Mac Encoding/Burning Times

[psymac]

Wondering which Mac hardware to buy for video editing/encoding. I'd like to take about hour of movie I shot with my camcorder, edit in iMovie, then encode/burn to a DVD to send to family members.

I've done this with my Dual 1ghz G4 QS, and it takes several hours (7 to 8 i think). Would the new iMacs or the current MacPros do it that much quicker? Any idea how long for one hour of video to encode/burn to a DVD? Should I use Toast or another third party app rather than iDVD? I've heard that its really a problem with the G4, and that even G5s do this much faster. I'd like to think the new iMacs would be fast enough, or if I should hold out for new Macpros (Oct?).

Thanks for any help!

 

[scamateur]

Any Intel Mac should be much faster...

... and Barefeats has some recent benchmarks that compare the newest Macs to some PPC Macs. A newer Mac should be AT LEAST twice as fast as your G4, and probably more. Much more.

To say nothing of editing HDV.

Good luck!

 

[LethalWolfe]

There is no Mac in Apple's current line up that will not flat out kill your QS in any speed test what so ever.


Lethal

 

[bartdemuynck]

Sony DV disc

Is there any device that lets you read the Sony DV discs directly on a Mac?
The regular DVD player on the Mac does not read these small discs.

 

[bigbossbmb]

It sounds like you're talking about the MiniDVD discs. Those are not recorded in DV, they use Mpeg2. Try opening the files using MPEGstreamclip and then exporting the video in the DV codec. If that doesn't work, then you probably don't have the Mpeg2 component for QT. Apple sells one for $20, but I'm not sure if there are any free alternatives.