Re: New user - Photographer jumping to film asks

In the meantime, after you've ordered your copy of Final Cut Studio 2 and are waiting for it to arrive (June?), use iMovie HD to capture and edit your HDV. Since you say it's a newish Mac, then it should have iMovie HD as part of its standard supplied set of applications.

Once you have exhausted all the options in iMovie, you'll be more ready for FCP. There's a lot of stuff broadcast that was first cut with iMovie, so don't undervalue it - it's a great place to start. FCP is a daunting place to get into video editing, so I would recommend some of the Apple Pro Training series books which have about 20 lessons and a DVD full of material to learn from.

Bill Lee