Hey there,
i got a question about performance.
Can a MBP, at 24/48 resolution, record 32 channels through 2X 828 MKII.
I also need to sync SMPTE and provide a rough mix for camera through cuemix.
MBP 2.16Ghz + express firewire card, 1gig ram, many firewire external drive available.
Possible?
Thanks
Martin
Is 32 ch of 24 /48 on 2X828 MKII on MBP possible?
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Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
Discussion related to installation, configuration and use of MOTU hardware such as MIDI interfaces, audio interfaces, etc. for Mac OSX
I'm thinking you should be okay here. The only computer-dependent issue here is the track count (the cuemix and smpte stuff is all handled by external hardware i.e. your motu interface).
The limiting factor here, as far as track count, would be the write speed of your hard drive. Each track at 24bit 48k is writing data to the drive at a rate of 8 MB / minute, x 32 tracks you're writing 256 MB / minute or 4.2 MB / second.
A good USB 2 drive can write at 34 MB / second and a good FW 400 at 40+ MB / second. The macbook pro, meanwhile, can handle up to 250 MB / second (bear in mind, these are ideal rates as posted by various manufacturers)
Since you've got the pcie FW card there's no conflict between your drives and your interfaces, So ... you should be fine. Go with FW 800 if you can. If it were me, I'd have 2 or 3 (or 8 or 10) backup drives standing by, as hard drives have a way of really screwing you when you least expect it; have them clean and optimized etc. There are also various software raid tools available for OS X which I've heard good things about, could be worth looking into to give you some extra breathing room (You could, for example stripe to two disks and mirror to a third) but this is probably not necessary.
A good test for your system would be to load up a whole bunch of 24 bit / 48 k dummy tracks into DP and see how she handles playback, keep adding tracks until you get read errors.
As a point of comparison, miniDV has a rate of 3.6 MB / second, and I've never had a FW drive complain about playing back multiple tracks.
The limiting factor here, as far as track count, would be the write speed of your hard drive. Each track at 24bit 48k is writing data to the drive at a rate of 8 MB / minute, x 32 tracks you're writing 256 MB / minute or 4.2 MB / second.
A good USB 2 drive can write at 34 MB / second and a good FW 400 at 40+ MB / second. The macbook pro, meanwhile, can handle up to 250 MB / second (bear in mind, these are ideal rates as posted by various manufacturers)
Since you've got the pcie FW card there's no conflict between your drives and your interfaces, So ... you should be fine. Go with FW 800 if you can. If it were me, I'd have 2 or 3 (or 8 or 10) backup drives standing by, as hard drives have a way of really screwing you when you least expect it; have them clean and optimized etc. There are also various software raid tools available for OS X which I've heard good things about, could be worth looking into to give you some extra breathing room (You could, for example stripe to two disks and mirror to a third) but this is probably not necessary.
A good test for your system would be to load up a whole bunch of 24 bit / 48 k dummy tracks into DP and see how she handles playback, keep adding tracks until you get read errors.
As a point of comparison, miniDV has a rate of 3.6 MB / second, and I've never had a FW drive complain about playing back multiple tracks.
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martinruel