Apple Archive

Setting Up a Titanium PowerBook for Video Editing

- 2006.09.01

The people I work for recently replaced their 15" 867 MHz Titanium PowerBook G4 with a new 17" MacBook Pro. The G4 wasn't unreliable - far from it - but instead, their needs outgrew what the machine could provide.

This new MacBook Pro could take up an article in itself, but the more important aspect in terms of Low End Mac is what they're doing with the old machine.

Their son is making a movie, and, naturally, all movies have budgets. On the top of the list was the camera, which, once purchased, left little room to spare in said budget for a computer to do the film editing on. While their son already had a reasonably modern Windows laptop, he felt that he really needed a Mac to run Final Cut Pro on. This made sense to me, and the idea was to acquire such a machine for about $400.

Since purchasing a complete new system was out of the question, the old 867 MHz TiBook came into the picture. This particular machine was equipped with 512 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and an AirPort card. Not a bad machine, but underpowered for what his mother (a photographer) was trying to use it for. The hard drive was completely full (under 500 MB free) with photographs, and those needed to be transferred to her new machine.

In order to set up this machine for her son, we decided that he needed a much larger (200 GB+) hard drive, as well as more RAM. The hard drive was a fairly straightforward operation: we purchased an external USB Iomega 250 GB drive that was essentially plug-and-play. There were, however, some limitations.

The drive is a USB 2.0 drive, and we bought it figuring the machine had USB 2.0. It doesn't (Apple didn't adopt USB 2.0 until 2004), and copying all 25 GB of photographs off the G4 took almost 10 hours. Yes, that's right. 10 hours. If that's how long it took for 25 GB of photos, how long will it take for 50 GB of film footage?

One solution would be to return the drive and replace it with a FireWire 400 hard drive. A FireWire drive, while more expensive, would definitely be faster, but having the camera connected at the same time would involve more of a mess of cables and adapters - something that I know isn't particularly favorable (or reasonably priced).

Given that an internal drive will certainly be too small, this may be the best option.

That wasn't the only disappointment. Unfortunately, the RAM limit of this machine is just 1 GB - considering this woman's main machine has four times that - and the 512 MB in the machine was achieved with two 256 MB chips. This meant that both had to be replaced at a cost of nearly $100 a module to reach 1 GB. Not an inexpensive endeavor, so we decided to stick with 512 MB for now and see how Final Cut Express would run (I assume not very well, but we haven't gotten that far).

The next adventure is to look into the purchase of a DVD±RW drive for the machine so that the final footage can be burned to DVD. Most of the external units are only for Windows machines, and ones that list Mac compatibility are generally more expensive. That being said, the other option is to look into an internal drive that replaces the laptop's Combo drive. Other World Computing sells an internal SuperDrive for $120, which may be a much more convenient way to go, and perhaps the most compatible, too.

As it stands now, the $350 computer has turned into something slightly more expensive, particularly if we decide that we need to add RAM to it. While it won't be fast, it will be useful and reliable - isn't that what's important anyway?

Join us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Recent Apple Archive articles

iPods, notebooks, and other modern electronics more readily replaced than repaired, 2007.12.07. Whether it's an intermittent failure or a broken display cable, more often than not it's cheaper to replace a broken electronics device than repair it.
Options for replacing your older iPod, 2007.11.19. Whether you've run out of space on your old iPod or want features it doesn't have, here are your options in new and used iPods.
Could the $200 'green' PC with gOS Linux become a threat to Apple?, 2007.11.14. The low cost, low power Everex desktop comes with a customized version of Ubuntu Linux, has a Mac-like Dock, and sells for $400 less than the Mac mini.
More in the Apple Archive index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: Mac IIfx, introduced 1990.03.19. This 'wicked fast' 40 MHz Mac trumped the 33 MHz DOS world.
February 14 in LEM history: 98: A perfect compact Mac - 00: Extended computer warranties worth the cost? - Making your PC work with your Mac - 01: Customize Microsoft Word - 02: Quadra revives a passion for computing - 03: Real world performance - DIY Pismo screen replacement - Best Mac for writing - 03: Fastest browser on the Mac - 06: 15" MacBook Pro - Impressions of a newly acquired Lisa - Finding and using free WiFi - Apple should liberate OS 9 - 07: New Mac mini cheaper than upgrading a Power Mac - 08: Falling in love with OS X
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Apple Archive articles copyright ©2000-07 by Adam Robert Guha. Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Custom Search

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Introductory Price of $59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!! Or buy direct from Strider Software.

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker and Mac Casino applications in minutes.

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The Apple Store
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
GainSaver
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay