Can a Mac & FCP be used as a live switcher?
 

I don't yet own FCP (only FCE) but I see the latest version has multicam "editing on-the-fly". I understand that to mean editing multiple video streams running off the hard drive, i.e. video that has already been captured. I "heard a rumor" that it was possible to connect several cams via firewire and edit multiple live video streams into a project. Is this really possible? And if not, why not? Any feedback appreciated.

With off the shelf computers, no. There are several technical reasons for this, the most important being the firewire connection which would require some extra equipment to handle more than one camera connection. The second reason would be the bandwidth requirements to capture several video streams to hard drives simultaneously.

Depends on your set up ... if you have money to burn you can go with multiple ingest stations feeding a Picture Ready system from http://gallery.co.uk ... then you could probably make a muticlip from the incoming live sources and off you go. A simpler though smaler solution, Blackmagic have a software called On Air which alows you to switch live between 2 sources (needs 2 cards). However the most obvious solution is just to use a switcher and take the output to the Mac.

Thanks, guys. I had the feeling it wouldn't work. We are now looking at a Newtek Tricaster.