I have never used FCP. I am trying to convert a director and editor on a 10 min short that I am the cinematographer on to shoot in HDV rather than DV25. (with our H1)
We have a 1 week total turnaround and the final project will be digitally projected on a large theater screen venue.

The editor has not cut HDV before - I just want to assure him that HDV 29.97 NTSC is handled well by FCP HD 4.5. The editor will be using a Mac 17 inch powerbook (lap top) G4 1.5 GHz and 512 MB of memory to edit.

Opinions?

Thanks in advance for the help.

I tried to do the same thing (HDV in FCP 4.5) and could not make it work. 4.5 will not recognize the camera. I was using the XLH1.
I eventually had the footage captured on a Kona system and converted into DVCProHD . That will work in 4.5.
I'm not sure if it is all working right with FCP5.1

JH

Final Cut Pr HD (4.5) was techinally and "HD" NLE only by the fact that it used one HD codec, DVCProHD. It was really not a full blown HD NLE. FCP 5 is. Actually iMovie and Final Cut Express were more HD ready than FCP originally was.

HDV 29.97 NTSC is NOT handled at all in FCP HD (4.5). You'll have to get Final Cut Pro 5 or above.

Yep, Dave is right. You'll want to upgrade to version 5.x. Apple is offering a very reasonable deal IMO, for $200 you can "crossgrade" FCP 4.5 to the full version of FC Studio 5. More info here: http://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/

Thanks much to you all.

Looks like we will be stuck with DV25 then as I have no control over what will be used to edit.

Appreciate all your knowledgeable help - I use Canopus Edius as my NLE and it handles the H1's HDV and multiple frame rates.