imac action?

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are the new imac's suitable for AV editing? it's a bit of a long story but essentially my girlfiend and i are going half's on a computer. she really wants a mac, but can't stretch to a G5. so are the new imac's up to the task for AV editing. not that i do it profesionally or anything, but i would like to be able to edit, say 30 - 45 mins of footage at once for the odd music video, short film etc etc. if so, then all's well

here's a link to the spec's (looking at the 2.16ghz one)



sorry if this is a little off topic, but i thought i could try here before finding and joining a good mac forum . . . .

[Will2]

They're fine for DV editing.

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is that not the same thing?

[Will2]

As opposed to editing uncompressed video or anything where you need higher-end graphics cards or disk arrays.

[woods01]

I have one of the first Intel models and its very good for editing. You'll
probably need to get an external harddrive though. Unless you are
rendering special effects or other fancy stuff its a good system, but a
PowerMac is obviously a lot faster in all regards.

[keagan]

I don't speak with a ton of authority, but I think any of the new intel macs will work fine. I have a macbook that I use for editing with FCP, and it is fast enough. Had to get an external hard drive though.

[christoph]

is that not the same thing?

AV editing is not really a common expression, i suspect you could say it stands for Audio-Video editing, but that's a very broad term.

DV is a compressed form of digital video which is surprisingly good quality with very little investment needed and became the standard for consumer and prosumer video over the last 15 years.. it's getting slowly replaced by HDV with is a very compressed form of high definition video.

if all you need to edit is DV, any mac with firewire in will basically do the job, even an old G4 iMac (although a newer machine will be much more comfortable if you work with effects). for HDV you need a bit more horse power, but all the intel core duo machines can handle it with ease. the powermacs (G5) are not really faster than the core duo chips anymore, the main advantage of a tower is the slots for extra hardware (which you only need if you work with professional video).
++ christoph

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thanks for all of the helpful replies - yes, DV footage will be what i'll be mainly using it for, so it sounds like it'll do the job well in that respect. i've read so many good things about the new duo chips and was excited to see that the new imacs have them fitted

christoph - just for what it's worth, what additional hardware would a pro set up have/need?

thanks in advance, ad.

[christoph]

christoph - just for what it's worth, what additional hardware would a pro set up have/need?

well, a professional service house will need a way to work with uncompressed footage, and a way to capture and display it.

this usually means a hard fast hard disk RAID, a true capture card and a high end monitor. for the raid one could use FW800 as long as you'd be only workin in SD, but capturing these days usually means you need a PCI (-x or -e) card, and those slots are only found in towers. also adding additional storage is much easier.

in the end, in pro houses the computer is the cheapest part.. a high end monitor costs easily 3000 euros, a digibeta recorder is some 20'000, add a good sound system, video scopes, cableing, rent and wages and suddenly a macpro at 2400 bucks doesnt seem such a big deal anymore


DV can look surprisingly good if handled properly... if you have some money to spare invest into a good monitor and hook it up through s-video to your DV camera. also, decent audio hardware is nice to have.
++ christoph ++

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many thanks