iMovie Vs Final Cut Express/pro and making$$$?

"..We've just bought a HDR-HC1 and plan to get a HDR-FX1 soon.."

I'd really recommend a good wide-angle adaptor for the HC1, so that you have more flexibility when shooting indoors, as the HC1 has a rather narrow view, even at its widest setting. As it has only a small diameter lens, it's fairly easy to find an adaptor which fits. Look for at least a 0.5x adaptor ..that'll give you a 50% wider view.

Take the camera - and a pair of headphones - with you if you're choosing an add-on microphone, as I've found that the external "plug-in power" mic socket on the HC1 is - strangely (..unless it's just mine..) - not properly compatible with many mics: plugging in many external mics does NOT cut off the internal mic, and so several external Sony "plug-in power" mics do NOT work with the (..my..) HC1..!

As the HC1 is small and "wobbly", you might think of getting a mini-steadicam, such as the " Handyman", to go with it. It doesn't look like much, but the results are terrific: your movies "fly" through the air, with no wobble as you walk towards or away from anything. (..I'll see if I can find any clips I've shot with a Handyman..)

The FX1 is a beauty, and gives outstanding pictures of anything and everything.

But importing with hi-def cameras takes quite a while (..twice, three times, or even four times as long..) and any rendering within iMovie (or adding titles, etc) takes about twice as long ..so I've - finally - ordered a faster Mac. Depending on how much work you do in hi-def ..and, obviously, that's the road you'll go down.. you may need to think about budgeting for a new Mac, too!

Luckily, I don't seem to have had "..the annoying audio problems with HD though..". I generally extract audio at all transitions (..so that I can adjust the audio through the transition as I want it..) and don't remember having had any audio problems ..or perhaps that's just my memory playing tricks..

If you're using two cameras, you may find the extra video tracks of FCE to be useful if you're running both cameras simultaneously and continuously. If that were the case, you could put all of Camera A's video on one track, all of Camera B's video on another, and then easily cut back and forth between them.

But if you stop and start each camera independently - as you more probably do - then I find it just as easy to import just the shots you want from each camera into iMovie, and edit them as normal in that single video track.

And again, if you're using two cameras to cut between, it's a good idea to have a separately-recorded audio track (..recorded, say, with a separate mic on a Mini-Disc recorder..) so that the audio doesn't jump back-&-forth as you cut between shots.

All the best with your ventures ..and all the best to Jane, too!

But importing with hi-def cameras takes quite a while (..twice, three times, or even four times as long..)

Mostly because it is converted to the AIC.

Try FCP 5 and work in it natively.

How do you get Live Type Titiles into iMovie?

"..I used to live in Highgate.." ..we-e-ell, I used to live in Hornsey Lane Gardens, at the bottom of Highgate Hill, where it becomes Archway Road, back in, er, ooh, 1967-68..

Where was I..? Hmm: I read good reviews of Aussie Røde mics, but the ones I tried didn't seem to be anything special, and I was rather disappointed. I read a mic comparison in a German video mag which gave highest credits to a Beyer MCE 72 stereo short shotgun, which I happened to see in Sauter's in Sonnenstrasse in Munich when I was there <..comment from <a href=http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1819494#1819494>Karsten to be inserted here, no doubt..> ..so I tried and bought that, and it's excellent, though I haven't seen it generally on sale in the UK ..I don't know if it's sold in Oz..

However, I think there's some oddity between that and the HC1 ..but am too lazy to go and get the HC1 and to plug in the mic to hear what the problem is.. ("..it's this dashed idleness.." - Heineken ad..)

"..FX1 on a tripod at the altar (for example) and use the HC1 with monopod/steadycam(?).." looks like an excellent combo.

The 'Handyman' smooths out all jerkiness ..when following people up an aisle, for instance ..I dug out a clip I'd shot (..of every film in the UK, in the warehouse which stacks them all, ready for cinemas..) as an example of how shots "float" when you walk, instead of jerking.

"..Is a G5 with the maximum everything essential?.." ..I followed Dan's lead, and a G5 with max everything should arrive in 2 hrs' time: I'll let you know how that works with HDV (real-time importing, etc).

"..separate mics on both cameras to record the ceremony, as well as using an MD recorder and mic?.." ..Er, well: depends how well-matched to each other the individual mics are (..Verb at the end, specially for Karsten).

You certainly need some kind of mic on each camera, just so that you can easily sync the shots afterwards. The closer the mics are, or seem to be, to whatever you're shooting (or the greater their 'shotgun' or 'zoom' effect), the less echo and 'ambience' you'll get, and the more of the actual words you'll pick up. But if the several mics pick up entirely different sounds, you may have to rely on a tightly-focused (..'focussed'?..) 'master' mic on the Mini-Disc, or clip a wireless mic to the minister, etc.

If you're cutting between mics on different cams, it may be a good idea to cross dissolve the audio a moment or so before the associated video cuts across. That way, the audio cross-cutting is less noticeable, and has been absorbed by the audience before the video cuts across, so there's less noticeable 'jarring' than if sound and picture both change together.

I'm looking for a recent wedding I did (..erm; copyright clearance by bride & groom?..) but, again, I'm too dashed idle ..and - when I find it - I was going to put that into a 'before-&-after' homepage, to make it easier to see what editing's actually been done..

Ah well; now to explain to UPS how to get here (..as the front door's inaccessible)..

Oh: now I've used so many that I've run out of full stops

LATE EDIT: "..Or can we rely on the built in mics and use the Rode on the MDrecorder?.." The built-in mic on the HC1 is very good, but you'll need to practise - in a deserted church, with the minister's approval? - to hear what the camcorders' built-in mics pick up and what they don't.

Note that - in my experience - the built-in mic on the HC1 is far better than the one on the big FX1 (..which picks up handling noise - but not a problem on a tripod - and gives 'thinner', almost 'tinnier', sound than the HC1).

We-e-ell, I've just connected this G5, and it recognises the HC1 and the FX1 (..none of that trouble reported here of G5s not recognising various cameras, I'm glad to say).

Furthermore, it imports HDV in real time, edits nicely, and exports back (..from Apple Intermediate Codec to HDV MPEG-2..) pretty darn fast: a 1min 14sec HDV movie took 3.25 mins to encode, plus the extra 1.25 mins to export back to the camcorder ..so that's about 3x real time to re-encode, rather than the 10x or so which had previously been a real bottleneck (and the half to a quarter speed importing).

That's exporting back to the normal internal disc. I haven't yet fitted the 2nd internal, nor the 10k rpm RAID 0 twin internal SATA discs - maybe this evening - for what might be faster throughput.

iMovie gives a few general hiccups (..nothing to do with this particular Mac, I don't think, unless having quad caches throws it a bit..) such as sometimes ignoring audio fades unless 'Show Clip Volume Levels' has been enabled all the time. It even played audio within an imported HDV clip at about two-thirds speed, till I exited then restarted iMovie HD 6.0.1.

So iMovie 6 still has a few(?) oddities, but a faster Mac (Quad with 4GB memory) certainly makes hi-def pretty painless, at last.

Well I couldn't get the RAID running (..a pair of hard discs running as a single disc, with the data split between them, supposedly making disc access far faster..) as I didn't have the right controller card; only a "cheap'n'cheerful" card really meant for a PC, without an OS X driver, so I'll have to wait for the correct card to come from the States next month.

Meanwhile, though, putting the project on the other, single, fast internal disc, which I just installed, encoding for export now takes far less, as expected; only 2mins 25 secs for a 1:14 project (..instead of 3mins 15 secs..) - so that's just less than 2x real time to re-encode into MPEG-2 from the Apple Intermediate Codec for export back to an HDV camcorder.

So it's down from around 10x (..with a Mac mini - which is really just a fast iBook or PowerBook folded into a dinky little box..) to just less than 2x.

I hope those figures are useful, and give you an idea of how much your HDV workflow can be enormously speeded up using a faster Mac. Of course, what's necessary now is to work out the budget for a faster Mac..

Just for info: I took one of the two 10k rpm Western Digital 74 GB 'Raptor' discs [Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.6 ms (average) Full Stroke Seek 10.2 ms (average)] which I'd meant for the 2-disc fast RAID array (..for which I didn't have the right drive card..) and put it in place of the Samsung 7200rpm [Track-To-Track Seek Time 0.8 ms (average) Full Stroke Seek 18.0 ms (average)] SATA drive, which I'd used as the 2nd internal drive.

My short test 01:15 HDV project now re-encodes to HDV for export in only 2mins 15 secs ..faster still. [..Maybe even more memory would improve things; I dunno. But this is the fastest drive I could find, and it does make a difference to encoding (..storage, ready for export..) speed..]

So; fastest Mac, lots of memory, fastest possible drive(s) ..everything makes HDV importing fast, and EXPORTING as HDV, too!

Hi, Leanne,

The SteadyStick's a good idea, but your (right?) arm will ache after a while, as you'll be carrying the weight of the camera AND the counterweight at the bottom of the stick, too. But for short bursts ..like walking up the aisle.. it should give a wonderfully stable picture.

For copying a Mini-Disc recording into iMovie, I use either the downloadable $19.99 ' Audiocorder OS X', or - as I've a standalone Philips CD recorder here - I sometimes edit the recordings on the Mini-Disc recorder itself, so that I have just the sections I want to keep, then burn those onto a CD, and import the CD into iTunes ..a bit longwinded, so straight in via 'Audiocorder' is probably simplest! ..I'm not aware of any Mac software which copies the MD's recordings straight into a Mac, in the way that the software supplied with it will copy recordings straight into a PC. I find that just about any MD recorder will do the job - it doesn't need to be a ' network' or 'PC' MD recorder. I generally use a cheap Sharp, which also has LP recording ..and gives further extended recording if used in 'mono' mode.

"..using that with a lavalier mic.." Well the lav. mic would pick up one person nice and clearly (..the person with the mic round their neck..) and others not quite so loud, so you'd have to think carefully who would have it round their neck ..probably the minister, or whoever was officiating. But I'd probably put a 'gun' mic on the Mini-Disc recorder to get a good, focused, overall sound of all the people at the altar - or wherever - so that you can clearly hear the "I do" from the bride and groom, as well as the minister, etc.

And if other people are also giving readings, as often happens, how would you pick them up? You'd probably need a 'gun' mic of some description to pick them up, or else put a mic close to any loudspeakers which might be already installed at the venue to relay their voices from, say, a pulpit mic.

So you could have a 'gun' mic on a camcorder, or on the MD recorder, and a mic for the minister ..though I'm not sure if s/he would consent to carrying a Mini-Disc recorder on them..

"..combination of iPod and micromemo.." ..I've never tried one, so I don't know what the audio quality's like. But I expect that its mic is a mono mic ..so you probably wouldn't get any stereo 'ambience'. The quality of other iPod recorders, such as a Griffin 'iTalk' recorder, isn't very good, in my opinion, so I'd avoid them.

"..I thought the video screen might be handy for meeting people out and about to show them movies.." ..Be aware that it can take quite a while - several hours - to encode video in the correct format for a video-enabled iPod - and the iPod nano in that "micromemo" picture doesn't play video; you'd need a 5th generation " video-playing iPod" for that. [I'm not speculating here ..but there is abundant talk that another item may appear on Apple's 30th Birthday, April 1st.]

I use an Archos AV500 for that (..there are other models, too..) as you can record straight into it from virtually any video - or audio - source in real time. So having exported your edited wedding(s) back to tape, or to DVD, you can also copy those recordings straight into the Archos, without any overnight rendering, so that you can easily show them to any prospective clients. I think an iPod currently needs about 8x real time to render using my G4 PowerBook; I think a 45 minute TV episode of 'Murder She Wrote' took about 8 hours to render into H.264 for my iPod, whereas the same thing copied in exactly 45 mins 'real time' to the Archos. Note that these later model Archos recorders have only USB2 connectors, not FireWire (..as the earlier models had). So although you can easily copy material back and forth via USB - just like an iPod - you can't use these latest Archos devices as an external FireWire disc; only as an external USB disc ..so you can't record - on these - directly from a FireWire camcorder ..or is that too much "information overload"..?

NOTE that you can also use the Archos in place of an iPod, or Mini-Disc, audio recorder ..so it's a good all-round tool for all sorts of things.

Er, that's it!

[..Oh; I see I've suddenly sprouted four little blobs! Our "hosts" must be tweaking the Discussions software again!..]

[..Oh, and some news just in: Oscar for best wedding video: Leanne and Graeme Wheaton..]

"..the length of her music track for walking down the aisle.."

As you're just making this video for family showing, and it's NOT a commercial transaction (i.e; you're not making it for a business company) you'll be allowed (..though others may butt in here and disagree!..) to include a bit of commercial music, e.g; from her favourite CD, etc.

Now that you know what music she'll be using, get a copy of that, so that you can extend it beyond the "walking up the aisle" sequence ..even if by only a few seconds.

By using the CD, or other recording, in one of your iMovie audio tracks - beyond the video sequence it occurs in - the music can smoothly -b-l-e-n-d- one video sequence into another. You can also use it as a 'reprise' later, maybe when the bride and groom leave for their honeymoon, or all the guests are chatting at the reception, etc.

Just having a copy of the music - or recording with your "wild track" Mini-Disc recorder beyond the point where you momentarily switch off the camcorder, or swing the camcorder and its mic away from the source of the music at the actual wedding - you'll be able to subliminally recall that "walk up the aisle" moment later in the video, if you want to.

The Tiffen Steady Stick (..or any stick!..) is fine for supporting the cam for long-duration shots ($88 for a stick?) but it will wobble or sway the camera from side to side if you walk while it's resting on your hips.

Looking forward to seeing the results on your iWeb pages..!