IS an apple G4 1ghz a decant machine...
 

for video editing (Sorry. I meant decent)

Guess you would need to define "decent." I have a 1ghz 15" PowerBook G4 with 1.25GB of RAM. It was my only machine in South America last summer where I edited quite a lot of standard definition PAL video with FCP 4.5. I was actually surprised at how well the Powerbook handled that, and I really put it through its paces, ending up with nearly 2 hours of finished video that was projected on big screens for the opera Die Walküre.

However, having said this, the powerbook was certainly no match for my dual 2.5ghz G5 desktop machine, especially when rendering time came around. But it was a reasonable compromise since I couldn't lug around the desktop machine and didn't want to put any money into a faster laptop. I haven't used FCP 5.x on the laptop, but I suspect it would perform even better from what I've read. I also used a 1.25ghz single CPU desktop G4 system as my primary editing station for awhile under FCP 4.5. Same thing there; it works well if you tweak FCP's realtime settings.

Now I doubt that either of those machines would make me very happy editing HD/HDV however. If you can get a cheap G4 like this then it wouldn't be a bad "starter" system, but I would only consider it as a stopgap measure. With the Intel Mac Mini's and MacBooks available at such a reasonable price I think any of the G4 machines are going to look very dated...

thanks for the advise and the insite. I have this available to me for a really good price ($0) and I've wanted a chance to start working with FCP as oppossed to premiere 6.1. I'm using a canon xl1s so HDV isn't an issue.

i have edited DV for several years using a 15'' 1 GB powerbook G4. at the time i purchased it, it was the shizz. now it's like a slow old gentleman. render times aren't super speedy, but they're adequate. editing and playback is great. with an XL1s, you should have no issues. my only complaint would be real estate. with a 15'' monitor, you're constantly adjusting the windows in FCP 4.5....

it can't even capture, let alone edit, HDV though....too sloooow.

It'll definitely work for editing DV.. and you'll probably like FCP more than Premiere 6.1. Premiere back then wasn't that great IMO, and its successor (Premiere Pro) is a lot more like FCP.

Thats Great if realestate is going to be my only issue because I've got Two 21's. I forgot to mention that this is not a laptop, emac, imac or otherwise. I inherited a tower. The one thing I can allready see I'm going to like about this machine is the interchangablitly of ram and the IDE interfaces will make upgrading to a larger hdd / getting a dvd-burner very affordable. Now I just need to get a fresh copy of OSX and I'll be well on my way.


What are the main differences between premiere 6.1 and FCP 4.5? Do you think it will be an easy transition. I would say I'm very proficient with premiere and all of it's functions. BTW I will deffinately be hanging on to after effects. That's the shiz. fact thats wut spawned the shiz son.

Well FCP is probably more stable and less buggy.

Basically, the two programs both do editing, just with different interfaces. Premiere 6.x has a ridiculous interface where doing something takes more keystrokes than it should. FCP is better in that regard.

Just remember in FCP there's about ~4 different ways of doing basic edits.
---Visually dragging and dropping things, trimming on the timeline.
---Using the numpad while you have an edit (i.e. the tail of a clip) selected. You type in the frames and FCP does that edit.
---Set in and out points in the viewer. Drag the clip onto the canvas window, and you have a bunch of options.
---Keyboard shortcuts. Set in and out points beforehand.
I can't remember if there were more than 4 basic ways of doing things.

The edits can all be seen where all the tools are. Roll, trim, slip, slide, blade/razor, etc.

The ripple behaviour just makes sense. The backspace/delete and delete/delete keys do different things-one ripples, the other doesn't.