Switching from Windows to Mac - video editing

[Irek]

Dear All,
I am doing a lot of video (private, familly & trips - no money making on it).
During lat 13 years I have collected more than 300 hours of video - all of them stored now on 4 external drives (200 GB each) as mpeg2 files. I am using Pinaccle Studio 8. It is nice program, hovewer crash quite often.
I have "almost" convinced myself to purchase PowerBook 15 with Superdriver (gift for my 40th birthday) - I would like to use it primary for video & photo editing. May I kindly ask for some clarification:
1. Will I be able to use directly my mpeg2 files in iMovie (I am not planning to invest to Final Cut yet). Dose iMove recognize mpeg2 or QT only?
2. My external hard drives are formated with NTF. I understand Mac can not read it. The only way would be to purchase new hardrives and format them as FAT 32. I will use them as additional backup - so it is fine - just confirm if I am right here.
3. Maybe somebody who used earlier Studio 8 and switched to iMovie could share his / her feedback?
Thank you in advance for your feedback and any additional feedback.
Best regards
Irek

[texanpenguin]

I'm no expert, but I can answer your number 2:

OS X CAN read NTFS - it just can't write to it. Means you can still get your files OFF your externals, but then you'll need to reformat them before writing out to them.

[Irek]

Thank you very much. This is GREAT news.
If I can read from external NTFS discs live will be much easier.
Thank you once again

Irek

[kainjow]

You could also just plug both computers into your network, and then share the drive on your PC and access it from the Mac. Then you should be able to read and write to it (although it'd be slower then direct access).

[MisterMe]

Originally Posted by Irek

Dear All,
I am doing a lot of video (private, familly & trips - no money making on it).
During lat 13 years I have collected more than 300 hours of video - all of them stored now on 4 external drives (200 GB each) as mpeg2 files. I am using Pinaccle Studio 8. It is nice program, hovewer crash quite often.
I have "almost" convinced myself to purchase PowerBook 15 with Superdriver (gift for my 40th birthday) - I would like to use it primary for video & photo editing. May I kindly ask for some clarification:
1. Will I be able to use directly my mpeg2 files in iMovie (I am not planning to invest to Final Cut yet). Dose iMove recognize mpeg2 or QT only?
2. My external hard drives are formated with NTF. I understand Mac can not read it. The only way would be to purchase new hardrives and format them as FAT 32. I will use them as additional backup - so it is fine - just confirm if I am right here.
3. Maybe somebody who used earlier Studio 8 and switched to iMovie could share his / her feedback?
Thank you in advance for your feedback and any additional feedback.
Best regards
Irek

For iMovie to recognize MPEG2, you will need to buy the Sorensen QuickTime codec. It is available from Apple.