CNNdotCOM Technofile: Laptop video editing

From Rick Lockridge
CNNdotCOM Correspondent

(CNN) -- Who says you can't do big-studio video editing on a little laptop? We set out to do just that using a specially configured Apple Powerbook G3 laptop that's the first to offer high-quality portable editing.

At $2,200, the 500 MHz G3 has a very fast hard drive and 20 GHz of space to hold more than 45 minutes of high-quality digital video. It connects directly to a digital camera via a single slender cable called a Firewire. The Firewire allows you to transfer video at much faster rates, and because the process is digital, there's no drop-off in quality.

	RESOURCES
So what's the price tag on this?

We tried out two digital camcorders to capture our video -- the Canon GL-1, and Sony PD100a. Both retail for about $2,500 and are three-chip cameras, which means they shoot pictures sharp enough to approach the quality of the professional cameras CNN uses. The Canon and Sony come with swing-out color LCD monitors that you can flip all the way around to frame yourself up if you happen to be your own photographer.

After shooting breaking news, you'll need software to put video together on the Powerbook. An Apple program called iMovie comes pre-loaded on many new Macs but only offers very basic features. Instead, we used Apple's Final Cut Pro. If you're willing to spend $1,000 and a lot of time learning to use it, Final Cut Pro is much more powerful. It's only available on Macs so if you're a Windows user, check out Adobe Premiere & After Effects. They retail for about $1,000.

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Set up your PC to edit video
October 12, 1998

Apple Powerbook G3
Apple Final Cut Pro
Apple iMovie
Adobe Premiere
After Effects

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