Greetings all, and Happy New Year!

Newbie here, and I'm really glad I found this site - its been really helpful.

I just have a quick question:

Me and some mates are looking to branch out and start making our movies with better equiptment. One of my friends has convinced his parents to buy him an XL2. The only hardware that we have at the minute is my iMac G5 with iMovie. The question is will we be able to import the footage into iMovie using Firewire because at the minute I cant afford to buy Final Cut.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Cheers

I had the XL1s and it worked with iMovie and Final Cut Express. But to be sure go to Apples website and see if it will work.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't work, but imovie has no native 16X9 support at this time. Your wide screen picture will be squashed into 4:3- at least that's what happens to me with my pdx10... but I would be very happy if someone were to tell me how wrong I am!

If either one of you are students, you can get an academic discount on FCP, which should cut the price in half... at least it did for me a year ago. Good luck.

Incedently I love imovie, I think it is a great little program, that doesn't get near enough props, and you will be astounded at what you can do wit it- BUT be sure to save your work frequently. I've lost a couple of hours of work over the years when imovie "unexpectedly shut down" on me...

Bob,

I looked on the Apple website and it lists a lot of Canon cameras as ones that can be used ( inc. XL1, XL1s) but XL2 is not listed.

Chris,
where did you find that list on the Apple site? I can't find it and I'd really like to get a look at it.
Thanks

Michael,

you can find it here:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/devices.html

Thanks chris,
It appears that the sony pdx10 (my cam) is also unsupported. I'm pretty sure that I've imported video into it with the pdx10 but I have a little cam that I mostly use for a playback deck so maybe I'm wrong...
guess I'll have to find out.
Thanks again for the link!

I have successfully imported footage from XL2(PAL) to iMovie, but as mentioned in an earlier posting, only in 4:3.

Since 99 percent of my footage is shot in 16:9, (which was one of my major reasons for purchasing the XL2), I had to move from iMovie to FinalCut Express or FinalCut Pro to edit. [There is (as well) a lot of other good reasons for that specific move...]

As far as I'm concerned, there is little need for FinalCut Pro before you need to edit HD footage - and when the price tag is four times higher for FCP than for FCE, (that be in Norway...) - this one was a simple choice for me.

(The connection between FCE and XL2 works flawlessly, although the XL2 is not listed on Apples "Supported Devices" page).

Bw

Sven O.

Thanks Sven,

that's exactly what I needed to know

I haven't looked at FCExpress in detail yet. Does anybody know for sure that it supports 16:9 & will not squash the image?

JS

Yes!

Sven O.

I have an XL2 and FCPHD and can not capture from the camera. Apple lists the XL2 as compatible but there are well documented issues with Cannon cameras and MAc's. It seems that if you are capturing to an external FW drive or have any external FW drives connected the camera is not very cooperative. The consesus seems to be that Canon's do not like to share the FW bus with other devices, meaning you can't have anything else connected by FW at the same time as your camera. Go to the Apple FCP forum and run a search on XL2 and you can read for yourself and form your own opinion. I wouldn't let that be the only thing that stops you from getting the camera though. Its a great camera and you don't have to capture from it. I went out and spent $200 on a little mini DV camcorder to capture from. It is a lot of wear and tear on an expensive piece of gear to capture from the XL2 in my opinion.

Thanks, Sven--JS

Check this out...
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@957.dlz8auHbId1.0@.68a0b5f0

towards the bottom it addresses the Canon/FCP conflict and the solution.

Hi

I have heard that a new version of imovie (5) is to be announced next week at Macworld in San Francisco. It appears the new version will do both 16:9 and HD.
How accurate this story is only time will tell.

iMovie works a treat with the XL2.
iMovie will alow you to split your audio from your video and so that it will edit much the sam as FCE.
Also, if you go to File/share and hit the quicktime tab, you can choose expert settings. This allows you to export the audio separate( better compression) and also change the aspect ratio to 16:9, change the quality, bit rate( 1 and 2 pass vbr) and will allow you to set the target bit rate.
It also export the chapter markers( if you have added them)
I have pushed iMovie to the limits and it does well.
Any question, dont hesitate

i guess the newly-released (yesterday) imovie 5 is supposed to support 16:9, and the price is right!

most of what i need to edit can be done in imovie in an incredibly efficient manner, and the shots that need animation or motion effects can be done in FCE or FCP and then easily imported into imovie. i find this a lot faster than working in either FCE or FCP unless i'm working on a piece which needs a lot of bells and whistles.

Meryem