1 Thing Macs Are Better Than PCs For.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 09:01AM Damn. OK, I've used Pc's and I've used Macs, and genuinely I like PC's better - although admittedly my new PC with came with Vista, and I would prefer XP... Anyway, until this week, I hadn't found a single significant thing that Macs did better than PC's and actually there were a few things I found more annoying about them. But, all this week I've been trying to edit down a whole load of video clips filmed with a Canon HG10. It's not been going well. Why? Because the PC software just isn't up to the job. It always does my head in when manufacturers produce fancy bits of hardware, and fail to supply software to make the thing usable, and I was shocked to see how basic the software supplied with the camera was.
So, if you're new to the world of amateur films (no sniggering at the back, not those kinds of amateur films) you're left with a choice after having spent hundreds of quids on the hardware. Either you stick with the supplied software and make naff films, or you buy something else. The trouble is, there's nothing out there for less than £100 that seems to be able to deal with the format the camera records in.
Stupidly, I bought Adobe Premiere Elements when I bought the camera thinking that this would do the job. It didn't. I scanned around. Videostudio 11 claims to be able to deal with AVCHD format files that the Canon produces. It doesn't - at least not on my PC - and that's after I've installed the latest updates. So, I decided my next best option would be to look around for conversion tools that would convert the AVCHD files into something that Video studio 11 might like better. After trialling loads of share/freeware type things (which I hate doing) I hit upon a tool called VoltaicHD.
At last, a simple tool that'll do the job nicely. Except it doesn't. When I convert some clips using Voltaic HD, the audio and the video end up out of sync. Which obviously looks stupid, and it's frustrating, when you know you've got decent material - but you just can't edit it. I'm pretty sure my PC is powerful enough to cope with it (3Gb of RAM, decent processor etc) so that shouldn't be the problem.
The most frustrating thing of all, is that it seems there are conversion tools out there at the moment - Podnosh who knows what he's talking about recommended me Visualhub but that only works for Mac. At the moment it looks to me like the cheapest thing to do is to buy a Mac and Visual hub. Which is nuts.
I know others have had this problem, but I wondered has anyone out there come up with a solution?
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Reader Comments (8)
As much as I prefer Macs, it's hard to believe a whole digital camera line would be basically unusable...
I don't know anything about video though. If you did have to get a mac, would a mac mini do the trick?
p.s. I wonder if iMovie (free on a mac, would be fine, too?) Also would it be cheaper to buy a new camera and use someone else's mac? (not that £10 is too much of an outlay for the VisualHub)
I know, I found it hard to believe too. I think you can do it on a PC, but you'd need to spend more than the costs of the computer on software to get something that would do the trick. Which is nuts. But seems to be the case.
I'm sorry I suggested something which is mac only. Mac do make media making pretty damn easy. I find the effortlessness of it saves me loads of money over time.
I still recommend mini dv cameras to clients with good old fashioned digitising - rather than a hard drive and transfer. Why? Because other formats have yet to stabilise. A £150 mini dv camera can give great quality video - good sound with a couple of add ons and leaves loads of spare dosh for the right hardware/software combination for editing.
I know that doesn't help you at the moment.
I should've listened to you Nick!
Do not do film myself, but one of our lads makes videos for indie bands - he would not use anything but a Mac.
This PC running PC-BSD ( http://www.pcbsd.org ) and Opera ( http://www.opera.com )
Ooh, is there linux software that could do it?
I've no idea about linux - have you found something? :)