Add eSATA to a 27” iMac and untap RAID speeds of 3.3 times faster than FireWire 800

Although it has been in existence for many years and is known to be among the best and fastest ways to connect local external hard drives or disk arrays to a computer, Apple strangely has been the only computer manufacturer to my knowledge which has not yet offered a direct eSATA port on any of its computers. Even way back in the Apple G5 tower era, I used to add eSATA ports to high-end video editing systems I integrated, and this of course has continued with the MacPro (Intel) era of Apple towers. The lack of direct eSATA port on all other Macs Mac, MacBook(Pro), and Mac Mini] has sadly meant that video editors have had to settle for slower FireWire 800 speeds… until now. The highly respected OWC (Other World Computing) is now offering a US$169 custom modification to iMac 27” (mid 2010 models) to add eSATA, which untaps 3.3 times faster performance with an external disk array or SSD, compared to FireWire 800. This article will cover what the extra speed means to a video editor, how eSATA has been added to Macs before (with compromises), the advantages of OWC’s new official upgrade plan, and how to do critical video evaluation monitoring with an iMac.

TecnoTur English episode 4: interviews with AJA, DVKitchen, and Carla Sánchez

TecnoTur episode 4 (English) is now available. In episode 4, Allan Tépper converses with Carla Sánchez, a USA-based Venezuelan actress, model, and spokesperson. Next comes Josh Mellicker, creator of DVKitchen, the program which is TecnoTur‘s favorite application for calculating, encoding, posting, and embedding video for the web and the most popular mobile devices, including iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry, and Android devices. Listeners of TecnoTur can get a special discount on DVKitchen when purchasing it directly from the manufacturer by entering a promotional code. DVKitchen is compatible with Matrox’s MAX hardware accelerator for H.264 encoding, which is available both as a standalone card, or as a factory-option with any MXO2 interface device. Finally, TecnoTur converses with Bryce Button of AJA, who tells us about AJA’s latest announcements from the entire product line. Here are details about how to hear TecnoTur free, or become a subscriber.

USA Networks’ “Covert Affairs” simulates Venezuela by shooting in Canada

In episode 3 of Covert Affairs, Universal Cable Productions simulated Caracas, the capital city of the South American country of Venezuela, both visually and linguistically (at least they attempted the latter). Covert Affairs is an enjoyable new series from USA Network (a division of NBC Universal) which last week broadcasted episode 3 (Southbound Suárez), where the protagonist Annie Walker (Piper Perabo) —a novice CIA agent— is sent to Caracas to carry out her third assignment. This article will describe a bit about that, and about Universal Cable Productions’ feat in simulating Venezuelan scenes, along with some cultural and linguistic blunders.

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