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Editing HD on a Macbook

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First things first...

Is it even possible to edit HD on an aluminum MacBook since there is no firewire option?

If it isn't possible, can it be done on my old white MacBook?

If it is possible, should I opt for an external hard drive? Any recommendations?

I was thinking of buying a canon vixia hv30. Does anyone have experience using that camera with a macbook?

Thanks so much!
 
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i would guess you'd want a external hard drive regardless of what kind of video your editing. A laptop hard drive probably would get filled up really quickly otherwise.

I dont know about getting around the no-firewire issue... i dont even know if you cant even hook up a monitor with firewire from what i can tell....

maybe you would have to load the footage on the hard drive before you use your new macbook...i dont know if HD will work that well on USB...ive heard of dropped frames and stuff?

since your old macbook has firewire 400 i think, its probably possible, but i dont know if it will really run well...
 
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HD doesn't equal firewire or vise-versa.

There is a converter for firewire to USB, but not for OS X.

My personal opinion is to not buy another tape camera. Especially a Canon tape system.

You don't say what software you are going to use to bring in the video, but likely you could use the old laptop to bring it onto an external drive and then hook that drive up to the new laptop and continue on. The specifics depend on the software.
 
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You don't say what software you are going to use to bring in the video, but likely you could use the old laptop to bring it onto an external drive and then hook that drive up to the new laptop and continue on. The specifics depend on the software.

What a brilliant idea! Thank you so, so much. I was thinking of trying iMovie HD until I lose my mind and buy FCP.
 
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I have a few
First things first...

Is it even possible to edit HD on an aluminum MacBook since there is no firewire option?

If it isn't possible, can it be done on my old white MacBook?

If it is possible, should I opt for an external hard drive? Any recommendations?

I was thinking of buying a canon vixia hv30. Does anyone have experience using that camera with a macbook?

Thanks so much!

I have an HG10 which is similar but its the hard drive cousin of the HV20

I have edited using FCE 4 with no problems... I know others have also!
 
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I hate to drag up an old thread, but i am in the same boat. I have a Canon HV30 Hi-def camcorder, yes i prefer tapes as a master storage medium. Having said that, if I am trying to edit HD video, how do i get the video from the HV30 to the macbook, without using firewire? I don't have a seperate firewire based machine to get the video onto an extrenal disk, so i would need to be able to get the video DIRECTLY from the HV30 to the macbook, is this possible? If so, once the video is on the macbook, would I be able to edit is using imovie, or fce, or would the macbook not be powerful enough to edit hd video smoothly? I am trying to decide whether i should go for a macbook or macbook pro, and this right here is my main deciding point.
 
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jaster,

Your only option to get HD from your camera is firewire or the HDMI port. If your computer doesn't have firewire, then you need another computer. I mentioned HDMI because I know there are cards available for the Mac Pro that allow use of it.

You can get the video off via the AV port but that would likely be in standard definition format, not HD. You would also need a gadget to allow that.

Apple just did a small upgrade to the low end Macbook which does still have firewire. The important part of the update was the video system.

I believe a few people here have edited HD on their Macbook. iMovie 08 & 09 create a thumbnail version of all imported video to make it easy & fast to edit. FCE and iMovie converts the HDV signal into AIC which will create large files, say upto 60GB per hour of video.
 
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exce;;ent info xstep. I am having the same issue, was hoping to save money for add-ons by going with the macbook instead of the pro, oh well. I really need to edit hd video too.
 
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I hate to drag up an old thread, but i am in the same boat. I have a Canon HV30 Hi-def camcorder, yes i prefer tapes as a master storage medium. Having said that, if I am trying to edit HD video, how do i get the video from the HV30 to the macbook, without using firewire? I don't have a seperate firewire based machine to get the video onto an extrenal disk, so i would need to be able to get the video DIRECTLY from the HV30 to the macbook, is this possible? If so, once the video is on the macbook, would I be able to edit is using imovie, or fce, or would the macbook not be powerful enough to edit hd video smoothly? I am trying to decide whether i should go for a macbook or macbook pro, and this right here is my main deciding point.

I have the exact same camcorder, but I have an iMac, which has firewire. It took some messing around, but I did get the HV30 to work with the computer. So If you do get a pro, it should work. I used iMovie to edit the video and it was pretty slow, but I only have 1 GB ram and it was a 10 minute video clip.
 
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I have a Panasonic HDC-SD9 (AVCHD) flash-based camcorder that I just hook up via either FW or USB and FCE4 recognizes the camera and imports the files flawlessly, as does iMovie08/09. If you have the opportunity (and a nice, at least 500GB external HD), get an AVCHD cam (preferably Canon or Pana). You won't be disappointed. =)
 
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I have a 2ghz core 2 duo with 2gb of Ram in a whitebook and can edit high def without any problem in both FCE and in Imovie. So the ability to edit high def is not an issue.

The problem with the Alu Macbooks is the lack of firewire, if you have a tape camera you are pretty much stuck as firewire is the only method of import. Also if you are using a external as a scratch drive for your video source files it is my understanding you have to use a firewire external.

That combined with the ability to boot from a firewire drive and not from a USB drive really has me thinking Apple's decision to scrap the firewire port on the Alu-books was a dumb one.
 
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... That combined with the ability to boot from a firewire drive and not from a USB drive really has me thinking Apple's decision to scrap the firewire port on the Alu-books was a dumb one.
You can boot from USB drives.
 
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You can boot from USB drives.
Sorry Im thinking the wrong thing, target disk mode.... either way the lack of firewire is the soul reason I bought a refurb blackbook and not a new macbook when we needed a second notebook
 
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I also have the HV30 and didn't realize {until this thread tyvm :)} that i was losing the HD by bringing it in thru the AV/firewire port instead of the HDMI. I do have an HDMI cable, but can't for the life of me figure out what port on my iMac or white macbook it will feed into.

The question i was coming on here to ask was this:
Considering i am using the HV30 and bringing in HD footage, what are the best output/export settings I should use to take it from iMovie08 to web-based embed players like Vimeo etc.? I also have Quicktime Pro.

Thanks in advance!
 
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If your camera has firewire (IEEE-1394) (page 13 of the manual shows it does) it can export HD. If not, HDMI is not an option for you unless you can find a gadget that allows you to hook it up through your USB ports. The HDMI option I was mentioning was for systems that can have some card attached to them which the MB can not have.

If I'm looking at the right manual, your camera can export HD through the firewire port but may have to be set up to play back HDV. See page 40.

As for your second question, my guides will be helpful to get a good export for video sites. Read the sites recommendations and other information. For instance Vimeo sets the frame rate of HD to 24fps while YouTube says they don't change it. This matters because converting 30fps to 24fps causes a jerky effect. With my guide you can experiment with that setting and see the effect on your exports.
 
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awesome--thank you soooo much! all makes sense and i appreciate it so much!
 

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