Edit HDV, but preview as SD in monitor?
 

I'm not sure if the AJA or blackmagic card would work with a powerbook. I'm editing HDV in Final Cut, I was wondering if I could output SD to the TV so that I could see what I'm doing? -Even though I'm actually editing in HDV.

The answer is yes, but you can't view it via Firewire.

A simple Black Magic Intensity (BMI) or Intnesity Pro (BMIP) card will work in this instance.
I would recommend the Intensity Pro card (with its HDMI and analog outputs) for SD/HD viewing.

FCP will down down conversion previewing and the BM Intensity Pro card can be setup to output both SD and HD widescreen footage.

The beauty of the BMIP card is that I can preview my HDV footage from FCP to my JVC SD monitor (it views both 4:3 and 16:9 footage), and also HD footage on my 32' 1080P Samsung TV at the same time, and see how the footage will look on both platforms.

The only thing that I'm not sure about is if the BMI or BMIP cards will work with a powerbook.
Real cool.

The BMIP card does not have S-Video out if you need it so you will need a dual composite to S-video cable to pull this off. Instructions are up on the Black Magic site.

http://blackmagic-design.com/support...asp?techID=179

for preview output from a laptop, you may want to take a look at the Matrox MXO:
http://matrox.com/video/en/products/mxo/

Neither of the cards mentioned would fit on a powerbook, they require a desktop computer with PCI ports. However, have you looked at the AJA IO HD?

I believe that Matrox makes a box that breaks out the DVI out of the powerbook into various analog outputs. Saw it briefly at a show, looked quite nice.

I believe there is actually an easier and cheaper way to do this then getting an additional expensive breakout box.

Use a DVI to Composite video output device, and set up your TV screen as a second screen in your Power Mac - then I believe you can use Digital Cinema Preview targeting the second screen to monitor your HDV on the external monitor.

Not suitable for colour correction etc - but if you just want to use your TV for monitoring a relatively cheap DVI adaptor should probably suffice.

I've done this to good effect with DVCPRO HD - don't see why HDV would be significantly different.