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Video card upgrade for iMovie on G4?

D

DAVK


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Your Mac's Specs
Power Mac G4 (dual CPU, 1.25 GHz, 1.75GB Mem)
I'm editing HDV from my Canon HV30 on a "mirror door" G4 (dual 1.25GHz, 1.75MB, 10.4.10) using iMovieHD (iLife 06). I get a message on opening iMovie that states my graphic card (ATI RADION 9000 Pro) may not work properly because iMovie requires a "Quartz Extreme Compatible" card.

In practice, the uploading via Firewire (400) does go slowly with numerous waits for the complete loading of cached data, but, also, there are problems with device control. The camera is slow to react to commands initiated on the monitor screen, sometimes not registering at all.

I am thinking I well could benefit with an upgrade of my video card but am not sure what card would do the trick. I do plan to upgrade my software to iMovie 09 at least, maybe even Final Cut Express, so would want the card that would match that. Any advice out there?
 
xstep

xstep


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Your Mac's Specs
2011 MBP, i7, 16GB RAM, MBP 2.16Ghz Core Duo, 2GB ram, Dual 867Mhz MDD, 1.75GB ram, ATI 9800 Pro vid
The video card upgrade is a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.

Check the specs for the software upgrades. They say your system can't run iMovie 09. Looks like the FCE specs say you need a new video card.

If you open System Profiler, you can see if your card supports both Quartz Extreme and if Core Image is "Hardware Excellerated". I think you only require QE.

This doesn't affect you right now, but note that VCHD requires a Mac computer with an Intel processor. There is a third party software app that can convert that on a G4/G5 system. It is slow.
 

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