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Digital Media Series FireWire 2 Go |
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What's cooler than editing DV on your Mac? How about editing on the road with your PowerBook G3? Newer Technology's FireWire 2 Go PCMCIA card adds a FireWire bus to Apple's PowerBook G3 laptops. With the PC Card upgrade, users can utilize FireWire toys like camcorders and hard drives.
The FireWire 2 Go card can handle IEEE 1394 devices running at 100, 200, and 400 Mb/sec. Similar to the built-in FireWire on Power Macs, the Newer card lets users take their digital studio on the road. Whether you're looking to dump still or full video, or just increasing your PowerBook's storage, FireWire 2 Go is a cool solution for your portable needs.
DV
Realistically, I'd prefer to do video editing on my desktop
system. Working on a PowerBook
isn't the best solution considering the compact nature of the machine. But, for the
digital artist on the go, Newer Technology recommends using a PowerBook G3 300 or
one of the newer bronze PowerBooks for video editing. I tested the card with a Sony Digital8 camcorder on a PowerBook G3 233 and PowerBook G3 400. This gave me a pretty good range for performance, and while I didn't have any problems capturing or playing from the 233 MHz machine, the work was fairly tedious. The work went slower than I'd like, but it did get done. The 400 MHz machine on the other hand required less patience. The editing went smother and operated up to a tolerable pace. From my testing, it seems that any of the recent PowerBooks will work for capturing full DV streams. Regardless though, I agree that a faster machine should be used for anything more than a quick clip of video.
For the road warrior, this can be the best thing since lithium ion batteries. Whether you're just taking video pictures or movies, you can start working on your projects while you're still in the field. For Internet publishing, life can't get much better. With FireWire 2 Go, users can take a digital camcorder and quickly dump video and pictures for the Internet. Add a quick swipe through Media Cleaner Pro or Photoshop, and content can be on the web in no time.
Storage
In addition to the camera, I tested the card with a 22 GB Mactell FirePower hard
drive. The 7200 RPM drive turned out to be 25-30% faster than the stock hard drive
in the PowerBook G3. While comparable to the stock hard drive, the FireWire 2 Go
card however didn't match up as well against the PowerMacs G3's FireWire. Using the
same FirePower drive, I found that a Power Mac G3 450 was slightly faster. So while
the FireWire 2 Go easily adds additional storage options, it's not quite as fast
as the built-in Power Mac hardware.
The FireWire drive itself is likely one of the fastest available today. Speed
with FireWire drives depends on Apple's FireWire drivers, the manufacturer's drivers
and the drive's size and rotation speed. Fortunately, drivers can be updated and
allow speed boosts down the road. Ultimately, if speed is critical for your work,
the best advice would be to buy the biggest hard drive you can afford. In general,
larger drives have higher data densities, which allow faster read/write speeds. In
my MacBench benchmark tests, the FirePower drive scored 12.4 MB/sec sustained read
and 8.6 MB/sec sustain write speeds with the FireWire 2 Go card. This is two to three
times the required speed for DV streaming. But in general, it's currently not recommended
using a FireWire hard drive for capturing and playing back DV. When I tested the
FireWire 2 Go card, I could stream to the FireWire drive without any problems. While
this seemed to work for me here, I've been recommending people use 
regular hard drives for the capturing
and playback, and then use the FireWire drives for media storage. Down the road potential
DV/storage problems should be ironed out, but it's still better to play it safe.
Regardless, the FirePower drive proved to work well with both desktop and FireWire
2 Go in all aspects of DV and data work, including daisy chaining the drive and DV
camera together.
Plug and Play
The FireWire 2 Go card is pretty easy to use. The card only requires Apple's own
FireWire software, which helps to ensure compatibility with Apple's products. The
card comes with an adapter cord, which attaches to the card and offers a 6-pin FireWire
plug. The FireWire 2 Go also ships with a six to four-pin cable, mainly for DV cameras.
Typically, FireWire drives ship with a six-pin to six-pin cable, so users should
be set for drives.
Like desktop FireWire, the card supports hot-swappable plugging. The card requires
a PowerBook that supports the CardBus architecture, which is the PowerBook G3 machines.
Unfortunately, Apple's CardBus PCMCIA slots do not provide power. As a result, the
FireWire 2 Go card will not power any FireWire devices. Apple's reasoning behind
this is that devices powered by the cards would put too much of a drain the PowerBook's
batteries.
Bottom Line
FireWire 2 Go is a great solution to take your FireWire devices on the road. While
I haven't tested anything other than a hard drive, the FireWire PC Card can also
add CD-RW, DAT and other FireWire devices to PowerBooks. 
Essentially, FireWire 2 Go gives
PowerBooks the easy and high performance expansion that FireWire-equipped PowerMacs
currently enjoy.
As more FireWire devices ship to market, and as prices eventually come down, Mac
users will find FireWire-based devices more attractive. Whether users want to extend
device functionality to their PowerBook, or just for exclusive PowerBook use, the
FireWire 2 Go card is a solid product at a good price. For $149, FireWire 2 Go is
a modest upgrade for its high potential.
Pros: Good product at a good price. Brings FireWire devices to older and current
PowerBook G3s. Ran well with no apparent problems.
Cons: Only minor details: Not quite as fast as Power Mac G3/G4 FireWire. FireWire
devices must have external power source.
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