OK, this may seem like a ridiculous question, but I'm curious to know what would be the very minimum equipment needed to ingest HDCAM for my NLE. I currently use (don't laugh) a Powerbook G4, 1.67 GHz, 2 GB memory and a FW800 500GB hard disk with FCP 5.0.4. At the moment, no I/O cards, no RAID, no desktop computer. My PB is great for what I normally do (DV projects), but I recognize it may not be fast enough to work with HDCAM. Every time I read about other video professionals' set-ups, I see mention of AJA, Blackmagic, 1TB RAIDs and more. Is it silly to ask, has anyone succeeded in using a PB to ingest HDCAM? Would I be able to do it simply by striping hard disks in an array? Or is the CPU not up to it?

I am planning to build a much more advanced system in the coming months, but I have to shoot a couple of HD projects with what I have, or with some reasonably affordable add ons. Advice for the humble DV-producer-about-to-upgrade would be most welcome.

Take a look at this article that Mike Curtis put together.

http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.php?articleId=196602702

Thanks for that very informative article. Probably I will build something along the lines of his Group 2 suggestions later this year. In the meantime I'll have to figure out how I can possibly finish a project in HD with what I have. Mike Curtis' article says you can't ingest HDCAM by firewire (is that true, even for the HDW-730/750?) and that it would require an i/o card, which rules out laptops, unless someone makes a PCI card version. So that means if I use HDCAM I'll either have to rent a desktop Mac (not likely) or book an editing suite for ingesting and output. Is there a way to ingest low-res from the camera directly to my laptop for an off-line edit?

Actually, I wanted to use XDCAM-HD, but I'm having a really hard time finding an equipment shop that offers a reasonable rental plan here in China. At least it seems it's possible to edit XDCAM on the Powerbook. I realize that workflow has its shortcomings, but I just need a stopgap measure for this project until I can finish building my improved system.

OK, maybe I'm expecting too much, to edit HDCAM on my laptop. So I'm wondering about this: Can I ingest low-res video directly from the HDW-750 to my Powerbook via firewire and do an off-line edit with FCP? If so, then what set-up do I need in a post production suite to be able to ingest and record my full-res project to tape?

OK, maybe I'm expecting too much, to edit HDCAM on my laptop. So I'm wondering about this: Can I ingest low-res video directly from the HDW-750 to my Powerbook via firewire and do an off-line edit with FCP? If so, then what set-up do I need in a post production suite to be able to ingest and record my full-res project to tape?

Yes, you are expecting too much to edit HDCAM footage on a laptop, at least at full resolution. If you captured at DVCPRO HD, then you could. But to do that you'd need a high def capture card. And they don't make those for laptops.

I have looked at the specs for that camera and I don't see a firewire port on it.

What would you need? David S. linked to the Mike Curtis Article...

-Mac Pro
-AJA KONA capture card, or Decklink HD
-eSATA RAID...might get away with striping internal drives, but can only do 3, unless you install the system drive in the empty optical bay and then you can stripe 4 drives. Uncompressed HD needs 180-200MB/s...plus is a SPACE HOG. You'd really need a 5 drive raid capable of 230-250MB/s to do this, and a LOT of space. Unless you captured DVCPRO HD to offline, and then media managed the cut to capture at Full res later. Very few people capture uncompressed HD for offline editing.
-HD monitor
-Good speakers
-Mixer