what does the a1 shoot as in HD? compressed or uncompressed?
i'm hoping to get the new imac with fcp studio 2, and thus was wondering what specifications (ram, memory, etc) to get.

The format is HDV 1080i, sometimes also known as HDV2. The compression is 25 megabits per second. You'll find more info about the recommended Mac system specs for editing HDV in our NLE / Mac forum located at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=30

If you look on Apple's web site, under the Studio 2 requirements, it tells you what you need to edit HDV.