Shooting a school play, camera advice

Hi,
We have been asked by the school if we could shoot this years Christmas play. We thought the best way was to setup 3 fixed cameras covering different angles of the stage and use Final Cut Pro to cut the footage together.
We would ideally like to use cameras that use memory cards so we can get the footage in to Final Cut Pro quickly. I am looking for some advice on cameras and producing the end result.
Ideally we would like to shoot this in HD. 720p would be fine. Any recommendation on cameras? We are going to need to hire them. We were wondering if using a Canon 5D or 7D would do, but this might just be the geek in us.
I know Toast can burn BluRay content to a stand DVD and was hoping I could export the final movie from Final Cut Pro and then burn it to BluRay that way.
Any other tips would be most helpful.
Best wishes
Michael

Michael Curtis wrote:
We thought the best way was to setup 3 fixed cameras covering different angles of the stage and use Final Cut Pro to cut the footage together.
It's a project you can do well or you can produce a DVD no one will watch more than once. Three fixed cameras will be only slightly less boring than one fixed camera. You want one fixed camera and two being handled by qualified photographers. You need camera rehearsals, shot sheets, and lighting that is properly adjusted by video.
Michael Curtis wrote:
We would ideally like to use cameras that use memory cards so we can get the footage in to Final Cut Pro quickly. I am looking for some advice on cameras and producing the end result.
There are no memory cards that empty into FCP quickly. You
must first copy the cards' contents to your drives as a backup and then transcode upon ingestion. Much quicker to shoot on good ol' DV.
Michael Curtis wrote: Ideally we would like to shoot this in HD. 720p would be fine. Any recommendation on cameras? We are going to need to hire them. We were wondering if using a Canon 5D or 7D would do, but this might just be the geek in us.
Your geekiness is quaintly admirable but your lack of experience is likely to be fatal. You can spend a few hours investigating the workflow for Canon's DSLRs and FCP. Then run away.
Michael Curtis wrote:
I know Toast can burn BluRay content to a stand DVD and was hoping I could export the final movie from Final Cut Pro and then burn it to BluRay that way.
Maybe. You need to talk to the Toast community. How many do you want to sell? BD-only reduces your potentional market by at least half and there will be dozens of irate parents who simply can't understand why your BD won't play on their set tops.
Michael Curtis wrote:Any other tips would be most helpful.
We see similar questions often and we are torn between giving you advice we hope will encourage you to research and correct your misperceptions and trying to give you enough advice to allow you not to fial but not to succeed, either.
The many assumptions you have made up to this point are incorrect or incomplete. You have a few weeks to figure it out, run some tests, and work out a system that actually allows you to shoot, edit, and release a product your parents will be proud to own. I say, find three matched DV cameras and study up on how to color match them and how to sync them. And how to use FCP's multicam feature which works well but it's not easy.
One vital thing you have totally failed to address is audio. You cannot cover a stage play with the microphones attached to your cameras. It cannot be done. Your audio system will be at least as complex as your video system. You need wireless mics on the principles, hanging or shotgun mics for the chorus a mixer, a way to bring in music and sound effects, and a way to sync all cameras to the same audio track.
bogiesan

Similar Messages

Audio Suggestions for Filming School Plays

I'm trying to obtain a better quality soundtrack for my wife's school plays (she's the music teacher). They don't have much of a sound system although I can combine the music from a digital source and the audio from the microphones (for speaking parts) into one stereo mini-jack. What is missing is the general audio; that is she has 100 kids on stage at once singing and there are no omni directional mic's that can pick that up. I have a Sony SR12 set up at the back of the auditorium and the audio is atrocious from that distance (and with that equipment).
Any recommendations? I'm looking for mic setup suggestions and recording source equipment that I can later take into Final Cut and sync with the video.
Keep in mind as best you can that while I do love my gadgets, I don't have $2000 bucks to spend on equipment, but I want to get this as close to professional as I can.
Thanks in Advance.

I video school plays as well: three cams (two HDV for following actors/action, one DV to cover the whole stage); My best audio has come from using a Rode NT4 dual capsule X/Y mic in the center, and a matched pair of Rode NT5's with omni capsules hard left and right.
The NT4 center gets good stereo and minimized the sound stage shift (left and right) as a centered actor turns his head left and right. Wide set stereo mics can have the sound stage flying all over the place as actors move their heads, but don't actually travel anywhere on the stage. The Rode needs phantom power OR a battery and plugs right into an XLR input on my HDV or DV cams. This mic pair I consider the stereo master audio track, so I use the DV camera (uncompressed PCM).
The two omni mics set left and right are used for overall ambiance if I need to add it (lightly), enhanced stereo, and uneven volume when actors speak from hard stage left/right, or even in the wings. I use the NT5 pair because they are a good match for the NT4 capsules from an audio perspecive, and they are small. They need phantom power and plug into XLR camera input.
The third camera only records audio for sync purposes, and I use the on camera mic.
Newer alternative that I've only tried on a short piece, but it worked well:
A Zoom H4n digital recorder. It has decent (not as good as the Rode's) on board mics that are in an X/Y pattern at 90 or 120 degrees (more centered / more stereo). It also has two XLR or 1/4" input jacks that can supply phantom power to external microphones. It will record all 4 tracks at once in 16 bit 48kHz uncompresed (WAV), or various compressed formats. It takes SD/HC cards, and a 8MB card (about $20 or less from Amazon) will hold hours of audio. It runs on batteries (risky or a wall wart that is included. It can mount to a camera tripod mount, and a mic stand adapter is included.
It's cheap enough, and for many uses, the onboard X/Y mics would be fine. Our theater stage is quite large, so the outboard external mics are needed to even things out.
Note also that I avoid whatever sound-reinforcement mics/speakers the theater wants to use. Too many ground loop issues, and reinforcement is different than audio for video. Keep your mics away from the speakers
The Zoom is about $350 from Sweetwater.
Then you can use your on camera mic for backup (something goes whoops, you still have sound, and you have flexibility in mic placement; the Zoom goes center, but maybe a bit back from the stage to pick up a more even sound stage; the omni l/r mics at about the same distance. Since the four tracks are two stereo pairs, you can play with delays if you get chorusing or echoing due to sound delays. But they are close enough to the audio source (the singers), that ambient echos are reduced and can be dealt with using compression, gates, etc. in FCP.
If you want to get more serious about audio for video, there's alway Logic or ProTools depending on your needs. I have ProTools for my studio (audio only), but have only used the LT version once for a problematic HVAC noise background I need to deal with. Probably could have done it in Sound Track Pro, but I'm just more familiar with PT.
Good Luck.
Eddie O
Message was edited by: Edward A. Oates

HT2729 Is there a way to store videos into a separate album right after you shoot it on iPhone camera?

Is there a way to store videos into a separate album right after you shoot it on iPhone camera?
Finding videos in iPhone photo album requiers you to search through everything on your album. Is there a way to create separate video album or have them automatically save to a dedicated video album?
It's a pain finding videos when you use the camera so much and as it is I'm constantly organizing the photos.

Not even an app that might do this?

I use a mac ios and shoot raw in a cannon 5d mark ii and shortly upon import of my images lightroom darkens and changes my images. This has happened before but not every time. The strange part is my last shoot had the same camera setting but this did not

I use a mac ios and shoot raw in a cannon 5d mark ii and shortly upon import of my images lightroom darkens and changes my images. This has happened before but not every time. The strange part is my last shoot had the same camera setting but this did not happen. The images i have now i can not use after lightroom has automatically altered them even if i try editing back to how they looked upon import

First thing to do is to change the default camera profile applied in Lightroom to camera standard (assuming that you shoot Canon or Nikon). Also make sure that your camera is NOT set up to use any of the HDR modes. Nikon calls those Active Dynamic Lighting. On Canons you often see things like highlight priority mode or "Auto Lighting Optimizer". Make sure that the picture style is set to standard and that for newer Canons the HDR mode is turned off. Most of the HDR modes simply underexpose the image and then add an instruction in the raw file to compensate for this to prevent highlights from being blown out. This causes more noise in the shadows and if you know what you are doing there is no point to this as you should simply expose correctly and get the highest quality raw.
Lastly, make sure that in Lightroom you have not checked "Apply Auto Tone Adjustments" in Preferences->Presets. This should make the default rendering of the raw files the same as the in-camera jpeg (what the camera shows on the back even if you shoot raw) but still give you all the latitude of raw files.

I'm running CS4 and use a Canon T3i to shoot RAW. Which camera raw patch do I need?

I'm running CS4 and use a Canon T3i to shoot RAW. Which camera raw patch do I need? I get his error when trying to install the latest patch: "Adobe Application Manager is needed to resolve this problem, however it is missing or damaged. Download a new copy of Adobe Application Manager or install this product again."

If the camera is newer than the last version of Camera Raw that was released for an older version of Photoshop, you won't be able to get direct, convenient "open file" support for the raw files.
You can check per these links:
Minimum Camera Raw version required for a particular camera:
Camera Raw plug-in | Supported cameras
Camera Raw versions available for update with various Photoshop releases:
Camera Raw-compatible Adobe applications
Just glancing at those links, Photoshop CS4 can update to only as far as Camera Raw 5.7. Unfortunately, the minimum required version to work with your T3i is Camera Raw 6.4.
Your fallback position will be to either convert your raw files to DNG format with the latest free DNG converter release, or get a newer version of Photoshop. The later has an advantage in that there have been substantial improvements to Camera Raw in recent releases.
-Noel

Can i shoot tethered with two cameras?

I've read that I can shoot tethered with two cameras in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. When I tether them to my iMac 27", one will work. Then I switch cameras in the "shooting module" to the other body (both bodies are Nikon D800) and then it freezes up. Do they need to be named differently? Is that even possible. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Canon supports two camera attachment for tethering.
Nikon does not.
Tethered camera support in Lightroom
Notes on Nikon cameras
For all Nikon cameras:
If you trigger the shutter with the tether bar capture button, the image must finish downloading before another photo can be captured. Triggering a capture with the shutter release button on the camera does not have this limitation.
Images do not save to the compact flash card. They are only downloaded to the computer.
Only one Nikon camera can be attached at a time.

Movie Camera Advice 2

Hi All,
I originally posted this and accidentally clicked that my question was "solved" (thanks Russ).
I am an aspiring filmmaker who is wanting to shoot independent movies and short films that have as much of a "flim/cinema" look as I can muster using FCPX as my editing software. It is my understanding that shooting video in 24p mode is as close as you can come to your finished "video" product looking like "film". If that is the case, I would like to try to get my "movies" to look as much like film as I can with an HD camera (and most-likely, separate audio).
My goal is that my short films will look more like something you may see at the Sundace Film Festival and not an after-school special. I am a storyteller and very much enjoy using creative editing to help tell my stories, however, I have not been afforded the opportunity to get any formal education in this arena and I am ignorant as to different file codecs, et, al. and would like to just avoid changing video codes and formats as much as possible and put my focus on producing quality, creative stories.
I am well aware that there is a list of supported cameras on the website, but if you go to websites like B&H photo and look at all the "pro-sumer" grade or lower-end "pro-grade" cameras, the choices are a bit overwhelming and the list on the apple website doesn't even begin to skim the surface of what is out there.
Can anyone recommend a good camera that I can grow with, that peferably has the ability to plug in a microphone externally with control settings. I would like the best bang for the buck and I am aware of the importance that sound plays in making the end-product more professional. If I can get a great camera that shoots great 24p and is able to have great sound, that is a bonus.
Any advice is greatly appreciated and again, sorry for the confusion behind the repost!
Thanks for your time!
Horsemunch

Horsemunch,
If you live within a city or near a city, find a camera store (yes there are still brick & motar camera stores), talk to the folks that work there, and talk to them about your needs. Also, find out if the rent equipment. Also, buy from them (Yes, it may cost more, but.......................).
The bottom line, is going to be, how much, do you want to pay.
Also, look at video's that folks post to You Tube, etc. using that model of camera. You get to see footage.
There are also all-in-cameras, that shoot both still's & AVCHD video. Canon & Fuji have some good ones.
Video- I have two Canon Vivixia's HV 30 & 40 both taped based. I also have Nikon & Fuji DSLR, plus Canon & Fuji all-in-ones.
I'm looking at buying, a new DSLR. I'm leaning toward Canon, cause Nikon is having problems with their shutter's. The thing that I dislike, about both Nikon & Canon is that when shooting video you have to use the back screen, to view what your shooting. Sony has DSLR that use the optic eye piece, but Sony DSLR are crap (That's my opinion).
This is the reason why you go to a camera store and work with ther staff. Also, if they do not carry what your looking for, ask them, if they can get it for you. But make sure that is what you want, cause you will end up buying it from them, if it is a brand that they do not carry.
Final thing, when you by camera equipment from them, if you have a problem, take it back to them, usually it's a minor fix, if not, then they will send it to an approved repair facility.
Hope this info helps.

Prosumer camera advice?

Hi everyone,
I've been posting in the Final Cut Express forum about this, and someone pointed out that this forum was really better suited to my question, so I'm going to ask here too (the thread in the FCE forum is here, just for the record - http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6996202).
I'm looking for a prosumer video camera, in the range of $1-3,000, to be used for event videography and fictional/documentary shorts. I know I want to stick with tape-based (miniDV), and it obviously has to be compatible with Final Cut. I want to start using more manual controls, and probably go to HDV, although for now at least I would still shoot in DV (or in HDV and downconvert; several people have been promoting that). Also, I'm a high school girl, and not to stereotype, but I'm probably not as physically strong as a lot of camera-people out there; so having something fairly light is also really important to me (definitely NOT shoulder-mounted, though it seems there isn't much of that in this price range anyway). I'm also looking to get a good tripod, so suggestions on that front would be appreciated too.
It seems that the more research I do, the more overwhelmed I get with all the options! I've never had the choice of what camera to use before - just used the family's TRV330, and when it died, the new TRV38 - so trying to navigate all these features and options, and end up with the ideal camera for me, is quite daunting. I also have a paid project coming up in a few weeks and would really like to use the new camera for it, which means I have to buy something pretty soon so I can have time to play around with it before the event.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Claire

My advice hasn't changed. The Sony DSR-PD170. $2600 at B&H
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/296545-REG/SonyDSRPD170_DSR_PD170_3_CCD_MiniDVCAM.html
If you are going to be recording in any dimly lit room (or even dark room such as most wedding receptions), NOTHING compares to the 170. There is no other way to put it. The Panasonic 100 is a great camera, we have one. However, to make this (or any camera really) shine, you must have control over your lighting. Shooting events means you have little to no control over your lighting. If I put a Panasonic 100B next to a Sony PD-170 at a typical wedding reception, the 100B will have a very graining, very dark image lacking most color saturation. The 170 will be, IMHO, at least two-stops brighter, and though grainy, it will be less grainy and have some sort of color detail. To recommend any other camera to be used for event work (unless working your way up the Sony line) simply comes from users that haven't used all the models. We have used:
Sony: 1000, 2000, 2100, 150, 170, and the DSR 250
Canon: Gl1, Gl2, XL1, XL1s, XL2
Panasonic: 100a, 100b
Each camera has their own merits. Each is capable of recording a great image. Under controlled circumstances, any of these cameras are excellent. Event shooting is mostly uncontrolled, unscripted.
The only other camera I would consider is out of your price range: the Panasonic HVX200. I believe Panasonic is shipping a more sensitive version of this camera very soon and new models are salted for release this fall. I say this camera because it will record in the DVCPro HD format. Which in my opinion, is MUCH better than HDV. It allows allows DVCPro 50, which is better SD quality than DV. But again, when you add the cost of P2 media and the cost of the camera, you are well out of budget.
In terms of tripods, the least expensive I would consider is this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/481931-REG/BogenManfrotto__190XDB501H_Video_TripodSystem.html
And, while I don't have a 503 head, I have read that it is much better than the 501 on the model listed above. I do have 501 heads and they are OK, at best. If you really want to know the difference, go rent a $2,000 tripod and head. Might cost you $50 to rent but you will really be able to tell what the difference is. I have found the 501 head to be the least expensive head that I can live with. However, for most work that is scheduled in advance, I prefer to rent.
Having said all that, as Bilbo Baggins might say: it's time to stop thinking and wasting the day.
Your equipment is your tools. The tools you use to create something; to turn your visions into something concrete. Sure, you want the best tools you can afford. But learning to use the tool is for more important than the tool itself. In the end, it's just a tool. You are the part that makes the difference. Just get started.
Mike

Movie Camera Advice

Hey all,
I am an aspiring indie filmaker who is looking to purchase a HD movie camera to begin making "films". I am looking to get a camera that will work with iMovie and Final Cut Pro X (hopefully in a native format). I am well aware that there is a list of supported cameras on the website, but if you go to websites like B&H photo and look at all the "pro-sumer" grade or lower-end "pro-grade" cameras, the choices are a bit overwhelming and the list on the apple website doesn't even begin to skim the surface of what is out there.
Can anyone recommend a good camera that I can grow with, that peferably has the ability to plug in a microphone externally with control settings. I would like the best bang for the buck and I am aware of the importance that sound plays in making the end-product more professional. If I can get a great camera and be able to have great sound, that is a bonus.
Maybe I am out in left field but I would like to spend no more than around $2,000 to get my feet wet. I don't need all the bells and whistles just yet but I do want to be able to put out a professional-looking product. Any other advice regarding getting the best bang for the buck in terms of getting a camera that gives the best cinema/film "feel" would be appreciated; as I understand it, FCPX doesn't support 24p format.
God bless, and thanks for your time.
Horsemunch
U.S.A.
27" 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 iMac
Mac OS X 10.7.3

DSLRs are used by many filmmakers these days. Check out Philip Bloom and Shane Hurlbut, for example. The advantage of these cameras are clearly the capability to use different lenses, shallow depth of field and good low-light capabilities. But there are also a lot of downsides like rolling shutter, aliasing and moire, highly compressed codec, and audiorecording to name only a few. So if you know what you are doing and if you shoot in a controlled environment you can certainly gain from using a DSLR .... if you have the proper workflow for post production.
As an example you can check out "Act of Valor", a Bandito Brothers production. DP Shane Hurlbut shot the movie almost entirely on Canon 5D MkIIs and there's a couple of nice articles on how they dealt with the inherent problems.
Blackmagic have just presented their new Cinema Camera which records either ProRes or 12-bit CinemaDNG. It will probably set you back $ 3000 without lenses but you get the full DaVinci Resolve with it and that's $ 1000 worth of software.
I personally have used Canon 550Ds and 600Ds for shooting video with good results (with shallow DOF making for really beautiful shots) but I have also had some bad moments. You just have to know where the limitations are and work around them.
As for codecs: almost all consumer and prosumer cameras shoot some flavor of H.264/AVCHD, which is a highly compressed MPEG-4 codec. Today you can edit many of those codecs natively in either FCP X or Premiere Pro CS6 but doing so is very processor intensive and requires a lot of horsepower. The alternative is to transcode everything on ingest to ProRes 422 (or other intermediate codec used by your NLE). This will provide you with a codec that contains full frames for editing and enough color information for grading the locked picture. It will also require a lot more disk space.
If you want a really low budget setup for editing then FCP X is probably a good choice (given the price) and you can get Motion 5 and Compressor 4 for an additional $100. Add DaVinci Resolve Lite (free) to the equation and you have almost everything you need to output a full picture.
Start reading here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHD
http://dslrvideoshooter.com/10-must-read-hdslr-guides-for-filmmakers/
http://nofilmschool.com/dslr/

Mac video hard drive and camera advice needed

My newspaper has agreed to switch to a Mac and Final Cut Express video editing setup and I need to make some recommendations to them as to what to get, since they are willing to buy two MacBook Pro laptops, a video camera and a couple copies of Final Cut Express. Help needed:
1/ What configuration of a MacBook Pro is suggested? The regular hard drive that comes with the computer and an added SATA hard drive for the Final Cut Express scratch disk and file storage? How big should the drives be?
2/ A Mac and Final Cut Express compatible AVCHD video camera with an external microphone shoe, costing about $1000 to 1,2000. Any model suggestions?
Thanks,
Douglas
[email protected]

Goodness, Studio X, what an aggressive response from someone who knows nothing of the background to my request for advice. I am no expert as perhaps you may be, but from that school of mid-size and smaller daily newspapers whose staff has had to teach themselves video with a lot of self-learning, little funding, trial by error and forums such as this.
For what it's worth, I trained under our former multimedia editor for a couple years and have since published perhaps 50 video features and audio slideshows to our paper's website, using a tottering system of Premium Elements 4.0, lousy PCs and inadequate cameras. But we've made do while arguing repeatedly for more investment - which is why I finally just used my personal MacBook Pro and Final Cut Express to file a half-dozen deadline video features recently for the paper from a PGA-tour event in our area.
After them being pleased with the speed and results of that, the beancounters are now willing to make a small investment in a better video set-up, which will be for two MacBook Pros with 500 GB external Firewire drives for video storage and scratch disks, Final Cut and a Canon Vixia HF s21. Now, I have a question for you: Do you always come six guns blazing into forums like this and shoot at people who are just trying to up their game a bit with advice from the otherwise other helpful people here? It is to those folks that I now return my attention and my thanks for their aid.
Douglas

Shooting with 2 iPhone cameras

Hi,
I am a musician and I want to make some music videos of me playing the drums. The idea I had was to set up 2 iPhones and then control the cameras remotely from my mac (this would let me get multiple camera angles in one take).
By doing this, I could ensure that both the cameras roll at the same time so I don't have to get up and manually set them recording. It will also ensure that the shooting is synced up correctly without too much work in post production.
Does anyone know of an app or a method of doing this? Or, will it just have to be the old school method of setting each one to roll and then spend a while editing it up afterwards?
Bit lazy, but it would be great to have this option if it is available... Or if there are any devs out there - I would definitely buy this!
Thanks
@Torkerz

Just to clarify things...
I was able to get a 15$/month voice-only prepaid plan that I added to my iPhone 4 (at least something good out of paying high price to buy the device already unlocked directly from Apple).
After inserting the MicroSIM in, nothing had changed. However, a couple mins later, the Facetime button suddently appeared in my contacts list. There's no registration or setting to play with at all.
Initiating the Facetime call won't send a voice call, nor does it send a SMS: my account on my provider's website still shows "0 mins, 0 secs, and 0 text messages" used, and I initiated/received a dozen Facetime calls so far. I know Facetime uses WiFi, but I was wondering if it would count as a quick voice call, SMS or something, to establish connection until it switches to WiFi. I confirm it doesn't.
However, people still do need to use my phone number to send me a Facetime call (it won't work if they try using my email). It's also my phone number that showed on their screen when I called them for the first time (they didn't have my number yet in their contacts list) so Facetime is really bound to your phone number on the iPhone, and there's nothing you can do about it
Also, if I remove the MicroSIM card, the Facetime icon disappear so don't count on borrowing a friend's MicroSIM for a sec, to activate Facetime on your device and then remove the card, hoping it will still work email-based. It won't.
It still suck that you are forced to pay a monthly fee only to have a phone number attached to the iPhone so you can use Facetime, while it works email-based on cheaper devices Apple should make that Facetime app (the one they use on iPod Touch 4G) appear if no carrier is detected so you still can use Facetime email-based.
Hope this helps.

Camera advice needed

Hi all
I'm shooting a short film soon and I'm hiring in a camera. I was going to go with the Canon XL1-s, but the hire company have a few HD cameras in now, the Sony HVR-A1E, Sony FX1 and Sony HDV-Z1E. Should I go for a HD over the 'standard' definition camera? I'm using FCP4 HD, G5 dual 1.8 2GB RAM and a 300GB Firewire Hard drive.
I'd appreciate any advice.
Regards
Stephen Bennett

No...stick with DV. First off, HDV requires FCP 5. Secondly, it is debatable whether HDV is HD at all:
#34 - HDV is not HD
Shane's Stock Answer #34:
Many many people buy HDV cameras thinking that they are getting an HD camera. This is not the case, for HDV is not HD. It has the same dimensions of HD, 1440x1080i, but it is HIGHLY compressed MPEG-2, and suffers from bad artifacts when fast action is being filmed.
Is HDV an improvement over miniDV? No. It increases resolution and at the same time, increases compression, so, pixel for pixel you have worse quality, but you do have a lot more pixels. Resolution in itself does not = picture quality. You could blow up VHS to HD resolution, but the quality would be terrible, even though it has a high resolution.
HDV is NOT considered a pro format and is at best a high end home movie camera.
Shane

Can I shoot with a NTSC camera and convert to a PAL dvd through Final Cut

i am shooting a wedding for someone in Scotland that will be getting married in the States, and she wants a PAL dvd. Can i shoot the video with my NTSC camera (HVX 200) and with Final Cut convert it to PAL? If not can it be done someway?

the prefered way is to standards convert the video and import it into a PAL sequence
http://www.nattress.com/Products/standardsconversion/standardsconversion.htm
an alternative is to produce an NTSC DVD; it will playback on a computer; Mac or PC, it might play back on the users hardware DVD player/ TV combination but it might not, no guaranteed there.
Best bet is option 1

Video Camera Advice

After purchasing a JVC Everio HD camcorder, I found out that hard way, that getting a hard drive camcorder to work with a Mac is not as easy as it sounds.
With that said, I want to find options that will make shooting, transferring, and editing video on my (mid 2011) Macbook Pro, as easy as possible.
I know that there are different converters out there, but from what I have read, they are time consuming and many times still don't help you accomplish what you are trying do.
What types of camcorders should I be looking for? I know there are many professional style cameras that will accomplish what I am looking to do, but they almost always start at about $1000 and go up from there. Some people have suggested that I buy a SVR camera because they all shoot video as well, but now I am concerned that I will run into the same transferring issues with a $700 SVR camera that will have run into with a $300 HD camcorder.
Any help that is given will be greatly appreciated. My wife is due to have our first child any day now and this video camera issue was unexpected and has suddenly become an unneeded point of stress. Oh, on a side note, I went to an Apple store yesterday and they gave me two suggestions.
1) Use an iPhone.
2) Come on these forums and ask...which is what I did.
That was the best they could do, as they weren't really familiar with this problem.
Thanks, in advance!
Jason

The following should help you decide what camera to replace the Everio with!
iMovie 11 - cameras supported:
http://help.apple.com/imovie/cameras/en/index.html?lang=en_US
iMovie 9 - cameras supported:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290?viewlocale=en_US
iMovie 8 Camcorders supported:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1014
iMovie tutorials:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#imovie
and also this:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/imovie_09_stone.html

IMovie file convertionto AVI (23G ), however when played via Quick Time only the first 2 minutes play - any advice?

iMovie file converted to AVI file (23G+ ), however when played via Quick Time only the first 2 minutes play (project is just under 2 hours & was prepped by FCE - 2 minutes of 2 hour project is unacceptable -- any advice?

iMovie file converted to AVI file (23G+ ), however when played via Quick Time only the first 2 minutes play (project is just under 2 hours & was prepped by FCE - 2 minutes of 2 hour project is unacceptable -- any advice?

Shooting a school play, camera advice

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