Helping a school out with an HD issue

Hi there!

One of the high schools where I help out just bought an HDC-TM300K and they are having trouble converting the video to a format they can use in FCP. After a little research, it appears the software that comes with the camera is only PC-readable, and they have MACs. Current software they have is FCP, MPEG Streamclip and Cleaner, but none of those appear to be able to convert HD into FCP-friendly formats.

Is there anyway to convert the footage without having to purchase more software? Chicago public school = miniscule budget. I came across Wondershare and that looks like it'll work (anyone have any opinion on it?), but that requires opening the wallet.

Also wondering if there's an option to record in SD instead of HD on the camera, so they won't have to bother with the converting? Though I guess that defeats the purpose of buying an HD camera....

Thanks much for any help!


MAC OSX 10.5.6
1.8 GHz Power PC iMAC G5
768 MB DDR SDRAM

MAC OSX 10.5.2
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBookPro
2 GB MHz DDR2 SDRAM

LaCie d2 Extreme 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Buffer
LaCie Big Disk 380GB
FCP 6.0.5