Smudger":gp7lcjip said:
Thanks - iLife 08 is not available as I use 3 pre-Intel Macs and can't afford to replace them. The Canon doesn't work with anything before 08! So I have 2 u/s camcorders, until:
I've now got it working using Streamclip, though it's clunky, as I then go through MPEG Playback 2 into iMovie HD.
Unfortunately in the meantime I bought the second camera. So I'm just a bit in that kaka, SWMBO-wise, especially as that doesn't work with iMovie HD. And even I can't justify 2 camcorders.
Anyone want to buy an almost brand new Canon MD216, several blank tapes and a Firewire cable?
Seriously...
I also use a pre-intel mac mini and I can assure you that ilife 08 does work with pre-intel macs. even G4 ones, just needs a bit of hackery
It is in the system requirements for imove 08 that you have at least a G5 or an intel mac, but I've had it working on my G4.
a simple google will find the info your after.
streamclip is a superb bit of software, many many uses.
glad to have helped
as for the clunkiness, you'll find any video editing using DV is fairly "clunky" its a function of the massive files sizes used.
However you can implement a few tricks
1) make sure you disable the dashbard, you won't use it whilst editing a video so it just burns cpu cycles (google disable osx dashboard)
2) "renice" mpeg streamclip, this is a way in unix systems to give a programme overall priority use of the cpu.
i.e. open terminal (in applications/utilities) or an x11 console (if you have x installed), then type:
top -ocpu
you should see a list of all processes currently burning cpu cycles.
Note the PID of the streamclip programme.
exit by pressing control+C
then type
sudo renice -20 PID
where "PID" is the number you noted before.
This will make streamclip (or infact any other programme you like) top priority on the processor.
I use this an a hell of alot on single processor unix systems to squeeze the most out of them.
quitting streamclip will return the system priority to normal.
if you do alot of video editing, get an external firewire enclosure and stick a big disk into it. (pretty cheap now, around £100 for 500gig).
You'll see an impressive speed boost, unlike usb, firewire is a peer to peer networking protocol and thus speed is not compromised by adding more drives. (bandwidth is not shared across devices unlike usb)
infact i run my entire mac from a chain of FW disks and using xbench i can get about twice the disk performance compared to the internal laptop drive used in my ppc mini.
sorry for the lecture, hope some of this helps somebody, I had to learn most of it the hard way.
Steve (self confessed mac geek)
