mp4 files on mac leopard

I'm the new switcher to mac os. Buying the new macbook or pro (not decided). Will do some video editing with it. I hv also recently bought a HD video cam (sanyo HD1000). The video files are all in MP4 or H.264 format and all in full HD1080 i resolutions.
Can my new macbook/pro view or edit mp4 files...? IMovie can edit files in mp4 in full HD? If not, what do i have to do, converting to some other format? will it lose the resolutions?

I know you can view them, but not being a big iMovie user I can't be sure about editing.

Also, make sure your camera has a Firewire output port (the one you listed doesn't). IIRC, you can only pull video to a Mac from the camera via FireWire unless that has changed lately.

iMovie supports editing in HD...it even has it in the title of the program, iMovie HD.

If you buy a Mac now, it will come with iLife '08, which has iMovie HD '08. A lot of people have complained that certain features were taken out, so Apple has made the download of iMovie HD '06 free to '08 users. You can use whichever version strikes your fancy.

As for the firewire importing of video, I'm not sure whether that requirement has changed or not lately, but as far as I DO know, it is still the industry standard for video transfer.

I can't speak for iMovie '06 but iMovie '08 supports importing HD video from a USB Camcorder such as the HD1000 if you're set on getting that one.

I have iLife '08 with iMovie '08 and just successfully imported an mpeg4 movie file into a project.

This is a section of the dialogue that came up when I clicked on import movies ....



iMovie '06 would have to be the same when it comes to importing mp4.