iMovie2 on the Mac works well
(Some of my comments below are explanations of what DV is, how Firewire works, what FinalCut Pro and iMovie are, etc. I'm sure Dan knows about these things. I'm explaining these things for other people's benefit, not to cast any aspersions on Dan's knowledge.)
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Dan - I am putting together a workstation system for video editing - it needs to be big but I don't want to break the bank. 2GB or better RAM, dual processor, AGP4, dual 66/64 PCI, base support on the MB for the usual peripherals.
So I can't just hack around with a new MB and stuff I have lying around - I have to buy pretty much everything new. That is enough of a barrier that I went with a PIII design that happens to run with my existing gear - I even have a couple of 1GHz processors. All I need is the MB.
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I'll say a few words about the Mac approach. (As an Intel stockholder, and one who respects Intel's prowess, I still use Mac of various sorts. As I have explained, it was an OS decision: the Mac Plus was the most like the WYSIWYG systems I had been using when I left Intel in 1986, so I bought a Mac Plus and have been happy with all of my later generations of Macs. And it's useful for even Wintel-Intel-AMD zealots to see what the competition is able to do.)
First, iMovie was rolled out a few years ago by Apple. It provides excellent video editing capabilites. Free. (They recently started charging $50 for it, for some crazy reason. But the version for OS X, which is what I am using, is available as a free download...perhaps to help generate more OS X interest.) "iMovie 2" is the latest version.
Second, Firewire (IEEE-1394) support is excellent on the Mac. As Dave Budde pointed out in a recent article here, things just work with video editing software and hardware on the Mac. (For you folks not doing any video editing, nearly all DV camcorders have IEEE-1394, or Firewire, built in. Sony has had it for several years, called "iLink" by them, for control and and also for data transfer. Today, all of the DV camcorders from Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon, etc. have 1394 connectors.)
DV, by the way, for you others, is "Digital Video." Stores images at high resolution in digital format. No generational loss as edits are made. Movies made with iMovie or FinalCut Pro or Premiere can be dumped back into DC camcorders, or stored, or whatever.
I don't currently have a DV camcorder or deck, so I bought a "Dazzle DV-Bridge" to convert analog video from my existing camcorders and S-VHS decks into DV form. (I understand from David Pogue's excellent book on iMovie 2 that many DV camcorders also have analog inputs with a conversion of the analog to DV and then a pass-through to the Firewire cable to the computer. The Dazzle unit was $300 and a DV camcorder with analog inputs is around $700, IIRC, so I probably should have gone the DV camcorder route. But I didn't know about these analog inputs and the pass through, and my main concern has been to get my large collection of past videos, 8mm and Hi-8, into iMovie form.)
Hooking up the Dazzle unit was...dazzling. No drivers needed (built into the OS X system). Plugged in the Dazzle to my IEEE-1394/Firewire port, attached an 8mm camcorder, launched iMovie 2, and it all worked *immediately*. A few minues later, I was editing clips. My jaw dropped to the floor.
There are _some_ features that iMovie does not have, but even many pros are using iMovie. For more features, the obvious choice is (according to all reviews I have read) Apple's "FinalCut Pro." This system is used on Macs to edit professionally, competing with vastly more expensive Avid systems.
Lastly, I wonder about your need for "it needs to be big but I don't want to break the bank. 2GB or better RAM, dual processor, AGP4, dual 66/64 PCI..."
Do you think your video editing will be CPU-constrained? Bandwidth to and from the disks seems to be a bigger issue for most practical editing. (Except for a limited number of wipes and fades and distortions, most NLE (non-linear editing) is about digitally splicing various chunks around. Unlike Photoshop-type image manipulation, not a huge amount of pixels need to be loaded into RAM at any given time. And not a lot of CPU power is needed. My 466 MHz G3 is more constrained by disk speed, so far.)
I am going to be completely frank about this recommendation: go down to a Fry's or Microcenter or whatever store is in your area and check out iMovie running on a G3 or G4 Mac. iMovie 2 on OS X on a Titanium G4 laptop will likely amaze you. And if you need more editing functions, FinalCut Pro.
Much work can likely be done on even a $1200 iBook. The support for DV is built-in, through IEEE-1394/Firewire. The iMovie app is free.
Dave Budde can add more details.
There are many things Apple does very well, and integrating multimedia/video is certainly one of them. Tim-Bob sez: "Check it out!"
--Tim May |
