No Firewire; many possible problems

There is one on the MBP but not the MB. Where are you seeing this at?

Kappy wrote:
Where do you all get this misinformation?

First we get it from the photo of the new MB on the Apple web site showing the side of the Mac where all the ports are. No FW ports shown. Then we go to the spec page for the MB and again, no FW ports.
Where do you get your misinformation? 😉
Regards,
Patrick
Message was edited by: PT to add the smiley.

Right, I had to find some other references to verify there was no Firewire port on the MacBook.

The discussion is on the new aluminum macbook, not the old one.

My picture showed cables connected one of which definitely looked like a FW800 cable. My error.

Hate to burst your bubble, but there is a Firewire 800 port on both the Pro and MB models. Where do you all get this misinformation?

There is NO FireWire whatsoever on the Aluminum (Late 2008) MacBook. It's not entirely clear, but as long as the "original" white MacBook has not changed (Apple has NOT updated any specifications that clearly indicate this is still true) then it has a FireWire 400 port. But until Apple specifically updates online information about this model, which is still missing, we can't even be absolutely sure about this.

-Doug

Agree totally not only is target disc invaluable but firewire is required for importing video into imovie etc and given the choice I always use firewire drives (400 normally) because on the mac they are always quicker than USB 2.0 for transferring files. So Apple if I buy a new Macbook I need to change my camorder and my external drives - lets be honest firewire ports can't be that expensive and these new macbooks are overpriced to begin with. All the way through this companies history they have hobbled the hardware on commercial models (I had an LC and a performa 6200 back in the day) even my early version intel macbook which has been a good machine has a pitiful graphics card (fair enough they have addressed this in the new model) and I had to upgrade the HD to 320GB - whilst I.m on this a 320GB Western Digital ATA drive costs £75 incl VAT and delivery in the UK not £140 as per the build to order. I can understand the higher price over competitors with regards to design and technology LCD and environmental but I think if the basic new model was £200 cheaper with a firewire port it would be a killer machine.

Will I still be able to use SuperDuper to make bootable clone with the new MacBook?

I don't know any easier way to back up everything.

Intel-based Macs, like all of the MacBooks, can boot from USB hard drives.

-Doug

The new white Mac Books still do have firewire .See http://www.apple.com/macbook/white/specs.html

Even ACVHD is lower quality than HDV according to every review I've seen so far over at camcorderinfo.com. As long as nothing moves, it's OK; motion kills it, period. Even the new Canon's with 24mb/s. HDV may not be the best high def format either (it's only 1080x1440), but it is an intermediate format, not a delivery format like mpeg2 or avchd (H.264). Removing firewire means we must use inferior formats, sell our older but better camcorders, or avoid Macbooks.

And I suspect, many of us don't have great confidence that Firewire is here to stay on MacBook Pro, MacPro, or iMac, either. I just hope the cam manufacturers start creating .mt2 and similar files (or .dv files) on solid state or hard drive camcorders.

I wonder if Steve is hopping around on one foot after shooting himself there?

Eddie O

{quote:title=PT wrote:}
Hi Eric,
But unless the user wants to spend a lot more money for an HD camcorder, this forces them to pick a much lower quality SD MPEG2 format camcorder rather that the higher quality of DV format. Of course for many people, they won't know, won't care, won't notice, or any combo of those.

And the people most likely to choose a MacBook and not a MacBook Pro are not likely to spend a lot of money on the new, more expensive camcorder model. MiniDV, with it's Firewire/iLink connection is still king and will be in the field for years to come.

JeffP. wrote:

{quote:title=PT wrote:}
Hi Eric,
But unless the user wants to spend a lot more money for an HD camcorder, this forces them to pick a much lower quality SD MPEG2 format camcorder rather that the higher quality of DV format. Of course for many people, they won't know, won't care, won't notice, or any combo of those.

And the people most likely to choose a MacBook and not a MacBook Pro are not likely to spend a lot of money on the new, more expensive camcorder model. MiniDV, with it's Firewire/iLink connection is still king and will be in the field for years to come.

Some enterprising soul is going to come up with a solution for this that will be supported by major software makers.

I've been waiting months for a MacBook Pro for myself and a MacBook for my daughter. I won't use a Glossy Screen. She wants it for video and won't buy a new camera. Apple just lost two very long time customers with these decisions.

To me, it seems like Apple design guys (brilliant though they often are) are stuck in their ivory tower in Cupertino and go so 'into' the design aesthetic that they forget that real people, with real budgets, like to buy and use their products.

It's been said before, but here you have a consumer level laptop, and we can't use consumer level DV cameras with it to edit. Wasn't it Apple who advertised these things not long ago as THE tool for casual home movie editing?

It's like they keep saying "hey back in 98, we did away with floppy drive and that worked, so what else can remove now?"

One more thing ... this actually reminds of the 'translucent menu bar' fiasco that Apple encountered when they first came out with OS 10.5. Another case of them going with form over function. In that case, after voluminous complaints, they fixed it.

Sadly, in this case, there will be no software fix. Now, they expect all of us 'consumers' (who are buying the macbook to save money in the first place) to buy a new camera. (BTW, my firewire DV camera is only 18 months old).

Hey Apple, out here in the real world (you know, us folks who have faithfully bought your stuff) are feeling screwed over.