[Jay Cornelius]

I would be getting all the footage transferred to D5 on a hard drive by the film developer, so I would never have to capture it, or output it to a tape, I’d go straight to DVD. I just wanted to make sure FCP could handle the footage.

I’d probably convert the footage to standard definition to edit it, so the machine doesn’t get choked up, then I’d go back to the D5 footage for the final online.

[Jay Cornelius]

Thanks for all the advice. Yes, the plan is to finish in HD, but we’d like to keep open the option of returning to film in the end. We’ll probably have to transfer back to film from our HD footage because we will be adding some special effects & computer generated shots.

I have edited DVCPro HD with FCP, but I have never edited with D5. I looked at the sequence preset settings, and I don’t know how to configure the sequence preset for HD footage for anything besides DVCPro HD. Is there a downloadable preset for D5?

If I have all the footage transferred to D5, then I could use FCP to make some lower rez files with the same timecode for offline editing, correct?

Thanks again.

[Jay Cornelius]

I have to say that I love the laptop though. Perhaps it is for the recreational use of it (non-editing). Surfing the net, watching movies, emailing, etc. is all very enjoyable from the living room. And I do bring my computer to important meetings to demonstrate my editing and such.

I wouldn’t change my laptop for a desktop. But if I was geared for a more powerful editing workflow, I probably would.

[Jay Cornelius]

I run FCP 4.5 on a 17″ 1.33 laptop. It’s great, but it isn’t always that portable. Drives, decks, and cables run everywhere. I find my computer anchored to my desk for long stretches. Motion doesn’t run in real time on a G4.

I need to be portable, because I borrow decks from various sources, and transport myself quite a bit, but sometimes I think it’d be better to have the faster computer and simply transport the media drives.