>I am considering a new computer purchase and have some questions about >desktop video and macs in general. I I have previously used imovie in >a class I was taking and have a very beginner knowledge of it. It was >much easier than the windows products I have seen recently. I am >planning on buying a imac for my home and laptop G4 through my office. > >1. It seems from what I have read that you cannot burn more than 1 >hour of video onto a dvd using the combo drive which comes on the new >imacs? I am not sure why this is?
I think Lee and others got this part... > >2. I will mostly be using the video in short instructional video clips >of 2 minutes or less. Is the editing capability of imovie sufficient >or does one quickly feel they need a program like final cur pro? What >is the learning curve of such a product? Also any suggestions on >hardware/ software for video projects? Yeah that hound is pretty good, but it does take a few hours to understand. Better than days I guess. iMovie will more than give you the capability to do the short clips you are asking about, UNLESS you are planning to use lots of flashy transitions or effects. iMovie does come with several good ones and for another $30 or $40 you can add quite a few new ones to its list of tricks. But for the razzle-dazzle stuff you will need other software. Are you planning on presenting the clips on broadcast TV? Then go with FCP. It will allow you to color correct your video to broadcast standards, iMovie won't do this directly. Fans of Adobe will want you to consider Premiere and After Effects. Together they will cost you roughly the same as FCP and give you quite a few effects. >3. I work at U of L which seems since coming here to be very anti-mac, >are there any isssues with saving video as a quicktime files (or some >other format) and tranfering them between windows machines if this were >necessary. Not really. Media Player will play QuickTime movies if you just gotta do it that way. But Apple has QuickTime players for windoze machines as well. Lobby for a more conducive Mac climate. Try taking the naysayers to Apple's site and showing them the new Apple server machines... >4. Also my wife uses SPSS and they use windows at work. Can data sets >be moved back and forth easily? Also are there issues with moving >microsoft office documents back and forth or opening/ reading emails. MacLink Plus is very good at translating office files. Office under X is not bad at it either. I seem to recall reading that SPSS was bringing the software to the Mac again, but that may have been SAS. have you checked their sites? >Thanks for any info > >Ricky Bass > > > >Pat F. Bass III, MD >Associate Program Director >Internal Medicine & Pediatrics Training Program >Office of Curriculum Development and Evaluation >Schoole of Medicine >University of Louisville >Louisville, Kentucky 40292 >email rickybass at louisville.edu >phone 502-852-2367 >fax 502-852-2368 > >The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will be May 28. >For more information, see <http://www.aye.net/~lcs>. A calendar of >activities is at <http://www.calsnet.net/macusers>. -- The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will be June 25. For more information, see <http://www.aye.net/~lcs>. A calendar of activities is at <http://www.calsnet.net/macusers>.
