11 posts tagged “mac pro”

iMovie needs batch export

Feb 1, 2009
9 comments

Since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated by the process of video production but purely from the technical point of view. The complexity of capturing video, editing (the process not the artistic element), video effects, etc. drove my curiosity. A few years ago I worked with someone who also really into video as well. He captured videos for lots of family events and learnt to use professional tools and techniques. While I get really excited as I discussed the ins and outs of the equipment and setup my friend has, I was definitively unable to find a reason to take video for personal use. Capturing family memory is great but who actually would sit down and watch hours upon hours of family videos, apart from the family themselves?

It all changed when I started organising the NY ALT.NET events last September. We decided that we would video tape each meeting so members who were unable to attend would have a chance to participate, albeit in a passive form. As a result, I started learning to use iMovie '08 as a tool to process approximately 2 hours of video from each monthly meeting.

When Apple rebuilt iMovie from the ground up for the '08 version, lots of complains were raised because many features from iMovie '06 were dropped. What the user gained, however, was a much simpler user interface that makes editing movies a snap. Without any preparation and little learning time, I was able to import, pick video clips, add title and transition, and export videos within minutes. Literally. And the new version iMovie '09 added new features that were missing from iMovie '06, such as Precision Editor, themes, more transitions, etc. I especially love the Precision Editor because I can easily control the entry and exit points of each clip with ease.

But, and there's always a but, all these great time-saving features come to nothing when I need to export the video for people to consume. Because Apple is targeting the consumer market with iMovie (Final Cut Express for prosumer, and Final Cut Studio for pros), there is no facility to batch up video export.

Why is it important? Let's look at the typical time I spent working on videos for a monthly meeting:

~2-2.5 hours importing from camcorder. This is fixed time because it is a MiniDV tape camcorder and the only way to get from tape to hard disk is to replay all the footage in realtime.
~20-30 minutes editing each part. I break down the 2 hours meeting into around 30 minutes parts (actual length depends on the nature stopping point of the conversation). I then change the opening credit, make some adjustment to the audio (boast volume) and video (colour correction).
~2 hours exporting each final video to hard disk for uploading. This result in a 640x480 H.264 QuickTime video file around 550MB.
~1 hours uploading to Vimeo.

Now, there is no way for me to multi-task step #1. There is only one camcorder and thus I can only do one import at a time. Not a big problem as I can do other things once the import has started.

Step #4 is a background process. Once I kicked it off in the browser, I can do other things on the computer. For example, step #2.

The problem is with step #3. iMovie does not have the ability to export video in the background. What it means is that once the exporting process has started, I can't use iMovie to work on my next clip and thus save time. It would not be that bad if iMovie uses all the CPU power my computer has. My Mac Pro has two CPUs, each CPU has two cores, making it a total of four cores. That's a lot of computing power. But iMovie can only take advantage of one CPU at a time! So instead of a reasonable export time of around an hour, I have to wait for two before I can work on the next clip.

Now, if iMovie is able to export in the background, then at least I can work on the next clip using one CPU while exporting uses the other CPU. Alternatively, if iMovie has the facility to batch up videos for export in a queue, then I can work on editing all the clips and export them in a single batch while I sleep, or do whatever. But iMovie has neither and so the process of producing four 30 minutes video clips basically takes up most of my weekend instead of a few hours. Granted most of the time is spent waiting but still...

Of course one can argue that background or batch exporting is a pro feature and I agree. But when should I sacrifice the ease of use of iMovie, learn a completely different editing paradigm (arguably more difficult to use), just so I can save a few hours each months when my hardware is more than capable? I am more than willing to pay extra for iMoviePlus or plug-ins to achieve what I need but unfortunately I don't think either would be available any time soon.

Windy tennis

May 18, 2008
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My Flip Video (I have the 2GB/60 min, black) arrived last week and I finally got the chance to play with it today. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. Dan and I had to deal with 15-20 mph wind while trying to film our tennis swings. You can hear the wind noise in the background, it's kind of hard to miss! Here is a short clip of what we did:

Tennis - Ground Strokes

You can see the full version (17:07) on Vimeo.

Transferring the video clips from the Flip to my Mac was a breeze. The Flip appears as a USB drive when plugged in so I can just copy the files across to my hard drive. Editing is a little tricky. The Flip uses a DivX MP4 encoder so the video files are not recognized by iMovie '08. After some Googling and experimentation, I decided to fork out some hard earned cash and got a license for QuickTime Pro. QTPro exports the clip to standard MP4 easily and quickly, utilizing all 4 of my MacPro cores. And editing in iMovie '08 pretty easy too. I was able to put this short clip together in about 5 minutes, even though I have no prior experience with iMovie '08 or video editing. It would be perfect if Apple fixes iMovie so that in the future it would just recognize the Flip video without any transcoding.

Apple TV and why I want one

Mar 5, 2007
2 comments

I causally mentioned to my friend at work who is also an Apple user that I may get the Apple TV when it is finally out. His reaction was, "What? Why would you want to watch video blow up?"

I explained to him that I want to watch my video podcasts on the TV instead of in front of my computer, despite the fact I have a very nice 24" LCD monitor. My friend just rephrased his question and wanted to know why I would want to watch low resolutions video on my 46" HDTV.

Then I realised that he thought all the video podcasts on iTunes are sized for the video iPod. He did not know some video podcasts are in hi-def, such as MacBreak which is in glorious 1080p. Others such as Diggnation and Merlin Show are in decent quality 480p which should scale OK on the big screen. But the most important of all are the TV shows that we've bought from iTunes: Smith, NOVA, etc. which we would not watch unless it is easy to put onto the big TV.

Yes, there are cheaper ways to get video from our macs to the TV but Apple TV takes the hassle out of the whole equation. Do I really want to figure out how to stream video from my Mac Pro to my PowerBook (probably using VLC), then onto the TV using S-Video (i.e. no HD)? How would I control the playback? Certainly not through a remote control and an onscreen display that Apple TV would provide. Do all these worth $299? To me definitely, probably not for most of you geeks out there. But then, I just want to watch video from my computer on my HDTV, not doing my annual geek certification exam.

Frenzic

Feb 25, 2007
2 comments

I don't play that much games on my Mac Pro. Most of my game playing is now on Xbox, especially Halo 2 on Xbox Live. But last week Iconfactory and ARTIS released Frenzic, a cross between the classic Tetris and Bejeweled. I paid for the Guru Bundle license after just 5 minutes of play time. It is that addictive!

The scores are uploaded to Frenzic's web site along with all the other players. I am ranked 66th as of this moment. I really can't imagine how other people can get score higher than 2000, let alone 6654!

I dare you to try it out. Just beware the time you will be spent playing it!

My desk

Jan 1, 2007
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This is where photos to be edited and uploaded, code to be hacked, music/podcasts to be listened, and blogs to be read.

My desk with Mac Pro

Wolf in sheep's clothing

Dec 3, 2006
2 comments

After having been coding in Windows inside OS X, using Parallels, on my Mac Pro for a day and half I still feel very weird about the whole thing. (Getting my laptop's Windows installation transferred into a Parallels' virtual hard disk image was a long and tedious process and I won't bore you with the details)

Using Windows inside OS X just feel plain strange at the moment but I like it so far. Being able to run both OSes at the same time is so much more convenient, I don't have to switch screen/keyboard/mouse inputs, or keep two sets of emails and web bookmarks, and I can just drag-n-drop files between the two OSes. Despite running inside a vm, Visual Studio 2005 works very well. It runs and compiles almost as fast as on my Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz Dell with RAID 0 drives in the office but I think the 2.66 GHz Xeon processor helps! :-)

Anyway, the Mac Pro is everything that I have hoped for. Yes it is expensive but given my last mac lasts over 4 years I think it is a good investment. It does mean that I have to forgo the Xbox 360 for another 6 months or so but I don't have time to play game that much anyway. In fact, my Mac Pro is so good that I spent most of my time on the mac and didn't play even one second of Halo this weekend, normally the designated Halo time of the week.

Dude! Where's my Mac?

Nov 29, 2006
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FedEx Tracking

According to FedEx, it has left Anaheim, CA two days ago but that's all! No more details on where it is, like right frakking now. Nothing!

Damn you, FedEx! (Shaking fist at the sky)

Slowness be gone!

Nov 24, 2006
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I've done it! I bought a Mac Pro this afternoon using eiron's company discount on the Apple Store online. 10% discount isn't bad at all. So in less than two weeks time, I won't need to put up with slow computer, or switching between two laptops! I may even play some games (classic such as Syndicate, Theme Hospital, etc.) again on the computer. Can't wait!

I know I need new computer when...

Nov 19, 2006
2 comments

Web browsers (Firefox or Safari) run slow when iTunes is playing.
I can type faster than the browser can display sometimes (think back to the 14.4kbps modem era).
iPhoto takes forever to load, to save changes of photos, or to exports to Flickr.
Video podcast in 320x240 resolution drops frames when played. Don't even think about HD or H.264 encoded video.
And most important of all, eiron has a faster computer than either of mine!

Having said all that, my G4 800MHz Titanium PowerBook has been with me for over 4 years. And forcing it to drive my new Dell LCD monitor @ 1900x1200 resolutions doesn't help the speed matter either.

Now, should I prolong the suffering and wait till after Christmas to see if there is any bargains or price drop? Or I can just pick up one of those speedy Mac Pro from the SoHo Apple Store this coming Black Friday, especially with the 10% discount?

24

Oct 3, 2006
2 comments

I've decided to upgrade my computers (plural because I have an old Apple PowerBook as well as a Compaq laptop) to the new MacPro near the end of the year. Probably after Christmas so I should get some discount. But since the MacPro is so damn expensive and doesn't come with a display, I decided that I will spread the cost of the upgrade by buying the display now, a few months before the main event.

In an ideal world where I have infinite amount of money in the bank, I would pick the Apple's 23" Cinema Display without a thought. But since I don't live in the ideal world, I have to look out for my wallet and bought the Dell 24" LCD widescreen display. It was delivered today and after clearing out the desk of all the crap and then connected both laptops to it (mouse and keyboard as well via a USB switch) the desk looks real cool now. Without further ado, here are some photos:

Desktop before LCD

Those paper on the desk are about 10 months worth of bills, letters, and payslips. It looks a lot but if you think about it, it is actually very little considering that is 10 months!

I still need a wrist pad for the keyboard so I won't get pain in my forearms after long period of typing. And there is also a computer stand that is arriving tomorrow so I can stack the two laptops better, instead of just laying one atop of the other.