[MacDV] Re: What Computer

[Michael Winter]

On Thursday, April 17, 2003, at 12:22  AM, Charles Martin wrote:

> Really pretty hard to say based on such a bare description, but I 
> guess I'd recommend a 15" or 17" flat-panel iMac with Superdrive. An 
> eMac might also do the job, and costs significantly less, but isn't as 
> cool. :)

I'll second that.

It really depends on what she wants to do. Our iMac DV (400 MHz G3, 512 
MB RAM) is sufficient for video capture, simple editing, and exporting 
back to camera.

OTOH, if you apply a lot of effects, export to Quicktime or use iDVD, 
I'd recommend a 1 GHz or faster G4. In general the iMac won't be 
significantly slower than a dual-processor system with the same clock 
speed since I've yet to find an operation that actually uses both 
processors (the caveat being if you want to do something else with the 
computer while iMovie is churning away dual processors rock!). I found 
out last weekend that I can even capture video and play computer games 
simultaneously on my dual 1 GHz box (just don't put the game in 
full-screen mode where it switches to a monitor resolution iMovie 
doesn't like).

-Mike