[iBook] Video editing on an 2 year old iBook?

[Charles Pearce]

On Dec 7, 2006, at 5:34 AM, ibooklist2 at matthurst.fastmail.fm wrote:

> I have a two year old iBook – 30gig HD, running 10.3.9 – and I want to
> do some video editing on it. Nothing flash, just cutting together a  
> two
> minute short.
>
> Obviously I’ll need to buy as big an external hard drive as I can
> afford, but apart from that, is my beloved iBook up to it? And if so,
> does anyone have any tips about how to go about it?
>
> If not, what are my options?

Not enough info to answer your questions. Two things, more than HD  
size, will determine whether you can or should not attempt to edit  
video on your iBook. First, how much RAM do you have? Second, what's  
the processor speed? Both of these will determine whether editing is  
feasible or torturous. Also, what software do you plan to use? iMovie  
is (a) cheap, and (b) fairly intuitive and easy if you've never done  
video editing before. Of course, Apple ships it with practically no  
instruction or documentation, but there are some online tutorials  
that may help. Apple also used to ship it with a tutorial that  
included some sample footage to learn the basics. I don't know if  
they still do or not. It's been awhile since I felt the need to work  
through it. Final Cut Express is also reasonably priced, but may be  
more than you require. It has a bit of a steeper learning curve since  
it is a pared-down version of their Final Cut Pro, which is intended  
for the, um, pro market.

Hope this helps.

Charles Pearce (charlesp at ksu.edu)