g5 is surely better
i do a lot of videoediting and here are my suggestions:
first i have a dual g4 1ghz with 1 gb ram and i would say that final cut pro 3 runs really nice on it. the problem is that for specific and more complex tasks fcp can really slow down.
if you have to work fast with less waiting for renderings i would suggest final cut pro 4. then i would add a g5 1.8ghz because the bandwidth for the memory is far superior to the g4 and it is already faster than a 1.6 but not much more expensive.
memory is infact the most important thing in video editing (beside the hd...i will treat that later) because final cut renders faster if there is more ram. but i would suggest to buy the ram somewhere else. i would say that 1gb are absolutely necessary and 2gb would be nice. if you have less ram fcp will begin to swap files to the harddisk and this is mush slower.
the harddisk should be a 250gb because you will fill it up very fast. example: 60 minute footage are about 15gb plus sound in aiff makes 500mb plus other scenes and material (from after effects or cubase etc) for about 500mb plus all the renderings and final movie make about 20gb per project.
for video editing you should always have an empty an newly initalized harddisk so that the footage won't fragment and cause async problems etc. so you should reformat after every project but this is nearly impossible so i would say make 80gb for macosx and 170gb for video. like this you can have about 10 projects on the disk before you have to buy a new one. serial ata is nice but it won't make a big difference to a normal ata harddisk while saving your final films. you can never have a big enough harddisk if you are video editing.
the screen is also a very important element. we used the sony gdm-f520 21" crt last year and it was very good. this year we still have crt's as main screen and lcd as pallette screen. we talked about lcd and crt and our teacher said that the new lcds with 25ms response do very well for video editing. the only problem is the color as it is not 100% real color representative. but they come really near the crt's and a lot of little studios can't afford $15'000 to color calibrate all their peripherals so you can suggest that their calibrations are hand made and won't be 100% reliable. so you can maybe try a lcd because color difference compared to a crt is not as dramatic as it was 2 years ago.
an apple display has pure digital connections and one one cable to connect everything. besides that i would really suggest a lcd monitor with dvi port.
another problem is the resolution but for me are enough because i hate it when everything is so smal and i have to approach to the screen (unhelthy) insted to lower the resolution.
as it seems that you are not a 100% professional a lcd would be enough and a g5 1.8ghz also. dvd is surely also a really important feature if you want to go in dvd authoring later. of course it would be sad to have such a good camera and then have a system that can make use of it as it should. if you would be less interested in professional thing you would have bought a cheaper camera so now it isn't time to economize on the wrong side.
other peripherals like special keyboard or wheel are for later. first you have to try it like this and if you have some knowledge you should test the controlling options and you will realize if you need them or not.
so here is my system put together with educational prices because you will maybe find a friend that is still in college and can buy you the system:
Power Mac G5 1.8GHz - $2,356.00
- 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
- 250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
- SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
- 512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256MB
- Mac OS X - U.S. English
- Accessory kit
- ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
- Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
- 56k V.92 internal modem
Apple Cinema Display (20" flat panel) - $1,169.00
Final Cut Pro 4.0 Academic - $499.00
Total = $4,024.00
or
Power Mac G5 1.8GHz - $2,356.00
- 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
- 250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
- SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
- 512MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x256MB
- Mac OS X - U.S. English
- Accessory kit
- ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
- Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
- 56k V.92 internal modem
Sony Deluxepro Series 17" Flat Panel LCD SDM-X72 - $559.00
Final Cut Pro 4.0 Academic - $499.00
Total = $3454.00
the problem is that there is still 1gb ram for about $150 that you have to buy.
