Review: Flip Mino portable camcorder

Although the video quality produced by the Flip Mino is anything but pristine, this affordable and useful camera—with its go-anywhere, shirt-pocket convenience and simple operation—could turn out to be one of your favorite gadgets.

Why Blu-Ray doesn’t matter (to Apple)

Section: Apple, iPod + iTunes, Apple TV, iPod touch, iPod Family, iTunes, Movie Rentals, iPod, iPod nano, iPhone + Communications, iPhone, OriginalsThe Macbook line got a major refresh today, but one thing did not appear: the Blu-Ray capable optical drive. Not as an option, not to burn, and not even to play the newly-crowned winner of the DVD high def format wars. And after Steve Jobs’ comment that Blu-Ray is a “bag of hurt,” we probably shouldn’t plan on seeing such a thing any time soon. And there are a lot of good reasons (from the perspective of Apple, anyway) why the company shouldn’t be in a rush to adopt it. Cost. Steve’s stated reason for not offering Blu-Ray: “The licensing is so complex.” Meaning, expensive. Apple is constantly facing criticism that their products are too expensive. Even if they make it an optional install, it’s still something that Apple has to pay for (and engineer) for something that not a lot of people may want. Which brings us to point two: Penetration. Tied in with cost: not a lot of people own Blu-Ray players at home, partly because not only do you have to pay a lot for the player, you also need a TV that can take advantage of the higher quality. Keep in mind that standard DVD players finally reached the installed base of VCRs in 2006, and that some people are upgrading to DVD players that “upscale” the picture. While Apple has been ambitious in championing new technologies (USB, wireless), it’s always been with an eye of the potential market. And right now, Jobs and Co. seem to be waiting for this one to grow first. Storage. Some people are pointing out that beyond watching movies, Blu-Ray discs can be used for backing up 50GBs of data. The problem is, how long would it take to burn that much data to a disc? Discs are currently retailing for around $30-40 dollars for a single 50GB disc: a price that’s comparable to a USB 2.0 external drive, which has the advantage of being faster...and rewritable. And while we’re on the topic of burning, let’s talk about iMovie, which jettisoned a lot of features in order to streamline one thing: uploading to YouTube. People aren’t sharing their home movies on DVD any more, they’re uploading the best moments to the Web. Do most people have a need to burn a Blu-Ray disc? Competition. And here we get to the nut. Apple is now selling their own HD movies and TV shows online via the iTunes store. Granted, it’s nowhere near as high-def as Blu-Ray, but I’m willing to wager most people are either watching them on standard def TVs, computer/laptop monitors (which are smaller, though higher in resolution), or on the minuscule screens of their video-capable iPod (a few inches across!). And in those situations, Apple’s version of high-def is “good enough.” Apple makes some money in passing along content, but their real money is in hardware: AppleTV, Computers, and the almighty iPod. Why in the world would they want to cut their own throat by improving the market for Blu-Ray: a physical disc that you have to buy from someone else, which can’t (legally) be converted for use on the iPod? Of course, in February 2009, America’s broadcast stations will switch over to an all digital signal, which will probably spur the sales of HD TVs. But, let’s make a critical distinction between HD and Blu-Ray, the latter of which is the codec for HD video discs. Apple has long been banking that the future of content distribution is in the internet, and just because people want to watch movies in HD, doesn’t mean they have to get them on a disc. Full Story » | Written by Bill Stiteler for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

FireWire feedback from readers and Apple

Yesterday's discussion post about the exclusion of FireWire from the newest MacBooks generated a tremendous amount of reader feedback and discussion. We decided to take an unscientific straw Twitter poll which generated a large response, underscoring that for the Mac community, FireWire is a big deal. The responses to the blog post were largely in support of my thesis: that losing FireWire from the MacBook is a big deal and a potential (or actual) deal-breaker for many, many users. This was to be expected, as people who are upset about FireWire's disappearance are more likely to respond to an article sharing that sentiment. On Twitter, however, when we just asked, "Is the lack of FireWire on the new unibody MacBook a deal-breaker for you, yes or no?" the data was less skewed.A majority of the Twitter users that responded to our poll said "no, it is not a deal-breaker." Many commented that the loss is disappointing, but ultimately it won't prevent them from buying a new MacBook. Still, more than one third of the responses were "yes, this is a deal-breaker." Many users are considering putting off upgrading altogether; others expressed discomfort with being forced to buy a MacBook Pro (either the new units, or the now heavily-discounted older units). A note to concerned future MacBook Pro users: you can get an inexpensive cable with FW400 on one end and FW800 on the other -- no adapter needed, just a new cord for your camera or audio device. Be warned, however, that the presence of a FW400 device in the chain will drop the speed of any FW800 devices to the older standard. Reader David sent Steve Jobs (or sjobs@apple.com) an e-mail, expressing his disappointment by the lack of FireWire on new MacBooks. The response (which David forwarded and we verified had the correct mail-header information), is pretty interesting...Continue reading FireWire feedback from readers and AppleRead | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Apple issues quartet of iLife '08 updates

Apple on Tuesday afternoon released four patches for its iLife '08 creative suite that touch on iMovie, iPhoto, iWeb, and the supporting infrastructure. iLife Support 8.3 Apple's most universal of the new updates, iLife Support 8.3 (10MB) is sa...

Mark chapters in your videos with…Garageband

Section: Software + Apps, iLife, Utilities, Video, iPod + iTunes, iTunesThe Mac is easily one of the best choices you can make if you want to edit and store home videos. It was practically built to consume media, and movies are no exception. But what if you want your videos to have easily accessible chapter markers like scenes in DVDs? It’s not really that hard, and you have a couple choices, though the built in way is not obvious. Heck, who would have thought to use Garageband enhance a video? Macworld has a great article detailing the process of adding chapter markers to any videos you may have. It works great if you have your own podcast, recorded television or even if you just want to have a record of those funny things that happen at family events. I mean really, it never gets old watching people fall down. They made an entire show out of it...America’s Funniest Home Videos. Back to the point. Adding these markers is really simple. Just edit your video in iMovie or other program if necessary, and export the finished product. Just make sure that wherever your video comes from, that it’s finished. Open Garageband, and drag the video into a new music project. Select that movie track in the timeline and a chapters area appears below. Move the playhead to a place where you’d like to add a chapter, click the Add Marker button at the bottom of the window, and in the Chapter column enter a name for the chapter: Opening, Pie Fight, or Rude Bit, for example. Don’t bother entering a URL title or URL. Then, after you are done adding chapter markers to your heart’s content, just click Share in the menu and Send to iTunes. You’ll get some choices for quality level, and then click Share to complete the process. The movie is automatically added to your iTunes library, which is great if that’s final destination. Now your video has chapter markers, and feels that much more professional! It should also be noted that you can also add chapter markers with a program called HandBrake, which, if you are into editing videos, you probably already have. In HandBrake, under the Output Settings, go to the Chapters tab. Just remember that you only want to add chapters to a final video. If you edit it again with iMovie, it does something really dumb; it erases them. Someday, Apple will fix this, I’m sure, and probably add the chapters functionality into iMovie where it belongs. But until that day, at least you have a couple options. Via [Macworld] Full Story » | Written by Jake Gaecke for Appletell. | Comment on this Article »

720p in your pocket: hands on with the Flip MinoHD

Camcorders have become small enough to fit in our pockets, and now they're shooting HD video. The new Flip MinoHD from Pure Digital Technologies offers 720p video and 4GB of storage in a package nearly as small as a deck of cards. Our testing shows it's decent HD solution if you value portability and simplicity.Read More...