New iMACS with Digital Video Compiled by Scott Essman For $1300, consumers can now acquire an iMac with digital video editing capabilities. This is among the first times that the craft of picture editing has been marketed to a mass home-based audience. With the iMac DV models, one connects a digital camcorder to iMac's built-in FireWire port and launches iMac's new iMovie software. Next, digitally transfer video footage into iMac (with zero loss of quality) and start editing: with iMac's new iMovie software, users are able to re-arrange scenes, add dissolves, cross-fades and other transitions and implement scrolling credits and a soundtrack. iMovie has a simple user interface in the classic Macintosh tradition, with pull-down menus and icons that represent familiar tools and objects. iMovie allows one to cut and paste text and graphics, add sound and music, and make edits while leaving their original footage untouched. Transferring digital video is achieved using a 400Mbps FireWire cable to connect a DV camcorder to a DV-model iMac. (For a limited time, Apple is shipping a free FireWire cable with DV-model iMacs.) The FireWire port is sometime called the IEEE 1394 port or (in the case of Sony camcorders) the i.LINK port. However, they all work with a DV-model iMac. DViMac users can also send their finished edited pieces back through a camcorder to make VHS copies, send them out via e-mail, or post them on a website. A special convertor box facilitates the conversion of VHS-format videos to digital video (the Sony DVMC-DA1 is one such converter box. It converts analog video to DV, converts DV to analog, adapts non-DV camcorders, and supports iMovie.)   Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 20, No. 6 - November/December 1999   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1999, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 700