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AVCHD editing on Macbook

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I did a forum search and found conflicting posts.

Am looking at either a MB or MBP. Wallet advises a MB while the gadget-freak-inside wants a MBP.

Am going to try my hand at editing AVCHD files to create home movies; have never tried it before. Looking at either iMovie, FCE, or FCP. Probably prefer FCE, but have access to FCP at a good price.

How do these programs run on a 2.0 GHz Macbook? 2.4 GHz Macbook?

I prefer the MBP but it's financially a drain, although an early '08 model may be an option. I know that the MBP is the best option with better viewing screen, dedicated graphics card, etc; however, I am curious to know if editing is possible and takes place at an acceptable pace on the smaller MBs.
 
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Final Cut Pro will not run on a MacBook, if you want to log and capture from a DV Cam (not hard drive) you will need a firewire port (meaning you will need a MacBook Pro). If you are looking to simply edit the footage, nothing too fancy, then FCE will work fine for you. I don't have any experience with iMovie, so I don't know how that would work out for you.
 
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Great. Thanks for the info. Firewire isn't a necessity. I have a Canon Vixia HF100 with an SD card. An SD slot or USB port is all required.

And FCE will work fine on a 2.0 GHz also?
 
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From experience, iMovie is relatively easy to use and the included help adequately explains most tasks. More of a learning curve if you were used to iMovie 6, but I have imported and edited video from my Sony HD camera without any problems.
 
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Great. Thanks for the info. Firewire isn't a necessity. I have a Canon Vixia HF100 with an SD card. An SD slot or USB port is all required.

And FCE will work fine on a 2.0 GHz also?
Just make sure the video format is compatible with iMovie, SD cams are notorious for using weird codecs that only their software can read. If it's on this list, you should be fine.

FCE will be fine on 2GHz, it's requirements are:
  • A Mac computer with a 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5, Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor
    • For AVCHD: A Mac computer with an Intel processor
  • 1GB of RAM or more
  • An AGP or PCI Express graphics card compatible with Quartz Extreme; or an Intel GMA integrated graphics processor in a MacBook or Mac mini computer
    • Some FxPlug filters are not compatible with integrated Intel graphics processors.
  • A display with 1024-by-768 resolution or higher
  • A DVD drive for installation
  • Mac OS X v10.4.10 or later
  • QuickTime 7.2 or later
  • 500MB of disk space to install Final Cut Express and LiveType
  • Additional 500MB to install LiveType content
 

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