Hi,

I just bought a SONY HDR-HC3 camera and all I have is a Mac mini (ppc one) that is to slow to do any kind of editing. All I want right now is just a way to store the video on my Mac, I will do the editing later when I buy a new machine.

I have final cut express and imovie hd installed, when I import anything I get a .mov file, is that an uncompressed video? Can I use it later to edit the movie without losing quality?

Right now I'm recording all my videos in HDV.


thanks in advance,
mbarros

HDV is compressed while you are shooting. Think of the tape as a disk. It is just storing the information in a digital format. When you transfer the footage over to your computer in HDV mode it is a bit for bit file transfer, just a bunch of 1's and 0's. The quality of the footage on the computer is the *exact* same as on the tape. QuickTime just wraps up this digital data of 1's and 0's into a .mov file.

There is one exception. Many of the HDV cameras can do what is called an in-camera downconvert. You can specify in the menu to convert the HDV footage to DV while transferring through the Firewire cable.

If you just want to edit some footage on an older, slower machine. It would be best to bring it in as DV.

On our Sony FX1, the Menu option is called iLink Conv > On (HDV>DV)

Hope this helps,

__________________
Guy Cochran

DVcreators.net Training and Resources for DV creators - Producer - DV Gear Talk

If you're going to buy a new mac, just store the tapes in a safe place. Why go through the labor and time of capturing them twice?

Keep them in HD until you burn your final disc. Do not downconvert except as the final step.