getting high def to my mbp in iMovie 08?

[thechidz]

getting high def to my mbp in iMovie 08?

I have the latest macbook pro 2.4 penryn with 4 gb ram and when I load video from my hv20 to iMovie 08 it gives me 2 options. 1 is large file and the other is full or something, Im assuming this is high def but whn I choose it it gives me a warning that it might cause bad quality on my computer? why is that? I havent tried it to see if it works but is it possible to encode high def from my hv20 to my mbp or do I need a faster computer?

 

[Courtaj]

iMovie does not edit HDV "natively" - that is, it converts the HDV signal to AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec). As far as I'm aware only Final Cut Pro will edit HDV without conversion (though I'm not even sure about that - someone who actually uses FCP will of course know more about that than me).

To answer your question: your Macbook is more than capable of editing HD video, but in iMovie you'll be editing AIC files (converted or "transcoded" HDV) - which are still "high definition" even though they're not identical to the signal recorded to tape by your HV20. It's debatable as to whether there is any easily discernible quality degradation in the conversion process.

The AIC files are pretty sizeable, though, so you'll want to think about getting yourself an external drive if you're going to be doing a lot of editing. You'll run into problems using the internal drive if it's largely full already.

Hope this helps,
Andrew.

 

[bandaros]

Just to note: AIC is horrible. Your videos will look like mush.