[WaterTower]

Hey Folks,

I've spent the last 9 years in a PC world created for me, but now I'm buying my own decided to rejoin the fold and buy a powerbook after Steve Jobs keynote on monday (in case he announces anything Insanely Great).

Need reassurance...I will move to Sydney, Oz in November (from Austin) and I want to record television shows (frontline) and capture digital video and stills photos for editing in iMovie and burning to DVD for all friends and family throughout the globe (mostly U.S., though) to see.

Portability is meuy importante, but will I be driven mad attempting all this with a Rev. C 12" w/768 MB and superdrive?

Additionally, will I need any extra hardware to capture and edit the TV video beyond the analog to digital converter that will (probably) be built into the <$1000 miniDV camcorder?

How well will the PB and iPhoto perform with High Res Digital SLR images?

Am I expecting too much?

Thanks for any help...the day fast approaches!

[Detrius]

Does Australia use PAL or NTSC? I thought the US was the only one that uses NTSC. That would be a big thing to keep in mind when buying a camcorder.

Otherwise, I would think the built in stuff on the firewire capable camera could be sufficient. An external adapter may get you a higher quality though. Check the pixel resolution on the camera vs. a good quality dedicated firewire adapter. Also, the dedicated adapter is likely to be compatible with NTSC and PAL in the same hardware, while the camera may not be.

As far as RAM and photos... Any pictures taken by any digital camera will work fine with 768MB of RAM. If you were scanning in images and making page layouts that come to 300MB+, the 768MB would be questionable.

But, if you can afford maxing out the RAM, do it. If you expect to edit the video, the extra RAM will likely come in handy. For that reason, you may want to consider the 15", as it has two RAM sockets. The 12" only has one. Keep in mind that 10.4 may make big enough changes that 768MB isn't a lot any more (not too likely though).

[Lancer409]

hope not .. i thought osx 10.4 would streamline it some more and make it run smoother, less buggy, and more "eye candy" ... damn .. speaking of which .. i hope i can put off buying it ... paying for laptop, case, ram, applecare, haxies, word ... augh ... insane to have to update so fast =P

[rag on a muffin]

we are not the only country to use ntsc, some countries in asia do too. but we use everything bad here. bad health, bad formats, bad measurement system, bad language, and bad government. at least in my opinion.

[d.fine]

Maybe this is important, and maybe it is not, but I've read that the video output quality is much better on the 15" and 17" models (different vid card), so if you plan on playing those vids on a tv through your PB or anything like that, I'd recommend a 15" ... also, as suggested earlier, because you can add more RAM, should you need it .
BTW the s-video output on 15" is GREAT !! Very good quality !

[WaterTower]

Originally posted by Detrius:

But, if you can afford maxing out the RAM, do it. If you expect to edit the video, the extra RAM will likely come in handy. For that reason, you may want to consider the 15", as it has two RAM sockets. The 12" only has one. Keep in mind that 10.4 may make big enough changes that 768MB isn't a lot any more (not too likely though).

Appreciate the feedback...

I'm not sure about which broadcast system the Aussie's use, but my primary focus is creating DVDs from home video, so if there is a problem due to standards in Australia, so be it. I'm coming to realize that more RAM is always better, but with money and packing space at a premium (15" is $700 more = 2 more weeks of travel, and I probably will travel back to TX the long way, PB in tow) my no 1 concern is simply making DVDs for friends and family to watch without having to apologize for dropped frames, out of sync audio tracks out of sync, or jaggies.

As an aside, I think the camera of choice will be what I deem to be the cheapest 3 chip DV on the market, the Panasonic GS120 ($530 on pricegrabber.com). Any opinions?

THanks again!

[cszar2001]

Originally posted by Detrius:
Does Australia use PAL or NTSC? I thought the US was the only one that uses NTSC. That would be a big thing to keep in mind when buying a camcorder.

Does it matter as long as one only uses the camcorder with a PB display?
I thought that PAL or NTSC only applies to TV sets or VCR`s.
Recording footage in NTSC and burning it on a DVD should be viewable on a PAL TV set.
Or is there something I don`t know about?