I could really use some help. I am newbie at this.
I have a bunch of video on DV that I want to save on an external hard disc of a PC. I am using Pinnacle Studio to capture the video, and it is saved as a AVI file.

Eventually, I am sending the external hard disc to a person who will be editing all the video using a Mac. My editor asked that all the files be in a quicktime format.

I upgraded my quicktime to QT Pro (not sure if i needed to, but I figured I'd throw S. Jobs a bone... I am a committed PC user) in order to first open the files that are original saved as AVI files from the camera. I then am attempting to export these AVI files to a quicktime file.

First question, can a Mac user eventually use the external hard drive that I send him considering I am using a PC to save all the files?

Second, while my export seemed to work, the quality of the file on playback is not as good as the orginal AVI file. Why? In fact, when I use my ATI RADEON All in Wonder software to even just play the AVI file.... it looks better than when I play same AVI file back on the QT Pro player.

Could I just send him the external hard disc with the AVI files? Can he access AVI files on a MAC using standard video editing software?

Am I doing something wrong?

Thank you for your help.

1) What transfer interface is the external drive? A
firewire drive will present absolutely no problems at
all. If it is a USB 2.0 drive, the drive will either need a
USB 2.0 to firewire converter (if they exist - I haven't
checked) or the mac user will need to take the
external firewire drive out of its housing and install it
internally (the drive itself should be a regular ATA
drive and require little to install internally.)

2) Make sure that you're exporting the files at the
highest quality that you can. I've not used QT Pro,
but I assume that there are several different codecs
to choose from. From what I know, I'd choose
MPEG-2 at the highest settings. DVDs are encoded
in MPEG-2. He should be able to access DVI files on
his Mac. I don't think I have had a problem opening
them.

----paxcirc.a-

Even if it's USB 2, it'll work - albeit horribly slowly - on a USB 1.x interface.

p