New Mac user here

[Nilfennasion]

Well, I finally did what I have been thinking about for a couple of years, and bought an iMac. After dealing with the differences from PC (which work and school things sort of held a gun to my head to get used to) and several quirks, I have come to realise I am in a little over my head. I honestly have almost no idea what to do or where to get the software I need to do anything. And that does not just mean video tasks, which I have sort of been doodling around with in iMovie. I mean everything from authoring HTML to creating title cards in JPG.

*gasp* My god, I am a noob, in other words!

That said, is there anyone who would be willing to offer some help?

[rumplestiltskin]

Music management: iTunes.
Photo management & simple editing: iPhoto.
Videography: iMovieHD (free download as long as you have the new version currently installed); the "HD" version is more capable than the new one.
DVDs from your edited videos: iDVD.
Webpages: iWeb.
Music composition: GarageBand.

All of the above came with your Mac (or may be freely downloaded from Apple).

There are also free options for everything mentioned above although usually with much more work involved. Graphics for titles (assuming you can't get iMovieHD and the Slick plugins from GeeThree.com to do everything you need) can be done with Rolling Credits (http://www.rqs.ca/RollingCredits/) and The Gimp, etc.

If you really want to be a geek, there are lots of choices. Do a search at macupdate.com. HTML? BBEdit Lite is free. The list goes on; there are hundreds of apps from which you may choose, many of them free or shareware.

[Nilfennasion]

Thanks. I will go and download iMovieHD right away, as the iMovie installed on the computer is definitely quite limited.

I used to use Corel Paint Shop (or PhotoPaint as it was once called) on my PC, but finding any mention of an equivalent for the Mac is difficult. The only Corel product available for Mac seems to be some obscure photo-effects tool.

[Nilfennasion]

Okay, I have iMovieHD installed (I think) and am fiddling about with it as I speak, but I tried connecting my camera (a JVC HD Everio, GZ-HD7AA) to the Mac via the USB port and... nothing. I feel like an idiot.

[rumplestiltskin]

iMovie doesn't recognize camcorders connected via USB, only FireWire. Drag-copy the clips off the connected camcorder (in the Finder) to your Desktop.

The Everio's footage is MPEG2 which your Mac does not recognize natively. There are a few options. The easiest option is to head over to the Apple Store online and purchase the MPEG2 codec (which may be found here: http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A?fnode=MTY1NDExNQ&mco=MTA4Nzg4 ). It's only $20. This will permit your Mac to recognize MPEG2 video within QT-based applications (like MPEG Streamclip).

After installing the MPEG2 component, get MPEG Streamclip. It's free. Drop a clip on that app; it will open the clip. Save as DV. Drop that converted clip (the DV version) into iMovie. There's also a "batch" feature in MPEG Streamclip which will permit you to convert all the clips in one go.

Others may suggest VLC to do the conversion as it has an MPEG2 component built-in but it's rather geeky and the conversion results are often bizarre if you don't select the exact correct choices (of the many provided).

Many of the newer camcorders do not use FireWire and don't shoot in DV-Stream format; instead, they use MPEG2 (hence the need for the MPEG2 codec I suggested above) or some oddball, proprietary MPEG4 format (which isn't Mac-compatible). Why do they do such things? When the video is highly compressed (MPEG2/4), more may be stored in a smaller container (a small hard drive or media card). But this compression requires a beefy compressor/decompressor (codec) chip in the camcorder and, alas, this chip isn't in your Mac (or a PC) so many people are struggling with these newer camcorders and shooting lovely footage which they can't edit on their computers.

[Frobozz]

There are two great sites: versiontracker and macupdate where you can search for available Mac applications for specific purposes. Also, the forums at discussions.apple.com are terrific.

iMovie HD cannot import video from your camcorder. However, you should be able to import it into iMovie 08 and then export it for use in iMovie HD. The problem is your camcorder which records in a format that generally is not easy to edit.

You might check pixela-1.com and click the link for Mac products supporting the Everio camcorders. You'll end up at Pixela's Japan Web site where there is a PDF you can download that describes a process using Capty MPEG Edit EX and CaptyDVD 2. Using their process the video never is re-encoded from its original format. However, the only editing you're doing is trimming and joining. There is no way to add transitions or add audio tracks. But it's an alternative and CaptyDVD is a pretty good application for making nice-looking video DVD menus and submenus.

[lordsmurf]

Adobe software is really what you seem to want here:

Adobe Photoshop CS3 (photo editing)
Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 (video editing)
Adobe Encore (DVD authoring)
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Bridge CS3 (photo management)
Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 (HTML creation)
Adobe SoundBooth (audio editing)

... basically Adobe software.

I use the same software both in Windows XP and Mac OS X. It's ported pretty much identical to both systems.

[mattr]

Well... Congratulations on your purchase?

I'll list my suggestions for what programs to use:

iPhoto (photo management)
Final Cut Express HD (video editing)
iDVD (dvd authoriting. It's best that you make a disc image of the dvd first, because I find that way it won't crash and burn )
ffmpegX, MPEG Streamclip (transcoding. those tools are virtually the swiss army knives of transcoding)
audacity (audio editing)

I tend to stay away from adobe software, mostly because they have a long tradition of being rather 'heavy' if you will. I don't intend on ever installing photoshop, ever. It's a program that I will never use, though if Premiere/Encore are up to the task, I don't see why not.

If you need any more help, feel free to PM me. I'll be more than happy to help you with using your mac where i can.

[adcvideo]

I would recommend VisualHub, which should convert video into any format you require, including creating a very basic DVD structure from your video files. You could also purchase Toast, the Mac standard for disc burning.

And, iWeb is great for basic web pages, more detailed web authoring with a GUI will require Freeway or Adobe products.

Do you have an Intel mac with 4 GB of RAM? You can run Windows applications as well, either under the Mac OS, or by dual booting. There are many options here, such as Bootcamp, Parallels, VMWare and Virtual Box (free). OK if you have the occasional Windows application that you need to complete your tasks, such as importing video from your camcorder.

[fatcat23]

Handbrake for DVD to AVI/MP4/MKV etc...(freeware)
iSquint for anything to MP4...(freeware)
Visual Hub - made by the same company as iSquint, so it allows for more output types but it's shareware/trialware
MacTheRipper - DVD ripping for commerical DVD's (freeware)

but ffmpegX is the best that i have tried yet.

[Nilfennasion]

Firstly, thank you for the replies. I had forgotten to check back for a while, but I am glad I did now.

And yes, I have an Intel iMac with four gig of RAM. I have been umming and ahhing about using Bootcamp. My main argument against is that I do not wish to run IBuM software, but that is a silly argument, I know. And yes, if I could install the software that came with my camcorder on the Mac and run it from there, it would probably save me no end of hassle. It would also allow me to clear some of the dead weight off my old PC, which is dying under the desk right next to me.

I will sift through the listed programs and figure out which suit me. Thanks for the recommendations.

Oh yeah, and my program of choice for image editing on my IBuM was Corel Photopaint, or Corel Paint Shop Pro as it is now known. I gave CorelDRAW! and Corel Photopaint a go way back in 1990 or so when a 486 was big news. If there were an equivalent for my Mac (I think there is but the results of searching the Apple store had me thinking "huh?"), I would install it faster than one can burp.

There does not seem to be a valid link for Mac The Ripper anymore...

[fatcat23]

Mac the ripper --->

http://www.mactheripper.org/

but you could also try out fairmount. It removes the css encrpytion on dvd's and mounts the unencrypted file on your mac. I have never tried it but i hear it works good and its free.

http://www.metakine.com/products/fairmount/

[willgamby]

Photoshop is an overkill generally and way too expensive. You might want to look at Pixelmator for photo editing. It only costs $59.

The good thing about the mac is it comes with tons of software and whatever you need to buy is generally affordable and well designed.

[Ai Haibara]

Well, there's also Photoshop Elements, which is usually somewhere around $80-100. There's also a few variations on The GIMP like Gimp.app, which might work.

[Nilfennasion]

Okay... thanks again for the replies. I will go through the links and see what I can see.

I gotta say that in spite of the hassles with things like this I am damned glad I bought this Mac. Even after seeing that some genius in Apple thought it would be a good idea to release iDVD without the ability to add chapters in specific spots. *eye roll*

Ah, Apple. The more I use their product the more I understand why theirs is not the dominant platform. *chuckle*