I'm about to buy an Apple G4 1Ghz 256Mb ram / 60Gb hard Disk iBook which is able to run OSX (10.3 Panther) and 'Classic Environment'(OS9 compatible). This comes with the latest version of iLife '04 which includes iMovie (Version 4?).

My MiniDV camcorder is a Sharp VL-PD3[H] (uk PAL) with IEEE1394 DV output. I have found a fairly old compatibility chart on the internet which says my camera was compatible with iMovie version 1.0. Can I therefore assume it will still be compatible with the very latest version of iMovie?

I'm buying the iBook for work purposes but am looking to 'over-specify' it at additional cost to enable me to edit video in my spare time. Obviously I don't want to fork out the extra money if I can't eventually use this set-up.

Can any Mac experts out there help? Thanks in advance,
Rich

[macdaddy]

No worries there Rich - each version of imovie supports more cameras rather than excluding older ones, so as long as it was compatible it will still be compatible.

Either way, you'll want to upgrade to Final Cut as you do more and more video work, it's much better and gives you loads more options.

Good luck

Richard

[Duncan Craig]

In case you haven't seen the iBook range has been updtaed to a 1.2GHz 60GB iBook.

Don't get the superdrive model, buy an external DVD-Writer. The pioneer 107 is going cheap on the net at the mo.

[MarkE19]

And you will need a lot more disk space than the 60Gb if video editing. As well as getting the suggested Pioneer 107 DVD writer also get yourself a HDD for all the video footage. You can put them in external firewire &/or USB2.0 cases and then the extra money spent on these will not be lost if/when the iBook is replaced.

Mark.

Thanks for all the help. Sorry - I'm a bit new to this but, how much hard disk space would the say 10mins of video use up? I assumed a 60Gb drive would be plenty.

I'd probably buy the iBook, see how I go, then buy additional HDD if and when I needed it.

[MarkE19]

DV capture takes 1Gb for every 4 minutes. So a ten minute capture will take approx 2.5 Gb. You then need extra space for file conversion, editing etc.
Remember if you buy a computer with a 60Gb HDD you will not have that much spare as all the software that is installed will be useing up that space. I've never used Mac's so don't know what space the OS takes, but its going to be a few Gb at least.

Mark.