Edit Problem

Ey.
I'm going to be editing a 5 minute film that will be shot in 1080/50i HD. My iMac has a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with 2 GB of ram. I’m using Final Cut Pro 7. I’ll also storing all footage on a shared server which slows editing down, and the iMac itself doesn’t have a lot of free space. I have about 6 hours to cut the work together. The final product is for SD DVD, projected onto a big wall. Can you give me workflow suggestions. I want to convert the clips in to something that will be easy to work with, I've heard of Mpeg stream clip and Handbrake but I'm not sure how they work. I need to also know if shooting in progressive or interlaced is better and if and how does it affect the final film. Thank you.

Your hardware is your biggest problem. Not enough RAM, networked drive, it's gonna be dog slow.

You don't need additional software, you have Compressor and FCP. We need to know what camera or what codec the original video assets are being created with.