Mac Pro To Macbook Pro Mirroring Options

[kennyk]

Bear with me on this one.

I have my recording Mac Pro upstairs and my grand piano downstairs. I'm getting excellent sound in spite of 50' mic cables. I want to control the Mac Pro from downstairs at the piano. Is there a way to make the notebook mirror the pro? I already duel monitor with the pro so that shouldn't be a big deal making the book be the "other monitor", right?

The other problem is that bluetooth won't work that far (or at least through the ceiling and a couple of walls) so, assuming there's no way to make the book control the pro, would I have to run 50' USB cables to a standard keyboard and mouse to operate the pro?

Until I can afford the upstairs studio room expansion and have the 8' piano hoisted in, I need a work-around.

Thanks,
Kenny

[mortalengines]

Hmmm......I can't help but wonder how far a USB cable can run. I know I have a fairly cheap and very easy to use Behringer BCF 2000 USB controller that can control playback, specific channel volume, etc. I would suggest finding something like that assuming you could either chain several USB cables (they have female to male extension cables) or a 50' cable. THAT would be worth looking into.

Also, if you are real tricky you could possibly use a 50' network cable and network your Mac Pro and a notebook (defintely with a Mac notebook....not so sure how easy it would be with a PC notebook). This is beyond my experience but I know it is possible.

www.myspace.com/mortal_engines

This post has been edited by mortalengines: Sat 20 Oct 2007, 05:12

[Jim Hoyland]

The way I see it you have two options:

1) Boot the MacPro in FireWire target mode. You would need a couple of firewire repeaters to maintain a good signal but you should be able to use the OS on the MacPro to boot the MBP and take charge of its hard-drives etc.

2) Network the two computers via ethernet. All this will allow you to do is to use the MP internal drives. This technique works very well.

[lancet]

You can't use the MBP as a monitor for the mac pro.

chicken of the VNC

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cotvnc/

You will be able to control the Mac Pro from the MBP. via your network.

That should do the trick.

since it's over your network , it's a bit laggy as compared to direct control.

You could also use Apple Remote Desktop, which is built in to 10.5.