murrays 0 #1 January 6, 2004 Steve Jobs announced a few new things today on the video end...Final Cut Express 2 and iLife'04 - iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and a new program - Garage Band that appears to combine Soundtrack with the ability to record your own music by itself or with loops, etc. I haven't looked at the new features very much but an improvement in iDVD that is going to be most welcome is that the pro level mpg encoding from Final Cut Pro has been incorporated. Up to 2 hours of top quality video on one DVD. iLife '04 will be a paid upgrade for $49. He also announced new mini iPods..4gb, very small, in colours. $249. USB2 and Firewire cables included so it's ready to go with Windows or Mac machines. Have I ever mentioned that Steve Jobs cracks me up? Check out his blog. edited to add a PS to Lori: I'll be the test user to see if iMovie is worth getting this time-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skychic68 0 #2 January 6, 2004 Thanks for the update. Que sera sera Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #3 January 7, 2004 Quoteedited to add a PS to Lori: I'll be the test user to see if iMovie is worth getting this time Thanks! :^) Finally upgraded to 3.03 with Panther. ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #4 January 7, 2004 How are you finding it?-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #5 January 7, 2004 QuoteHow are you finding it? Actually haven't tried it yet. I've been too busy with my other new toys these days! ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #6 January 22, 2004 QuoteQuoteedited to add a PS to Lori: I'll be the test user to see if iMovie is worth getting this time Thanks! :^) Finally upgraded to 3.03 with Panther. ltdiver Lori, here's your iLife '04 review.... iMovie4 is an improvement over iMovie3. It's not as fast as I'd like but it does seem better. iPhoto4 is much, much faster. It is worth getting. GarageBand - haven't had time to play yet but looks pretty cool. However, iDVD4 is.....virtually unusable. The update can't come soon enough I am appalled at how crappy it is. It makes iMovie 3.0 look like good code. Lots of people with the same problems I am experiencing on the Apple discussion boards.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #7 January 22, 2004 QuoteQuoteQuoteedited to add a PS to Lori: I'll be the test user to see if iMovie is worth getting this time Thanks! :^) Finally upgraded to 3.03 with Panther. ltdiver Lori, here's your iLife '04 review.... iMovie4 is an improvement over iMovie3. It's not as fast as I'd like but it does seem better. iPhoto4 is much, much faster. It is worth getting. GarageBand - haven't had time to play yet but looks pretty cool. However, iDVD4 is.....virtually unusable. The update can't come soon enough I am appalled at how crappy it is. It makes iMovie 3.0 look like good code. Lots of people with the same problems I am experiencing on the Apple discussion boards. Geeze....what's Apple becoming? Are they suffering from too close a contact with Gates? Updates -used- to be flawless with the very first release! Like the info on iPhoto, though. I use it with my 300D for viewing upon download (before Photoshop gets ahold of them, if needed). ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BETO74 0 #8 January 22, 2004 Any idea when the G5 technology will hit the power books, I'm thinking in getting one but they only have G4 power books, I wonder if their gonna be more expensive or the G4 are gonna come down in price anyone remember what happened with the G3's and G4's ?http://web.mac.com/ac057a/iWeb/AC057A/H0M3.html Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jdhill 0 #9 January 22, 2004 If I remember correctly, it took a year or two after the G4 desktops for the G4 Powerbook to come out... I would expect the same with the G5... making it run cool enough for a laptop will be the trick.All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skymedic 0 #10 January 22, 2004 No kidding...when the G4 power books are already HOTTTT enough... Marc otherwise known as Mr.Fallinwoman.... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #11 January 23, 2004 QuoteAny idea when the G5 technology will hit the power books, I'm thinking in getting one but they only have G4 power books, I wonder if their gonna be more expensive or the G4 are gonna come down in price anyone remember what happened with the G3's and G4's ? I see rumors about some smaller die technology (65nm or 90nm) to be used on IBM chips soon which may make them available for laptops sooner. I think we'll see G5s in iMacs soon...I'm even thinking Apple might have a surprise for Super Sunday which is the 20th anniversary of the announcement of the MacIntosh. They are going to announce 100 million free iTunes Music Store songs in specially marked Pepsis...maybe they'll have a surprise for us.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #12 January 23, 2004 QuoteNo kidding...when the G4 power books are already HOTTTT enough... Those aluminum and titanium cases are good heat conductors I just got a G4 iBook for work...haven't had much time to play but sure like it so far.-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jumpy 0 #13 January 23, 2004 Yeah Powerbooks get way hot!! And a G5 has 9 seperate fans.. might be a while before they can put that in a laptop... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BETO74 0 #14 January 23, 2004 So I guess the question now is should I get the G4 next month or wait for the G5? As long It does not happen what happened when I got my truck 3 weeks later the new one with the new body came out and cheaper too.http://web.mac.com/ac057a/iWeb/AC057A/H0M3.html Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #15 January 23, 2004 Well, you could take a look at Macrumors site...somewhere on there they have a buyer's guide that will give you their idea of what is due for an upgrade and perhaps minimize your chances of having a big case of buyer's regret. Right now they feel that the Powerbooks are mid-product cycle..so an update should happen in a few months. Whether that means G5 Powerbooks or faster G4s is another story. Apple doesn't announce new product releases until the existing inventory is pretty much gone..otherwise they and their dealers get stuck with hardware they can't sell. My local Apple dealer keeps very little in stock as he has been burned many times by Apple reducing prices or announcing new models and sticking him with stock he can't sell or that he has to sell at a greatly reduced price (loss).-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rredman 0 #16 January 23, 2004 I couldn't agree more. I have messed with Garageband a little bit (my kids love it!), but I totally agree about iDVD. It is really slow on 800mz G4 iMac with 1GB of RAM. But, iPhoto, and iMovie are both better. I find iMovie 4 much faster, although I have already had one of those "quit unexpectedly" messages. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
murrays 0 #17 January 26, 2004 So here's the good news about iDVD4.... iDVD4 has a much better Mpeg2 encoder...variable bit rate versus constant bit rate. This allows more video at higher quality to be packed onto a disk....but at the cost of time spent encoding. I just burned by first disk with iDVD4 and total time rendering and burning was 6 hours 21 minutes. I popped it into by DVD player to test it out and all I can say is the quality is markedly better. I gather from a couple of posts on the Apple discussion boards that the long time rendering is consistent with other pro-level encoders..Bitvice being one that was mentioned. I really have no comment because my only experience is with iDVD's various versions. Burning subsequent copies is, of course, very quick because the rendering doesn't have to be repeated for every disk. I'd like this to be much faster but perhaps it just isn't possible on a G4 iMac. I also really like the ability to use transitions when you go from a menu to a clip or to the next menu screen..the rotating cube, dissolve, droplet, mosaic, page turn and wipe are rendered very nicely and it 's nice to go smoothly from one screen to another with a smooth transition effect. A new feature of iDVD4 is the ability to have an autoplay clip that plays before the first menu screen is reached. I can think of lots of uses for it and it is very nice to have. Lastly, iDVD4 now has a "Map" feature. You click on a button and it (eventually) reveals a schematic of the DVD menu structure and gives you the ability to go directly to the last menu screen buried at the bottom. This is very handy..especially with the program being so incredibly slow. But ohmigod the program is slow to work in...it's like walking around in knee deep molasses. Apple's gotta fix this cause I can't afford a dual processor G5!!-- Murray "No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
