Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Macbook Pro
ExpressBox: use external PCIe cards with your MacBook Pro
The ExpressBox1 from Magma is a cool accessory for MacBook Pro owners that allows you to add a standard desktop PCIe card to your notebook via the ExpressCard/34 slot. It consists of a powered external enclosure for a PCIe card (either half or full length) together with a cable to an ExpressCard module that fits into the MacBook Pro. The "no latency" bandwidth is 2000Mpbs allowing you to run variety of external cards, even PCIe graphics cards (provided the drivers are available).All this coolness comes at a price, however; the ExpressBox1 is $729 for the half-length and $749 for the full-length enclosure.
[via Macworld]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
JD said 2:00PM on 5-05-2007
Very cool but *very* expensive, and it doesn't support the higher-end cards, though they are working an even bigger version for that... and I'm sure that will be even more money.
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Benjamin said 2:06PM on 5-05-2007
I do wonder in what situation someone might find such an expensive, awkward setup better than using a desktop computer in the first place.
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adam said 2:36PM on 5-05-2007
engadget has a writeup on this too. i really can't think of a use for these outside of getting a dedicated graphics card and those aren't even going to be supported until the next rev of the box. its not that they won't fit, its that they suck too much power. the expressbox can only power cards up to 55 watts or less.
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jonecat said 2:56PM on 5-05-2007
I can think of one reason why you would want this, but it is still too expensive.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/quality/
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Matt said 3:50PM on 5-05-2007
Here's why I would use them - it would make a ProTools HD recording set up slightly more portable for doing live work..
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=24&langid=100&
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JeffDM said 8:11PM on 5-05-2007
At that price, practically only pros are even going to consider it, the digidesign example given above is one example. Intensity is a good one too, really, I think Intensity might have been popular at $1000, and that's the combined cost of the Intensity and this box. There's nothing to say that BlackMagic Design won't make an Express Card version.
EC/34 gives 2.5Gbps bandwidth, so I don't know why they are saying 2.0Gbps, unless the remaining 20% is lost to overhead.
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Marcintosh said 9:04PM on 5-05-2007
Not new. Matter of fact several years old. Price is still the same though. World wide sales must be in the dozens. Too bad. It'd be nice.
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Matt said 9:07PM on 5-05-2007
Great idea, but seems far too expensive for what it does. I guess it might find a niche amongst the Pro Tools crowd though. Maybe the next version, later this year, will be more affordable.
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phil goodwin said 2:53AM on 5-06-2007
The Magma is fantastic for getting an SDI signal into a MacBook Pro. I've been using it with an AJA capture card and it works like a dream. It's portable and robust. I'm a TV cameraman working in hostile environments in Iraq and Afghanistan and I can't afford to carry around a desktop. Together (Magma and AJA) they're about the same price as a Canopus ADVC1000 but a lot more useful. There is one major gotcha though -- there were huge latency issues trying to play out of the computer. The problem is the expresscard 34 slot is a 1-lane PCIe where as the AJA card I'm using (Kona-LSe) needs a 4-lane PCIe.
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Sam said 10:20PM on 5-05-2007
The box physically supports a 16x PCIe interface, but only operates at 1x PCIe speed. That's enough for network cards and such, but anyone thinking about using this for serious A/V stuff might wait for a review or make sure there's no restocking fee when buying.
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iJavaJoe said 3:38PM on 5-06-2007
It seems like a great idea, but the price is kinda sad. At the $700+ price it's a niche device for highly specilized needs (phil). At around $200 it's a device a lot more people may just "find" a reason to use!
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Allan White said 2:48PM on 5-07-2007
I'm guessing that Kona's IO FW800 breakout box would do a lot of what most people need in a portable HD setup. I guess it's a bit more expensive though (US$3,500). Apple's ProRes codec could change the game a bit.
Another use I can think of is for VJ'ers who need multiple video cards for driving displays.
Phil, stay safe out there.
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