I recently shot a doc and edited offline by converting the HD footage to SD DV. The project was shot with the HVX200 in 1080 24PA. I want to re-edit online in 1080 HD but am on a limited budget.

Any advice on setting up my system for HD editing. I am using FCP 5.0.4 on a Mac G5 Dual 2.0 with 1.5 GB RAM. I also have one of the older 20" ADC Cinema Displays and am running OS 10.4.10.

What will I need in terms of RAM, storage, full rez HD output for accurate monitoring/color correction? Can I use another Apple cinema display via some kind of DVI connection or would it be better to go with an HDMI output?

I want something bullet-proof and relatively inexpensive. Tell me about the Matrox MXO, BlackMagic cards, etc. for monitoring if you know about them.

What storage will I need plus additional RAM to run smooth?

Anything you all can tell me is really appreciated.

The first thing I would consider would be to update your version of FCP.

Will,

First let me recommend that you spend some time searching this forum for relative answers; 99% of what you're asking about has been asked many times over. To give you a complete answer would fill an entire page.

But some quick simple advice can be given; first of which you can't do any on-line HD editing with the existing hardware/software setup you have and you're looking at a minimum of about $4k between both hardware and software purchases to get it done. If you're budget can *start* at the $4k point then you're in the game, if not then you'll need to continue your off-line edit mode until the finances catch up with your desires.