good iMAC for chopping video?
 

You know, I bought this old computer cheap from work two years ago and it serves me well for writing chores and cruising the lovely Internet. The more I read around I find myself thinking about buying a computer for chopping up video to make it better. I just want to buy used and I am thinking about iMAC. Which older iMAC is good for chopping up video to make it better? For nonprofessional use - home movies type of thing only?

For just home movie type use, assuming you'll be using iMovie 3 (free), any of the G4 LCD iMacs should work well. You should be able to get a used iMac G4 800mhz with 15 in. LCD screen, 60GB HD, and Superdrive (burn DVDs) for around $800. Depending on how much footage you have, you'll might need an external firewire drive.

G4 towers are better for video editing and perhaps not as expensive as you'd think.

You can easily install extra internal hard drives into them, saving you the cost of a firewire enclosure for a firewire drive (about $60???) and avoid hassles of firewire drives not working.

A second processor adds about 70% extra performance. With iMovie the second processor probably isn't that useful.

You can use 2 monitors. Dual monitors are cheaper than a single large monitor. You are going to love the extra desktop space.

They're still more expensive than iMacs though. :(

Not knowing exactly what your budget is, I would point out that the old CRT iMac DVSE is fully capable of handling iMovie editing. The LCD iMac's will be a bit faster and if you can find a used one with a SuperDrive, you'll be in the DVD authoring business, too. That's what I currently use (17" iMac) but my old DVSE got me started and I still use it at home.

I am just looking for a cheap used iMAC for chopping video, splicing chopped video together, and then putting it on a VHS tape. It is not like I am going to do a lot of this either. I don't even know how to do this yet. I just want to get started with a cheap used iMAC, because it all ready has firewire built in.

Gotcha.

Then, like I posted earlier, you want an older CRT iMac DVSE. That's the original bubble shaped iMac, but in the later edition that had a slot loading CD/DVD instead of the tray loading. The DVSE model had more memory, Firewire, and a better graphics card. Head to eBay, there are lots of them there.

I agree with Jeff, assuming you just want to run iMovie under MacOS 9.x. I gave my daughter one of the "fruity" iMac DV's about 3 years ago. I think it's a 500mhz G3 with either 256 or 512MB RAM. I also got her a cheap DV camera a couple years back. She and her friend have made some videos that really impress me (they are both acting majors in a conservatory university program). They're just using that off-the-shelf old iMac with its relatively small internal hard drive.

True, it won't be as nice as a G4 machine, and it probably won't be a good platform for Final Cut Pro, but it's certainly a workable tool to get your feet wet and show the world what you're capable of doing.

Thank you. I'll look for the older normal looking one that doesn't look like a light-bulb-less lamp for chopping and splicing pieces of video. I should find one cheap enough which should be good enough. Am I correct in thinking iMOVIE comes with the iMAC? If not, how much does that cost? I guess I will need a fire cable as well. Thankfully I all ready have a VCR and a TV. I imagine I will be needing lots of iRAM. Something like 512 meg-a-bits should be enough, eh?. I'm going to have a whoop for a look now.

Ebay's okay? I'll be careful not to get ripped.

If I find a good deal on the newer light-bulb iMAC model, I'll go with it instead.

Rick,
The Sault.
(Christmas crazy)

I've been meaning to get the wife one too, maybe a new one, maybe a used one; as long that it works and keeps her from watching too much TV. Besides, I'll get to play with imac.

You might also have a look at the eMac. These are G4 machines and really represent the most bang for the buck that Apple has ever delivered. They have a really nice integral 17" flat screen CRT. The new 1ghz models are going for $800. You can probably find used 800mhz machines for much less....