Rules/Advice for use of FCE/iMovie

Question

Reading through many posts seems I find some general rules of thumb not found elsewhere. Thanks in advance for all comments.
For serious video editing work and creation an external firewire HDD is needed, mainly to avoid dropped frames in either FCE or iMovie (iM). The new 20" iMac and external HDD (with 2 firewire connections, for the input device (DV camcorder or DV/SVHS deck) and to the iMac) should be able to run either FCE/iM.
I just did a 45 min project in iM with no noted dropped frames but likely would in much longer projects if I don't get the external drive?
Audio bit rate. Advice I read for iM is that without 16 bit audio the audio gets out of sync in long projects--does FCE also need 16 instead of 12? Not knowing this need, I've recorded a number of projects (with a DV deck and a DV camcorder) in 12--can I capture to the iMac/external HDD in 16 if I'm playing from a source tape that's 12?
Chapter Markers. Seems there are "Rules for Chapter Markers" that I won't repeat here but suspect they apply to both FCE/iM when used with iDVD. Do those rules apply when you use DVDStudio instead of iDVD? One rule I haven't seen yet is that one should likely not use the apply chapter markers option in iDVD as it could apply a marker that violates the "rules" and cause strange results in the DVD when played, right?
Any other rules or concerns I've missed--perhaps always max out on RAM even if its rather costly? What other basic tips or secrets should I know for editing with these products?
Dale

Answer 1

I'll just cover a couple of your points:
Hard drvies: Internal HDs are actually a better choice, overall, than external ones .... if you have the option to have a separate HD for your Scratch Disc. You should not be storing your meids (your video) on the same disc where FCE lives, in other words, your system disc. Also, space is important; you should never let your scratch disc (your media disc) get too full. I think the reccomendation is something like you should always have 25% of that disc free. So, if you can do that with an internal, go ahead; if not, an external is your only option
RAM: More RAM is good; if you can, I would go up to at least a Gig but this would be more for other apps or running multiple apps at the same time. I ran my G5 on 512mb RAM for a year with few probs (BTW, I'm a pro wedding editor) FCE performance is more determined by Processor speed than RAM anyway
Dropped frames: Lotsa reasons for this but some ways to avoid it is to not have a lot of sequences open at once, lowering your RT settings, not running programs in the background, etc
Audio: As Ian already suggested, the rule for bit rates in FCE is to keep it all the same, so even any music you import should be resampled as a AIFF that matches your sequence ie all 12 bit or all 16 bit. Frankly, I don't know why someone would shoot in 12 bit; it is a lower quality sample rate. Some peeps do it cuz their particular cam allows them to acces other audio tracks in 12 bit; audio tracks you probably wont be able to capture in FCE anyway. At any rate, just keep that sampling rate all the same and you should not have any probs with sync.
Another key point in FCE that when you do your final export, you have to mixdown your audio. From Edit, Select All then go Sequence>Render Only>Mixdown
Chapters: Basic rules for this in FCE is you can't have a chapter marker less than one second away from the beginning or end of your program. I think iMovie has probs if you place a chapter marker right on a transition; FCE is more forgiving but I tend not to do this too much, it doesn't look very neat in playback. When you set your chapter markers, don't forget to select the Chapter Marker option in the submenu and don't erase the <Chapter> heading: that does not show up in your export. When exporting, make sure nothing is selected in your timeline and use Export as Quicktime Movie and select Chapters from the pulldown