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Macbook Air/Thunderbolt & Phase Backs

R

rga

Member
I see that the new Air is out, but has a "Thunderbolt" port and still no firewire. Does anyone know if there is a way to tether a Phase back to the Air with a Thunderbolt to firewire cord? Or some other way? I've heard that the old Air, with USB, would not work with Phase backs...

Thanks,
Bob
 
lance_schad

lance_schad

Workshop Member
Bob,

I just saw that Sonnet has announced some media adapters. One is a FW800 to Thunderbolt and the other is Gigabit Ethernet to Thunderbolt.

I am awaiting to hear back when they are planning to ship them, and also have a question in to PhaseOne regarding support.

At least we are seeing adapters surface.


Lance
 
R

rga

Member
lance_schad said:
Bob,

I just saw that Sonnet has announced some media adapters. One is a FW800 to Thunderbolt and the other is Gigabit Ethernet to Thunderbolt.

I am awaiting to hear back when they are planning to ship them, and also have a question in to PhaseOne regarding support.

At least we are seeing adapters surface.


Lance
Click to expand...
Thanks Lance. If you get one and test it, please post your results!
Best,
Bob
 
G

gazwas

Active member
Great find Lance.

If Sonnet release that adapter and it's not too bulky the 11" MPA will be the perfect location tool.

The initial tests put the new MBA at the same performance level as my 2010 17" MBP.... amazing!
 
D

DeckardTrinity

New member
I saw that yesterday and hope that Sonnet gets this ready for market soon. The Leaf Afi7 that I use also will only tether via Firewire. I sold off my 2010 MBA last month in anticipation of the new Thunderbolt equipped ones, but may have to consider a MBP instead if the adapter isn't out relatively soon.
 
G

goesbang

Member
DeckardTrinity said:
I saw that yesterday and hope that Sonnet gets this ready for market soon. The Leaf Afi7 that I use also will only tether via Firewire. I sold off my 2010 MBA last month in anticipation of the new Thunderbolt equipped ones, but may have to consider a MBP instead if the adapter isn't out relatively soon.
Click to expand...
Before we all get too excited, lets just remind ourselves that the full frame sensors cannot deliver the data off the sensor fast enough to use the full capacity of data throuput available with Firewire 800.
We don't need a faster cable because the back can't get the data out fast enough for this to be an issue.
 
Terry

Terry

New member
siebel said:
Before we all get too excited, lets just remind ourselves that the full frame sensors cannot deliver the data off the sensor fast enough to use the full capacity of data throuput available with Firewire 800.
We don't need a faster cable because the back can't get the data out fast enough for this to be an issue.
Click to expand...
It isn't really a need of wanting a faster cable. It is the issue that a Macbook Air has 3 connections. 2 - USB2 and 1- Thunderbolt. So, currently there is no way to tether at all with a MBA since the back doesn't support Thunderbolt. So, unless there is an adapter that can interface with the Air and the digital back the MBA can't be used.
 
D

DeckardTrinity

New member
TEBnewyork said:
It isn't really a need of wanting a faster cable. It is the issue that a Macbook Air has 3 connections. 2 - USB2 and 1- Thunderbolt. So, currently there is no way to tether at all with a MBA since the back doesn't support Thunderbolt. So, unless there is an adapter that can interface with the Air and the digital back the MBA can't be used.
Click to expand...
Exactly the reason for me as well. I have to say I wasn't expecting to see such a large "box", but it makes sense that there would be extra electronics needed to go from Thunderbolt to another interface. Since a lot of the value in a Macbook Air is its small size I'll have to evaluate the usefulness of an adapter of this size, in conjunction with the laptop, versus just getting a Macbook Pro which has Firewire built-in.
 
G

goesbang

Member
The data is stored on the HDD pretty quickly, but in order to display the image onscreen at full res, 80MP of data has to be processed and then your video card has to render it. This takes time......
 
G

goesbang

Member
TEBnewyork said:
It isn't really a need of wanting a faster cable. It is the issue that a Macbook Air has 3 connections. 2 - USB2 and 1- Thunderbolt. So, currently there is no way to tether at all with a MBA since the back doesn't support Thunderbolt. So, unless there is an adapter that can interface with the Air and the digital back the MBA can't be used.
Click to expand...
I read somewhere, perhaps the Phase One official forum, that Thunderbolt does not work the same way as other peripherals such as USB and Firewire and is in some ways unsuitable for connecting cameras directly.
This could explain the need for the huge box.
The USB3 port on IQ backs should be backwards-compatible with USB2. Not sure if this is implemented in the firmware yet.
 
G

gazwas

Active member
siebel said:
The USB3 port on IQ backs should be backwards-compatible with USB2.
Click to expand...
But we don't all own IQ backs and firewire is the only option hence the interest in this solution. :rolleyes:

With regards to the performance of the new MPA, as C1's GPU acceleration feature is a waist of time as you get better reliability and performance with it set to never, the difference in the graphics cards is a moot point as C1 just uses the processor to render the file. The bench marks suggest they are as fast as my 2010 i7 MBP and that renders IQ180 files so it shouldn't be a problem for anything you connect to it.

Its just if that adapter is a quarter the size of the machine it makes it obviously less useful.
 
Terry

Terry

New member
gazwas said:
Its just if that adapter is a quarter the size of the machine it makes it obviously less useful.
Click to expand...
I guess in my case I would use the machine for much more than tethering so would still rather have small machine with bigger adapter sometimes than big machine always.
 
G

gazwas

Active member
TEBnewyork said:
I guess in my case I would use the machine for much more than tethering so would still rather have small machine with bigger adapter sometimes than big machine always.
Click to expand...
Very true but I'd still prefer it to be at max the size of a business card rather than the size of my Sekonic meter hanging off an 11" Air. :p
 
N

narikin

New member
FWIW: I use a high powered Windows7 tablet PC, it has firewire built in. No, not a mock iPad tablet, but one of the original tablet PC's. Same power processor as 18months ago's highest PowerBook, (2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo T9600) and 12" touch screen. Twist & fold screen flat use like a flat slate, C1 works perfectly with pen touch. Built in FW great tethered with P65+ and IQ180. Image files render in about 5 secs. Mine's a Fujitsu Lifebook T5010, but there are many others out there. Cost $1200 with 4Gb RAM.
 
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