I’ve been hesitant about getting one of these new HDD video cameras because they lack a Firewire connection, so I can’t get the DV off. Sony also seems to be on the top of the hill in the field (and I’ve had good luck with their other Handycams) but they have no method of supporting the Mac with seemingly any of their software. So I really was looking forward to getting one of these cameras for work so I can see what it’s like.
I was expecting frustration galore as I started to install the Sony software on the Windows image of my machine. The Windows side saw the camera just fine and everything was moving along nicely and when it came time for the inevitable reboot, I got an interesting surprise… Aperture launched… the camera must have been recognized by the system after Windows “let go” of the USB port. I thought I must have launched it by accident and proceeded to let the Windows side reboot. While flipping through my open apps, I passed a Finder window and I noticed a mounted disc… my Mac can see the camera! 😀 I thought this would be the case, but when I tried over the weekend, I didn’t get anything happening… maybe it’s an Intel Mac thing, maybe it’s time… who knows, but my original thoughts and trust in the Mighty Mac held true.
So, I proceeded to shut down Windows and navigated to the folders on the camera that held the files and dragged them off and tried to play them. Well… not everything happens smoothly. The files are already compressed to MPG2 or MPG1. So that means that Quicktime can’t natively see them – but VLC can. So that was promising. The MPEG thing meant that I had to go off to Apple and download the MPEG codec (why isn’t this part of Pro??), which is still priced at $30 from the Canadian store… Really Apple, it’s a download, why are you taking $10 more (and it is now!)… Anyway, so with the codec installed, I can see the videos in Quicktime… but iMovie 8 can’t… Grr!
No biggie, I already have QTPro, so I convert to DV and iMovie sees the file just fine. Be warned, you need 3-4 times the HD space that the original file took up for the conversion. iMovie 8 then took the stage and it’s really the dream that Uncle Steve promised… you can crop and rotate video (or how my pals in Education will love that), scrubbing video is fast, you can normalize sound, adjust video colors, share out to youtube and the rest – even FC Pro XML 😀 … and the kicker… you can very quickly pick and choose where you want your clips to come from in a project, saving all manner of time.
So at the end of the day, what is my overall thought of the DCR-SR62 and iMovie 8, on the Mac, with the $60 that you need to pay for the QT upgrades, they rock. I really wish there was a way that I could have the camera save as DV, but that would certainly fill the onboard disc faster and for home videos that are going to get shared online, the quality works for me. So my Mac brethren… fear not… these new HDD cams will play nice with you computer.
Oh, and the camera function isn’t that bad either …
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