[Sarah Fledder]

They are Kodak Zi8 cameras shooting at 1080p HD resolution. They come out of the camera as QuickTime MPEG-4 MOV files, using H.264 compression. We basically needed a camera that was cheap and had a mic input (they are journalism students.)
I also looked at purchasing Final Cut Express instead of Adobe. Final Cut Express doesn’t handle H.264 without going through a third-party converter. Premiere Pro handled the videos straight out of the camera, no problem.
BTW, went to see your company, your website is misspelled in the post. Take care and good luck.

[Sarah Fledder]

Hello,
This might help you: I was looking to buy new MacBooks (not pros) for my students with the sole purpose of running CS5. Your Pro is clearly more powerful than a MacBook. Ok, so I downloaded CS5. edited a 15 min. video with Premiere with several video/audio layers, exported, everything worked perfectly. I also had this conversation with the people at Apple. Soooooo, I’d say you are in the clear. As long as you are not trying to edit anything over 15 min, you’ll be fine.

Conversation with Apple:
> * You are chatting with Rachel S, an Apple Expert
> Hi, my name is Rachel S. Welcome to Apple!
> You: Hello!
> Rachel S: Welcome to our Apple Online Store chat service! How may I assist you with your shopping today?
> You: Hi I’m interested in buying MacBooks for my students and the Pros are a little expensive … I also want to
buy Adobe Master Collection CS5 with Premiere Pro on it. Could you tell me if a MacBook would run Premiere Pro
well?
> Rachel S: I’ll be happy to look that up for you. One moment please.
> Rachel S: Thank you for waiting. The MacBook will be able to run CS5.
> You: Do you know if it will run well or will it run very slowly?
> Rachel S: The MacBook will be able to run that software with a median workload without slowing down or
locking up.
> Rachel S: For heavier or more demanding workloads with that software, I would recommend going with the
MacBook Pros.
> You: Yeah, my students don’t do anything more complicated than 15 min videos.
> Rachel S: I think they should be fine.
> You: Thank you and have a good day.

[Sarah Fledder]

Thank you so much for your help, the two of you. I really appreciate it!

[Sarah Fledder]

Hi Dave,
Thank you so much for your quick reply. I am really leaning toward quick n’ dirty, as I have a lot of these interviews I need to post. Could you elaborate a little on your feathered animated mattes idea? I have two angles, so if anyone really starts moving his/her head, I can cut to the second angle.

Best,
Sarah

[Sarah Fledder]

Thanks for this, Jon–this makes total sense. I was animating fish with the puppet tool. When I clicked the magic rasterize button there were strange ghost fish floating around my comp. After hours of trying to figure out what the heck was going on, I just reanimated the layer and the ghosts went away. On the bright side, I didn’t have to redo the entire comp, which I was going to do before I found this fab forum. Thank you!

[Sarah Fledder]

Wow!!! Much thanks for the quick and extremely helpful response.