used mac for AVCHD files

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My friend is selling her Macbook to me. It's almost 2 years old, she says the model number is Macbook A1278. Here's it's specs:

Model Name: MacBook 13"
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MB51.0073.B06
SMC Version (system): 1.32f8
Serial Number (system): WQ8487V11AQ
Hardware UUID: 5C582C8F-E6CD-594D-BA27-302930D89B14
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
OS x version 10.5.8

Here's the article on it's release: Apple Releases 24 Inch iMac With Core 2 Duo

Now to my question! I've been wanting a Mac to help me edit AVCHD video files. Currently I have a Dell with Vista, two years old. It can't even read my AVCHD files, no matter what codecs/software I get. I bought a camcorder Canon Vixia HG20 and I haven't been able to use it because I can't edit the files I create. So my question is, with my friend's Macbook, do you think I'll be able to edit them without much trouble? Or would I be better off with a new Macbook?

She's selling it to me for $850. She paid $1250 two years ago. Is that a reasonable price?


Thanks in advance!
 
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Your Mac's Specs
1.8 GHz i7 MBA 11" OSX 10.8.2
I have a canon hg10 and ran into the same problem. I ended up getting adobe cs4 and later cs5 to edit the files. Here are the minimum requirements.
system requirements | Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Note the two biggies are a 7200 rpm drive - and even raid 0 for uncompressed HD and 2gb minimum RAM - 4GB recommended.

I didn't see the hard drive specs.

With video editing - I would say if the hard drive meets spec then it will be useable. If you can afford a new computer - then get the biggest baddest you can afford as HD video editing is very compute intensive.
 
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thanks

thanks for the reply.
I looked up more and the computer she has might be this one:
MacBook "Core 2 Duo" 2.0 13" (Unibody) Specs (Late 2008/Aluminum, MB466LL/A, MacBook5,1, A1278, 2254) @ EveryMac.com

She said it's the first model they released as a unibody aluminium and since she bought it in late 2008, it seems to match. Unfortunately, the rpm is 5400. Not enough to cut it for Premiere Pro CS5. The Ram is 2 GB...

It's probably better than my dell... but is doesn't fit the PP CS5 requirements.

But, do you think it'll work anyway? Maybe with CS4??

Right now, I don't have enough money to buy a brand new mac... or new anything that isn't a cheap PC. At least with a friend, I can pay her each bit once a month without interest.
 
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AVCHD does take a lot of processing because it is compressed. You could always buy the machine and put in a faster hard drive. That is what I did. You can use OWC to figure out what will fit.
MyOWC at OtherWorldComputing.com

I don't know if it will work - I have always used 7200 RPM drives when editing AVCHD as that what is recommended.
 
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thanks again.

I looked at all the Macs that the sell on apple. Seems they have only 5400 rpm. Seemed strange since Adobe was asking for 7200.
But I'll check out the site.

I asked her to play an MTS file for me. She said it worked flawlessly. However, she doesn't know how to edit video, so I'm not sure how that will work... I heard on a regular Mac you can do it, maybe slowly, but at least it does it.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
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I like OWC's DIY kit if you don't have the tools/hard drive enclosure.
DIY KIT: 500GB 7200RPM HD for MacBook,... (OWCYST9500420AS) at OWC
With this - you can take the old hard drive - put it in the cage and use it as an external drive. I like Seagate (there is a site in Colorado) but Hitachi is also a good drive. I have a 7200 500GB Seagate (From Amazon) and it does fine editing HD, both mov and AVCHD.

Playing a file is different than editing a file. The drive has to be able to keep up with encoding to it - reading from a drive is a different operation.
 
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Convert the files

The best thing you can do is convert the files before editing to a more "processor friendly" format.

I edit a lot and use toast to convert to "Apple prores". It is about a real time process. It does however make editing a lot easier. It has one side effect of making some real large files, so you might want to consider some external storage.

hope this helps
 
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.

Thanks!

I've decided on buying her mac. I've made it to $700, since $850 seems a bit much.
If it's slow on converting/editing the files, then I'll be happy to buy an upgrade. Thanks again for the advice.
 

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