Monday, May 19, 2003

Making My First Movie with iMovie In addition to getting my iPod this weekend, I also got a Sony TRV22 digital camcorder. This was a key purchase since my wife and I are expecting our first child soon. It is also key that Daddy (me) be proficient with the camera before his daughter arrives. The Sony is a very easy camera to learn and to actually use. The controls are straightforward and easy to reach. The manual is well organized and designed to get you going quickly. (One area that is not covered in any detail is importing movies into your computer via firewire.) The camera (to my eye) performs reasonably well in various lighting conditions, and has a decent microphone. Daddy likes the touch screen, too! I used my new camera to make a walk-through movie of the baby's room. I planned my shot and executed it pretty quickly. I was pretty pleased with the raw results. I then decided it was time to import it into my iMac and make some iMovie magic! I connected the firewire cable that I bought (Sony doesn't supply one!) from my iMac to the camera. I rewound my tape to the appropriate spot, and hit Import on iMovie. BAM! iMovie took control of the camera and imported the video clip. When it hit the end of the video, it automagically stopped the camera. Tre cool. After I had the clip in iMovie, I drug it onto the project area and added a fade in and fade out transition at the beginning and end. Then, I dropped a song from my iTunes library underneath. I adjusted the volume of the song down so that it didn't compete with my wonderful narration. (Oh, it's wonderful! Don't get me started.) I played my project through a couple of times and realized that any more fooling with it would lose the grittiness and make it too comercial. So, I went to print with it. I exported it as a Quicktime and added it to the family web site. Finally, I called the soon-to-be grandparents and let them know they could see their granddaughter's room. They were overjoyed! I was a big hero! All that hard work, all 45 minutes of it, had paid off. Damn, I love my Mac. 9:47:27 PM    comment []

The Beginning of My Love Affair with Apple I realized this weekend I'm becoming one of those Apple users that I used to hate. You know the kind: always talking about how well engineered their Mac hardware and software is, always struggling to understand why Intel users don't understand, etc. With the recent purchase of my iMac, my iPod, and my digital camcorder I've become what I used to loathe. I love it. I've been talking about getting an iPod for a while now. I have a birthday this month, and my wife was saying that I should get one for my birthday. However, I couldn't justify spending the money. Last week, I walk into the house talking about how I was on the iPod kick again. Once again my wife is telling me that I should just go buy one. I said, "Maybe I'll just stop by and buy one on my way home one night." She said, "You can't! You can't let anyone surprise you, can you?!?!?" Apparently she had bought me one that day at lunch. I know - she IS an angel. Just unpacking the iPod you get to experience the care and detail behind the product. The packaging is excellent (just like all other Apple products). You can tell they care about protecting their children until they are adopted by a loving parent. The cords are extremely neatly packed with protective covering over each end, the unit itself is buried deep in Styrofoam and static wrap, and the box itself is cleverly crafted. I was really impressed. I immediately connected the cradle to my Mac via the supplied firewire cable. I settled the iPod into the cradle and started reading the book while my music was transferred without any user interaction to my device. It took a little longer than I expected (I have about 4GB of my music on my Mac), but it was amazing none the less. Once I started using the iPod and actually listening to my music, I was floored. This is some kind of fantastic device. (Better be for the price, huh?) The controls are super easy to use. They make it very easy to navigate a large music library. In fact, if you set up playlists, it's even easier. I have nothing but love for my iPod so far. Because of its size and convenience, I found myself wanting to take it everywhere. In fact, my wife did put it in the car as we ran errands and listened to it via one of those cassette tape adapters. We were a little overwhelmed by having a large amount of our music at our disposal, but I think we'll get used to it. If you are considering buying an iPod and you can afford it, just do it. It's definitely a music lover's dream come true. 8:04:53 AM    comment []

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