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gregggoldy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 11, 2007
5
0
On the verge of buying the Canon HV20. I have an iMac with 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 2GB RAM.

I use my current camcorder to take family videos. Then I edit, add titles and music in iMovie and output a DVD.

My main concern in buying HD Camcorder is this:

If I burn my created movie to a DVD, will it actually play back in HD?

It will not have the same HD resolution, right?

So, do I really have to burn to Blu-ray and can my current iMac do that?

Thanks
 
You will have to convert/export your movie in a SD resolution before putting it on iDvd because HD format will not be suported by iDvd
Beside an hour HD video won't even fit on a dvd...
There is currently no support of bluray or hd-dvd from Apple (I guess FCS6 can do it but that is the only one) so you will have to invest in toast8 for example and since there is no current apple hardware with HD-Dvd or BD burner, you'll have to cash for one of those too.
However you can edit your movie and rereccord it to your HV-10 that you can them use as a hd-vcr or use your mac

In short: Buy an HV-20 but don't expect being able to use it fully until some time... and maybe more (see runours on the iLife07 and coming hardware)

note: i just got a HV-10 and wouldn't trade it for an SD
 

gregggoldy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 11, 2007
5
0
So the only true way to playback video from an HD Camcorder right now is through the camera or computer, correct?

I mean, there's no Blu-Ray burner for the MAC, so I cant edit HD videos and burn them to any format that will look great on a hi def TV, right?

What would HD vids look like if burned onto a reg DVD?

If that's the case, I think I'll hold off for now and keep using my SD Sony Handycam.
 
>So the only true way to playback video from an HD Camcorder right now is through the camera or computer, correct?

in short yes there are the way to go


>I mean, there's no Blu-Ray burner for the MAC, so I cant edit HD videos and burn them to any format that will look great on a hi def TV, right?

in short, there are external BD and HD-DVD burner, toast 8 give you the option and i think FCS does it too, but otherwise iMovie doesn't do it.

>What would HD vids look like if burned onto a reg DVD?

They would look good and crisp as coming from an HD master... but they wouldn't be anything a good SD couldn't do

>If that's the case, I think I'll hold off for now and keep using my SD Sony Handycam.

You'll save money for sure and time/space for editing
But... you might regret at some point(about a year according to some posts) that you didn't choose HD.
You can always downscale your footage/movie ... but the upscaling is never going to create info that is not present... no matter how good the hardware or software is.
Beside DVDs are still here for some time and you might have to do a SD version anyway for those late to adopt a new format.
Beside if you do all your editing and save it back to a tape it doesn't take more room than a SD version and you'll just have to import again when the HD chain is complete (next gen burner and imovie7 or 8 )

I went for HD and wouldn't go back to SD
 
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