Igloo "speed" anomaly

[RHPConsult]

She’s presently awaiting delivery of her new Buffalo ext HD for her G4/Igloo, while continuing to work on a putting music to a movie history of her family’s 2008! Married 11 years, she done this annually.

Both her int and ext HDs are nearing 90% capacity. But, she tells me when she opens iTunes (which then with iMovie are the only open apps) the Mac begins to operate very, very slowly and after the music is “applied”, the movie runs “choppy”.

I've neither seen nor heard this anomaly, personally. Her previous family chronicles with this computer and both these Apple apps have been very successful. How 'bout "joyous"! (Grandfatherly appraisal).

Given that 1TB will surely “help” the rotating memory “problem”, would increasing RAM (now 860-something MB) be likely positively to effect any change in her procedures/performance?

Any suggestions (from long distance) appreciated?

[gunug]

I always find things run better with Spotlight turned off; you may have other thoughts!

[Xairbusdriver]

Are you saying the video/audio/movie/whatever it is that she wants to 'present' is on the external drive? If so, how is it connected? Obviously FW800 will be the faster way.

OTOH, even 10% is not a lot of extra space! I've heard of 15% as the time to start serious 'house cleaning' or transferring files off to something else. And the larger the drive, the faster the seek time should be. Especially if the files are large and fragmented (although I think these are fairly new writes, correct?).

Now, all this is assuming that the presentation is running in iMovie while iTunes is open. And the file is not on the internal drive. Does the iTunes library also have a large number of songs? Is the iTunes Library also on the external?

The iGloo's buss is not too speedy and trying to keep the iMovie video buffer full while displaying it at the same time may require a bit higher transfer speed. And, the installed RAM may be a little over-taxed, as well, not to mention the cpu!

Besides Spotlight, I'd suggest killing the Widgets thing, all of them are still running/installed even if you aren't using them, as I recall. Of course, you/she should also check for any un-needed apps that are starting up in Startup Items...

[RHPConsult]

Thanks much, gunug and ABD. Useful suggestions and descriptions.

One remaining question: Is there some way she could compress her iMovie file, while it's under construction?

A few weeks ago I learned here about Quartz Filters and the compressing of PDFs for quicker transmission.

Is there any analogous process for an in-progress iMovie?

That, plus a tad more RAM (all that's allowed) + a new internal HD and/or a faster connection to the ext HD will probably solve the problem.

Of course, so would a new computer, but she likes the size of her Igloo for the space she has for it!

[Xairbusdriver]

QUOTE

she likes the size of her Igloo for the space she has for it

Well, the newer iMacs actually have a smaller footprint for the same sized monitor than an equivalent iGloo. A side benefit would be a doubling of the cpu speed (at a minimum), three more cores, faster buss speeds, FW 800, larger internal drive, etc. Too bad she doesn't have a rich, compassionate, caring, supportive father...

[krissel]

With only 10% available any space for cache and virtual memory is severely limited. That alone can slow things down considerably.

As to compression, QuickTime Pro is often cited as a way to shrink the size of completed video as well as the included codecs in iMovie/iDVD. But compression of clips can be done more easily with the apps mentioned in this article:

http://www.macworld.com/article/61095/2007...compressor.html

Note that it refers to iMovie 08 and the main app requires QT Pro installed. Other suggestions at the end of the article. Check out the comments, too. Keep in mind that compression will take a longer time on a slower machine.

[RHPConsult]

Bingo, Kris.

I should have looked myself, but I just began to think about the possibility of "compression" yesterday afternoon. She's still working with only '06, I think, but I have '09 coming in the mail in a day or so.

In any event, some of her own exploring, I learned late last evening, produced the info that the "slowness" and "choppiness" may have arisen from the kind of iTunes files she was attempting to use. One of Apple's forums gave her a workaround (since I've never done any of this even once myself, I don't quite grasp it) and so now she says everything working OK.

It's curious, since some of that music she also used in earlier DVDs, without incident. So, she's happy and Grandpa is happy. Thanks to everyone.

When I understand what the key elements are in the workaround I'll post them here, in case they are useful to others.

2008 was a busy year for her family, so this 80 gig movie is a big (emphasize BIG) production and she is quite invested in its success.

When I think of (look at) the pics (inclusing Polaroids!) we took of her childhood 40-45 years ago, while most are quite enjoyable, they are a far, far cry from the beauty of her iMovies, including sound track.

They don't make 'em like they used to!

[krissel]

Dick,  you may have some problems with iLife 09 on her machine.  While most of the apps will be OK, iMovie requires a G5 or Intel processor.

QUOTE

iMovie requires an Intel-based Mac, Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0GHz or faster), or iMac G5 (1.9GHz or faster).

http://www.apple.com/ilife/systemrequirements.html


I realized this when I went to open iMovie 7 yesterday which came with the MBP. I cloned that install  to my G4 and it works just fine but iMovie gives me a message that it needs a G5 or Intel.  That was a shock.  

So she won't be able to use it on her igloo.  

[RHPConsult]

Gotcha!

And thanks.