Buying equipment & editing HD for the first time

[Mikeg84]

Firstly I'd like to say hi to everyone as this is my first post!

I studied film making in college several years ago and am looking to get back into it. Anyway I have told a friend I will film his wedding in July this year and I am looking at buying the relevant equipment. I have used Mac's before and have decided on purchasing a Macbook Pro (The Alu Macbook has no firewire and I definitely want to shoot using DV tapes).

Also after reading many, many posts I have decided to buy the Canon HV30 which seems to be a highly recommend HDV cam for entry level. Since this is a big step for me, I have a couple of questions and would greatly appreciate any advise...

- Will the 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro (entry level model) be sufficient to edit higher definition footage using Final Cut Express 4? I am on a bit of I tight budget, so would prefer not to have to folk out an extra £300-£400 for the "high end" Macbook Pro 2.5Ghz model (I am not comfortable with having to replace extra RAM myself).

- How can I transfer a completed HD movie from FCE4 to play on DVD? - I only have experience using standard definition.

Many thanks for your help

Mike

 

[Cory5412]

Yes, the 2.4GHz MBP will be fine for that, it'll be more than fine, really.

You can convert the HD footage to standard definition, or you can use Toast (I believe) to burn high definition footage to bluray with an external bluray burner.

There's not too much in terms of Apple-branded solutions for actually burning high definition video right now, as Jobs considers bluray to be "a bag of hurt."