Isn't a Mac supposed to be a good video editing machine?
That's what I always thought. I blithely assumed I could go out and pick the best video camera I could find that met my budget, and then hook it up to my Mac and start creating videos of my kids for when my memory starts to fade faster than it is already.
Oops. There's that "assume" word. I did my research on www.camcorderinfo.com. I didn't pick their top rated models, for various reasons including looking for strong low light performance, since I shoot videos of my kids more indoors than out. I ended up picking the Sony DCR-DVD403. Seems like a great camera so far; I like the video it takes and don't mind the touch screen controls.
Then I went to hook up the camera to my PowerBook to start video editing. No dice; I got a media format error. First I thought it was because I'd formatted the DVD as a DVD-VR rather than DVD-Video format, which should have been correctable by finalizing it. No dice. Then I poke around on the web, and find the compatible camcorder list on the Apple site, and see that none of the Sony DVD cameras are on it. Bummer. Looks like I'll have to copy the video fragments onto my Windows notebook, then move them to my PowerBook to edit/assemble.
So I spend an hour or so copying the files into .mpg files on my Windows box, and then copy them over to the PowerBook. I'm sure I'm ready to go now. Wrong again! When I try to open the first MPG, QuickTime and iDVD report that the file is an unsupported format. You've got to be kidding. OK, more poking around on the web. It turns out OS X doesn't support MPEG2 format unless you pay 20 bucks to download it. This is a pitiful, lame, awful, pathetic, and incredibly unprofessional bunch of garbage for a company that is supposed to be known for video.
So I pay my 20 bucks, download the software, and have to reboot for it to work. What? I thought this was a Unix box! Did Microsoft write this codec? So after I reboot, I'm sure I'll be good to go.
Wrong again. Turns out that the Dolby surround sound that I get with this camcorder (AC3 format) is not supported on the Mac. So now here's the procedure I'll have to follow to use any of the video from this camcorder on the Mac:
- Connect the camcorder to my Windows box and copy the .mpg files over
- Convert the audio fromat to MPEG2 from AC3, which creates another copy of the .mpg file
- Copy the file over to the Mac
It is positively astonishing to me that anyone who has a Sony DVD camcorder has to go through this absurd hassle to use the Mac for what it supposed to excel at. I guess maybe Steve is just a better marketer than Bill.
So after figuring this stuff out, I went back to camcorderinfo.com to see if I could find a camcorder that Apple supports that is in approximately the same price range and has equal or better low light performance and/or overall rating. No dice. Great! Now I can pick either having a camcorder that uses Apple-approved technologies, or having one that is a good camcorder.
So my original plan for my vacation was that I'd figure out how to do some video editing, and in parallel get Roller 1.2 set up on my PowerBook in preparation for upgrading wittle.net. Haven't even started on Roller yet given this ridiculous mess.