I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, so I guess I'm the first. If you have Panther - Pixlet is installed on your system. If you follow the instructions posted here (located in the forum) regarding capturing and converting to Pixlet - you can import into iMovie.

Pros:

- iMovie with Pixlet is FREE with any Panther system.

- You can buy an HD-10U now - start shooting HD footage. When you have the money upgrade to FCP later. In the meantime, keep your footage safe and you'll have a library of HD footage for later.

Cons:

- It stretches to 4:3 ratio. (but, if all you have is iMovie - who cares? use it!)

In short, HDV footage can be edited on a Mac with Panther without any extra software except the MPEGXWRAP and MPEGDECX. Both available cheap - also, don't forget DVHS capture tool available free on Apple's site!

Pixlet is definately cool for people with no extra cash. In the near future we'll all be someplace else - but, right now EVERYONE can edit their HDV footage on a Mac. It may not be the perfect way, but hey...you can see it and edit it for free!

Chris

Interesting. Surprised I didn't read this earlier. The 4:3 sucks, but that won't matter if you're doing commercials for clients that need to be 4:3.

Thanks,

heath

Yeah, its strange to think that anyone can edit HDV footage if they want to on a new Mac. Its not perfect, but who cares if you are just playing around with HDV and not trying to make $.

I am going to start posting my nickname because of all the Chris' on here.

Murph

Good point on the nickname! When I worked at a movie theatre (at the tender age of 18), there was another projectionist named Heath. They called me nice Heath and called him jerk Heath. That seemed to work out for us.

I can't do anything with the HD10, because Jon Fordham is still messing around with it. And better he than me; I'm too busy to do ANYTHING!

heath

You must have grown up with the whole "Heath Bar" thing? I've had to live with the "Murph Smurf" thing since I was 7 years old!

Luckily, no one has ever made the rhyme connection of "Chris" and the bottley fluid we all have to do. It's perplexed me no one has teased me with that one! Instead, I'm called "Papa Smurf" on a daily basis...even though I look 18! Oh, by the way...I lived in Lake County back in 1994. You know where Eustis Florida is Heath?

Murph

Eustis? No idea. I live in Palm Beach County, south of West Palm Beach.

Can you easily capture HD10 footage into iMovie, or is it still a matter of capturing with Apple's tools?

heath

Hmm, it was a few weeks ago that I did it. I'm not sure, but I know that I was able to "Import" via the menu option.

You have to obviously have it in a Quicktime format. I used Pixlet, so I know that works. I'd like to know if this SheerVideo works and also DC30+.

Do us a favor and duplicate it, then explain how you did it! What do you mean "menu" option?

heath

I was able to import via the menu - yes.

What do you mean, menu? The HD10? Can you do that with Final Cut? Do you need DVHSCap, etc.?

heath

In iMovie, just import via the menu option. Just like you would any other type of media. You must import a Quictime file, of course because that's what iMovie understands. However, you can now make MPEG-2 TS files into Pixlet Quicktime files...and they are importable into iMovie. So, you can import HDV footage after you convert it...and I believe SheerVideo will work the same say. It says that its a Quicktime file, but lossless - unlike Pixlet.

Of course Pixlet also works in FCP.
I tested Sheer Video last night and it didn't perform well, jerky playback fullscreen on a G5 dual 2GHz.

Sheer Video is an intermediate codec (like Animation) and not really designed for real time playback. Much like PNG and Animation. The preformance of Sheer is that it stores 4:4:4 uncompressed at very low file sizes and encodes really fast (unlike PNG and Microcosm).