Apple iMac Blue Dalmatian 15 in. (M8347LL/A) Mac Desktop

I bought this machine primarily to edit videos. I am not a professional and what I do are family videos and travel videos. I have just finished my first edit. My daughter and her son went to France last June with a school group. She came back with seven hours of tape, not digital, not even Hi8, Just plain jane regular 8mm. I played back her tapes on my Sony TRV-103 Digital 8 Camcorder (also a Great machine!) into the iMac via Firewire. Edited the tapes down to 1 hour, 10 minutes. Added a few titles, but did no transitions, no audio, music or voice-overs. I played the edited tape back, again via Firewire, to the TRV-103 and then made a copy on a cheap and dirty VHS VCR I got at Sam's Club for $109. From that tape (which is now the master) I will make copies for the folks who went on the trip. The results were amazing. Better than the original. The colors are rich and deep. The details are razor sharp. Making the edit was absurdly easy. I am in the process of making successive copies to see how many generations I can produce before the image starts to break down. I'm on the fourth and counting.

That's the good news. The bad news is, iMovie is not Final Cut Pro. For the titles you have a choice of a zillion fonts, but only one size. And the ability to place the titles on the screen is limited. The only color background choice is black. As time goes on I am sure Apple or someone will come up with something better for graphics. Other than that, I recommend this iMac for the semi-serious amateur.