Final Cut Express, AVHCD and Mac Mini/Macbook C2D.. worthwhile?

[sloth]

I'm a relatively entry level video shooter (primarily a photographer) who's looking for a good NLE to go with my AVHCD-based HF100. I have some NLE experience using Pinnacle Studio, but have recently started wondering if the power of Final Cut Express might suit me better.

I'd like the ability to do custom DVD menus, custom titles, captions, overlays. Pinnacle is OK in this regard but the user interface is clunky, especially the image editor to do the titles and menus. What it's good at is working directly from the .MTS AVHCD files without importing. Project saves and restores are very good - I can create half a dozen and flip between them as I will without having a large amount of hard disk space taken up by AIC files. I've heard some concern about FCE being able to save and reload projects.

FCE also needs to convert all the AVHCD to AIC. I don't mind this part, but I DO mind the fact that I cannot just use .MTS files without buying an extra piece of conversion software. I have lots of .MTS without their original file structure sitting around on disk so this could be a problem.

On the other hand, IMovie has shown me the power of AIC and RT Extreme - the ability to preview FX in real time and 'scroll' forward through the footage I'm editing. And the interface is typical Apple - very intuitive. And unlike Pinnacle the pre-supplied titles and menus don't look as cheesy and consumer-ish - I hate the home video look. ESPECIALLY when shooting videos that will be shown in a corporate or professional setting. (note again I'm not a pro videographer, just a hack that gets called upon as a volunteer occasionally).

FCE only exists for the Mac, and my only Mac is a Mini (C2D 2.0Ghz, 2GB, 120GB). How's its performance like?

One thing I would miss though, is the Windows Media export that Pinnacle gives me. Lots of corp folk use Windows and the associated Media Player.

 

[DXNMedia]

1) Import of AVCHD materials to AIC will take almost 50%-75% of realtime based on a 2.33ghz Intel C2D. GOod thing is that you can still work on your edits while importing files.
2) AIC .mov files are pretty huge compared to native .MTS files.
3) Mac mini 2.0ghz may not be able to give you that sufficient processing power to have RT previews.
4) Based on Mac mini specs, your internal HDD may not be fast enough for you to stream video at the AIC HD resolution, resulting in drop frames while playing back.
5) Flip4Mac will allow you to export QT movies to WMV9 compliant files.

 

[sloth]

Hmm I tried throwing a huge hour long test clip of plain old DV footage at iMovie.. performance was.. slow. we haven't even gotten into the HD stuff yet.

(not impossible for some overenthusiastic home moviemakers to shoot hours of footage - they tend to just leave the camera on and shoot everything).

I might pass on FCE. Much as I like the Mac for what it can do and the hassle it spares me of dealing with a million CODECs and flaky drivers, dollar for dollar I can throw more 'brute force' at a PC in the form of a C2Q quad-core and tons of RAM.

Thanks for the tips