards recovery on a frozen platter. It was an elcheapo Maxtor with Seagate HDD in it.
Congrats on the new NLE! Wait'll you see how fast you can go!

[Superfletch 1]

Thanks Spot... I'm actually very excited to try it out. I haven't even hooked my camera to Vegas yet, I've just got it all installed.

Here's another question... Should I look into investing in an external DVD writer? Am I burning up my internal superdrive by burning literally 1000's of DVD's with it?

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[DSE 3]

I have one Macbook (older one) still burning discs fast and furious. My newer one frequently locks discs out and requires a reboot while holding the Option key to get it to unlock on boot....
So...I'm half and half on the fence. Macbooks are hard to replace drives for. Externals are easy, and you prolly do have a Sata or firewire port just sitting there.

[velocityphoto 0]

I have just finished doing the same thing with my imac intel. Vegas pro 8 in windows xp.

I have a 1TB western digital my book studio edition for all my storage. I have it cross formatted to share my windows files and mac files both on it.

I just looked last night and adoramacamera has a 2TB my book studio edition for $264.95.
I think i'll pick one up this week.

A friend will bail you out of jail , a REAL friend will be sitting next to you in the cell slapping your hand saying "DUDE THAT WAS AWSUM " ................

[Superfletch 1]

Mine has been giving some intermittent problems lately. I believe I solved them by blowing out the drive with compressed air and cleaning the lens by wrapping a t-shirt around a credit card and inserting it on the left side of the drive. I haven't had a problems since doing this. I had originally concluded that it just didn't like the shit memorex discs I was using but then some of my sony's started choking as well.

I just was a bit worried that perhaps I was wearing it out.

As far as replacing it... well, I had to disassemble the entire laptop to replace the 160GB HD that it came with, to the 320 I put in it the other day. It was surprisingly simple. A bit daunting perhaps with all the tiny little screws involved but I would have no apprehension in swapping the internal DVD if it required it. You just need a #00 phillips screwdriver and T6 and a large white sheet for when you drop one of those tiny screws.

Gary "Superfletch" Fletcher
D-26145; USPA Coach, IAD/I, AFF/I
Videographer/Photographer

[mnskydiver688 0]

I must be an exception to the rule. I have been getting better performance from Adobe Premier than Sony Vegas. I am not sure if I have the correct settings for Vegas, but as far as AVCHD ingesting in both programs I get largely the same result. I am using a FW 7200 rpm external for both. If it was me and I just got a new MBP, I would fork over the money for Premier and stay in Mac. But that is just me and I think I am fighting a tidal wave here in regards to competing with Vegas. Also, if you buy the creative suite with Premier you get After Effects. Then you can make all those flashy intros and such. Another positive is Photoshop and Encore (DVD software) are seamlessly integrated with each other. You are also able to make intros and motion graphics in Flash and import the media into Premier. On a side note, I am also a bit sour about boot camp and windows because I have both a wireless bluetooth keyboard and mouse and they aren't behaving in windows. Anyway, flame on Vegas users.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[DSE 3]

Nothing to "flame on" about, except that you don't have Vegas configured correctly if you're ingesting, editing, and exporting AVCHD in CS4 at the same speed you're working in Vegas.
Not possible, not if Vegas is correctly implemented. Vegas keeps MPEG in its native form throughout, while Premiere does a background internal process that slows it down. It's hooked into the HAL layer (which may someday have some hardware benefits that Vegas will never have), and it slows the process.

CS4 is a *great* tool (although it is a bloated pig) and on either my MBP, G5, or PC workstations, it's appreciated, used every day.
me...I love bootcamp, wish I could use parallels. I don't use wireless, so what you're experiencing isn't my experience.
BTW, Premiere on Mac is grotesquely slower than on the PC side when dealing with AVCHD or any flavor of MPEG.
go have a peek at the various editing forums out there including Adobe's own. Mac users are _not_ happy.

[mnskydiver688 0]

Hmmm... Interesting. I have also heard that the encoder with Vegas is poor. What is your experience with that? Also, would burning to DVD be the only reason to leave it in AVCHD after the editing process? Wouldn't you be encoding to something like MP4 or FLV for online? If you want to send me a PM with the settings for Vegas I would really appreciate it. I would like to use it since I already dropped the money on XP and Vegas. One last thing, if Vegas is so good, what on earth do you use Premier for?

I quickly learned that if I wanted to throw a small project together in iMovie I have to take it directly from the camera and I can't read the files from a hard drive.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[PharmerPhil 0]

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I quickly learned that if I wanted to throw a small project together in iMovie I have to take it directly from the camera and I can't read the files from a hard drive.

You can read the AVCHD files from a hard drive, but you have to leave the clips in their respective folders, bring the whole folder into your hard drive, and not change the relative file structure.

[mnskydiver688 0]

Hmm.... well I might try that next time. Are you saying you have to transfer the entire contents of the memory stick over to the drive? Including all the playlist and other stuff?

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[PharmerPhil 0]

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...Are you saying you have to transfer the entire contents of the memory stick over to the drive? Including all the playlist and other stuff?

I'm not sure, but I think so. At least that is what I always do and it works. I'm just not sure what you can do without, but nothing other than the actual clips take much space anyway. Attached a pic of a typical folder set.

[DSE 3]

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Hmm.... well I might try that next time. Are you saying you have to transfer the entire contents of the memory stick over to the drive? Including all the playlist and other stuff?

yes, you understand that right, when working with Apple systems.
I use Premiere because it's the back end/editing side of AfterEffects. I'm also a certified Adobe trainer, so have to know this stuff.
I like playing with all the tools. Vegas is my fave, obviously. But... They're all just tools. Some are more functional and quick than others.
If I have to do a perf match or interface with a lot of other editors, then AVID is my first choice, FCS my second choice. If it's a project that will live as one project, then Vegas is my first choice, especially for long form.
After Effects and Premiere go together like bread and butter, where After Effects and Vegas go together like steak and cranberry sauce (they work but it's a lot of work to get them there).

[howardwhite 4]

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My recommendation is that you not attempt to use Parallels for your editing, it's just not fast enough.

Out of curiosity (and because I have it), in what respect is Parallels not fast enough -- rendering, or other stuff?

HW

[mnskydiver688 0]

Ooo...Ooo... I think I know. Because Parallels creates a virtual machine for Windows to run on, you never are able to take full advantage of your available hardware. For basic computer software it isn't too much of an issue, but when you get into more hardware intensive programs it becomes a problem.

Sky Canyon Wingsuiters

[DSE 3]

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Ooo...Ooo... I think I know. Because Parallels creates a virtual machine for Windows to run on, you never are able to take full advantage of your available hardware. For basic computer software it isn't too much of an issue, but when you get into more hardware intensive programs it becomes a problem.

what you said.

[howardwhite 4]

Which still doesn't answer my question -- what is slow? Rendering, or other stuff?

HW

[DSE 3]

Rendering is horribly slow, and early experiences were unstable, but I'm told it's improved. haven't had time to experiment lately.