Making clips lower res

[finchy]

Hey,

I need an effective way of working with 720p and 1080p footage in my imac 4GB,

Ive tried many times to find out about how to create an 'offline' project with low res clips with no success...

Could it be a good idea to import my footage into FCP for our EX3 and then export it all from there as a lower res set of clips, and then import them back into my timeline and work with it quickly and hassle free... or would compressor be better?

Any advice would be great as i am a bit stuck!

Thanks

[NoahK]

Why not add an external Firewire drive instead of making extra work for yourself. You can't just throw away the high-res footage while you offline.

Noah

[finchy]

Yeah i don't intend on throwing them away, i just meant using the low res copy of the clips to cut with so that its a little fast with my slow imac

[NoahK]

XDCAM EX is already pretty low res compare to working with say uncompressed HD. 35 Mbits is only slightly higher bandwidth than DV standard definition. So if you're really struggling with that low of bandwidth, it might be time to add some RAM or upgrade your Mac to something more powerful.

Noah

[finchy]

Yeah well that is the plan but as always money is an issue. My imac if already at full speed so i guess im just going to have to lump it! :)