Advice Needed: Optimizating a PBG4 1.67Mhz

Hello-
New to the digital audio/Logic world and am seeking some advice. I'll be using this machine as a primary recording device and would call the demands I'll place on the machine moderate for now. The more optimization, the better.
Its a PBG4 17" 1.67Mhz with 512Mb of Ram and am looking to upgrade it. I will of course upgrade the Ram, and have an external firewire Audio Interface, but have some questions:
- If I have an external 7200RPM FW800 drive, should I boot from this or use it solely for scratch disk and recording leaving the OS on the internal 5400rpm drive?
- What format should I format the drive (HFS+ WO Journaling?)
- Is it best to use the 400port for the interface, 800 for large disk, and internal for booting?
- What are the optimal setting within Logic?
- Anything I should disable within the system?
- Any other recommendations for system or logic configuration that will enhance performance?
Thanks for the help on this!
- Mr. Bill
PBG4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)
PBG4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Hi Mr Bill
what kind of recording will you be doing? multi-track or just single takes?
I have a powerbook 15" 1ghz with 1gb of ram and from experience i would say most imoprtant ting to do, as you've identified, is to increase the ram!
i can answer a few of your questions:
i would boot from an external drive if i had the choice and run your samples/projects from a different partition of that external drive. Although in the real world i tend to boot from my internal and run projects from and record to ext.
you might be able to daisy chain - try it out see what works best, depends on your interface. would recommend 400 for interface, 800 for ext. drive.
Your optimal logic settings will depend on your workflow. Depends how many audio tracks you need, buses, aux's etc.
If you wanna use a space designer(reverb unit) on more than one track then put it on a bus and send the siignal from various tracks to that reverb. It's like sharing and will tax your cpu less!
keep your i/o buffer size as low as you can to avoid too much latency when recording, and increase it when mixing.
get used to freezing tracks...can really help out when you get the dreaded "audio error. disk too slow" message.
there are loads of little pointers - that's all i can think of now!
I would take out/off as many widgets as you can. i find they slow my system down.
turn off the setting to allow the powerbook's hard drive to go to sleep. turn off screensavers or any other bells and whistles that might drain system resources.
Make sure only necessary os applications are running in the background.
Enjoy having a lovely portable computer and you'll figure out so much more as you play with logic and the pb.
oh, btw, don't upgrade the os system to 10.4.9 yet - search for posts mentioning the .9 upgrade and you'll find much unhappiness with that and logic. I've got mine on 10.4.8 and it runs fine for me.
best
rounik

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Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum BIOS v1.3
Memory: Corsair VS1GBKIT400 1GB (2 x 512MB DIMMs) Kit DDR400 PC3200 CAS2.5 Value Select Memory - one 512MB DIMM in memory slot 1 and one 512MB DIMM in memory slot 3 running at DDR333 speed.
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Seagate ST3200822A 200GB hard drive as slave on IDE channel 1. Single partition.
Maxtor 6Y120L0 120GB hard drive as master on IDE channel 2. Single partition.
Sony DRU-500AX DVD-RW as slave on IDE channel 2.
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No PCI cards.
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Maximum Power: 420W
PFC: Acitve
Power Good Signal: 100-500ms
Hold-up Time: > 16ms at Full Load
Efficiency: > 65%
Over Voltage Protection: +5V trip pointInput Voltage: 100 VAC / 240 VAC
Input Frequency Range: 47-63 Hz
Input Current: 8.0A
Output: +3.3V@30A;+5V@40A;[email protected];+12V@18A;[email protected];+5VSB@2A

Quote
I then installed Rome Total War and played for about 2 hours and had one black screen crash
Great isn't it (although not without the occasional crash)
Would you say it's better but not there yet ? or the same ?
I thought the same as Ibn Quote
Your PS unit is a little weak for that much hardware, but I doubt thats your problem as well
re your PSU, given youv'e got a less hungry Graphic Card, thought it was at worse marginal, have seen worse.
To investigate further it may be worth diconnecting one of your HD, maybe the 200gb for a time.
It's a small thing but it may be slightly better to have both your maxtors together on IDE channel 1, given their identical.
good luck - keeo us posted

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£418.80 GBP, that's pretty much 25% of the original purchase price of the machine new, a Premium 'Pro' labelled machine just 3 years old at that. I cannot possibly afford to pay for the repair. I really despair.
This MBP has done no work hard enough for it to get stressed. It is used for some web surfing, online shopping, email, online flash based games but mostly for my kids homework. It has spent it's entire life on a table in our living room with the exception of it's Genius Bar trips.
I love Apple products, it's why as a family we own so many off them. Too many to list on a public forum as I don't want would be burglars inviting themselves around sometime. This issue has tainted my perception of both Apple and it's products. Not so much because of the fault, machines become faulty. No because it's a premium machine that cost me £2100 new and is little more than a paperweight at present just 3 years down the line. Some part of me if i'm honest was wishing but more than that expecting a company like Apple to say along the lines of "This has happened, it shouldn't have and will be repaired at no charge". There are many people suffering this kind of problem with this model and the existence of the knowledge base article must mean Apple knows it too. Just 3 years, £300 PCs last longer than that i'm sure. It does seem to be a very short lifespan for such a high end machine.
My apologies for droning on but I can neither afford the repair or do without the computer, my son is in his final GCSE year at school and my daughter in her pre GCSE year so a computer is critical for school homework research etc. I just do not know how to move forward, I haven't even picked the machine up yet!
This isn't a stomping Apple, one man crusade. I just need my MacBook fixed.
If anyone has had this problem and had it satisfactory resolved, knows who to speak to that may help resolve the issue please let me know.
Any other advice will be more than welcome.

Ive repaired 1000s of laptops over the years (translate: diagnose and replace parts).
Its not that old, Ive owned 100s of laptops (most were free) ....some I still have are nearly 13 years old and still perfect, ....some extremely expensive ones died in under a year.
other than becoming obsolete at some point, there isnt really any "will spoil on" data like Milk for solid state computer parts, ....alas.
You can have a $5000 laptop die in 4 months, and a junker one keep kicking after 10 years.... Ive seen that firsthand countless times.
Common logic dictates that "very expensive = long life" in computers,..... but all the repair people will tell you just the opposite.
I know you have a gripe, I get that all too well honestly .

Advice needed regarding Database design practice

OK, here is my situation. I've started working for a company about 6 months ago. I'm a .NET developer with 12+ years of experience. Most of my experience with databases is with SQL Server. Recently I've discovered an design change with our Oracle database that our DBA made that I completely disagree with.
We had a single Event table that holds records that pertain to all HTTP traffic on a network as HTTP Usage Event. There are multiple hardware units called 'Sensors' that monitor the network and report these HTTP events to the database. At some point not long ago, the table was holding just over a million records. Performance was suffering so the DBA decided to make a change to the database to accommodate. The change she made was to create a separate Event table for each sensor. Each sensor has an integer value as a unique identifier, so our database went from having a single Event table to now having Event_100, Event_101, Event_102, etc...
So, we now have over 200 Event tables in our database. Anytime a sensor is added to the system, we need to add another table (actually two as there is a 2nd table that was duplicated in this same fashion).
How do I present this to my boss and to the DBA in a way that I don't embarrass my boss (he approved the change) and without pissing off the DBA? I can't imagine that the table couldn't have been optimized as it was to take care of the issues with performance without so dramatic a change.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Edited by: jreddy on Dec 15, 2010 6:51 AM

There is a job to purge old data. Events are kept for 3 months. These jobs were actually part of the problem, as well as removing sensors from the system. In either of these cases, the deletion of the data (more so with the removal of a Sensor i.e. DELETE FROM EVENT WHERE SENSORID = X, was taking too long).
I'm surprised that there have been people agreeing to this design. So, now we have 208 sensors, so 208 Event tables and another table named DATA_HASH duplicated 208 times. There may be a time when our database will be handling data from over 1,000 sensor units. Maybe even double that. Can anyone argue that having 2,000 event tables is the way to go? What if we need to add a new field to the table? Do that 2000 times?
I've been looking at bit more at the data today. I found some event tables haven't got any data (0 rows) while others range in row counts of 2 million up to as much as 30 million? I've talked to SQL DBA's and they all think that Oracle should be able to handle billions of rows in a table.
Also, just out of curiosity, I looked up the max size for a table in Oracle 10. I know the number of rows isn't the determining factor for this, but size of the data. I was astounded to find out the max size for data storage for a single table. 127 TB (yeah, tera bytes). Based on this size, it seems our data could be handled by 1 table, but then maybe I'm wrong.

Advice Needed for Coding FCP Plugin's

This will be my first attempt at coding anything for FCP and I am hoping to get some advice on how to proceed and where I can get technical information.
Project 1: Create a plugin to add a selection to the Canvas/Viewer Overlay windows - just under "Show TimeCode Overlays", or there abouts. The option will allow the visual display of the embedded DV Date/Time stamp on the tape, in the same fashion as Time-code is overlaid. As far as I have been able to find, this plugin does not exist yet, so I thought I would give it a shot.
Project 2: Create a plugin to enhance "DV Start/Stop Detect" to label markers with the embedded DV Date/Time code. i.e. Instead of "Segment 1" the marker would be labeled "20070131 19:15:45", assuming of course, a valid date/time existed, otherwise default back to "Segment xx".
But, I guess my first question would be, would these be "legal" projects to pursue. i.e. Is there an API to modify the functionality of FCP in this manner?
I know the DT is available as CatDV has no problem reading it, so I figure FCP should be able to as well.
I figure I will need:
1. Info on how the DT is encoded (hex) in the stream
2. FCP API info
3. Editing app to put the code together.
4. Forums that deal with Mac and FCP coding discussions.
5. Any other advice ANY ONE would like to give.
I have a BSc in Comp Sci and coded on the Main Frame for 15 years, so I have "basic" coding skills, but I have not coded on the Mac yet. I have registered for the FREE Developer Account, but haven't had a chance to explored the service yet.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
ASIDE: I have been editing in FCP since v1 and I shoot events with multiple cameras, sometimes hiring additional cameramen (with their own gear). Because, the events I shoot are usually live "one-of" events like weddings, sports... etc, there is a lot of ON/OFF recording. As such, I find the best way to sync up tapes is to match up Date/Time codes. I accomplish this by playing back the captured video through Firewire back to a Panasonic PV-GS400 which displays the DT on the pop-out display. I then MANUALLY update the previously created "DV Start/Stop Detect" segments with the appropriate DT.
This is a very time consuming process, and if I can get FCP to display the DT directly, it would knock hours off my work flow.
I hope this all makes sense.
FYI I will also be posting this in the 2-pop forums, so if I get any advice there, I will update my post here.
TIA
Gary

Hi Gary
Regarding both your proposed projects afaik there is no API to directly allow you to do this.
However a few options spring to mind: analyzing midi control /mackie control data as provided to a control surface (check out Digital Heaven's BigTime for an idea of how this could work); similarly you could create a virtual DV output device that would appear in the external video outputs list whereby the output video stream would be passed through your code to extract and display the info; perhaps simplest although the least dynamic would be simply to write an FxPlug filter that could be dropped on the clip ... the user could then populate the filter with static display data by manually scavenging the clip for the info with a "button" in your filter (see the options dialog example in the FxPlug SDK)
Good luck
Andy

Advice needed for a mess of ipods

the goal: get all music stored in one place, preferably my new ipod.
1) i have a third generation ipod which has the bulk of the music i have listened to for the last five years.
that music is in iTunes on a pc laptop that has died. (there's a chance that i can get those files off the dead computer and onto an external drive; still waiting to find out. but all those files are on the ipod anyway.)
2) I have a new laptop that has new music in iTunes. (Those files are also on an ipod nano.) the new iTunes files on this laptop do not overlap with the first set of files.
3) i have a new ipod that i want to get everything onto: the old (1st set) files on the old ipod, the new files on my new laptop (& nano), and ... i'd like to convert all of my old cds and get them on the new ipod as well.
Problems:
* how do i join the two sets of files (without losing any) if the old ipod won't work with my new laptop b/c the computer doesn't recognize it.
--What's the actual process for getting the files off the old ipod?
--would it be best to store everything on an external drive (point iTunes to it while it's attached to the laptop?)*
-store everything on the new ipod only?*
** what's the best way to get cds (their data) onto a laptop that doesn't have a cd drive?
The first issue about combining the sets of music onto a new ipod i really have no idea how to do. so any step by step kind of advice would be appreciated. especially because of the old ipod/new laptop incompatibility.
the second issue about the cds: i have a feeling i just have to pay some service to convert them for me. any cheaper ideas?
Thank you!

Right there are many ways to get your Music off your ipod and on to a computer the best thing to do is to take the files off your ipod and put them on a external disk (like you said) but you need to take it to a computer that recognizes your ipod and then once you have coppied the music across, add it to an external disk.
The best ways to do this is...
1.(the cost option)
download this program at http://www.findleydesigns.com/ (ipod Access for Windows), the free version copy's five songs at a time to your computer. But the registered version (£14 (not sure in $)) copys all of your music, playlists, videos etc across directly to itunes.
2. (The Free way) (this is for XP, but i should be the same with vista) (im not really familiar with Vista) but the principles are the same.
You need to be able to view hidden files on your computer , you need to go to the control panel and find folder options. (i believe that you could change the settings on in the windows explorer by clicking view at the top menu bar. you need to click it so that you can see the hidden files. (i think this explains simply what i said Tools -> Folder Options -> View, and then check (enable) the option “Show hidden files and folders.”)
Next find your ipod now if you have enabled hidden files you need to click on your ipod and find a folder called ipod control. the folder itself will look different maybe a bit transparent because it is hidden. Next you will go in and if you explore further you will see loads of files (transparent like ipod control) with things like F34 F01 (or F1) etc.
They are the files with your music on it and if you click on them, they will show music files but they wont have names. they are encrypted with file names like AKLY (basically four letters or 3 letters put together in capitals) so to get the names and other suff back simply drag the music files into itunes or import them individually (the folders) into itunes by clicking file, import into itunes and by folder.
Then once you have done this the names should be correct in Itunes.
*Alternitavely you can drag all the files in 'ipod control' into an external Hard Drive* if you go into itunes prefrences you can let itunes put all your music on your computer into organized files of album names.
Hope that Helped
Alex
And sorry the easiest ways to convert the CD's is to import them yourself into itunes Although it may take some time.
If you dont have an external hard drive then burning all your music onto CDs always helps although with a few Gigabytes of music it could take quite a lot of CDs. You might need some blank DVDs to burn on to
Message was edited by: Alexander Richardson

Advice Needed: Optimizating a PBG4 1.67Mhz

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