Video-Ready Mac:
The Power Mac G4 / Mac OS X
Digital Media Experience
by Douglas Dixon, www.manifest-tech.com
Power
Macintosh G4: SuperDrive and Display
Starting
Up: Mac OS 9 and OS X
Macintosh Digital Media Tools:
QuickTime
Player
iTunes 2 - CD
Jukebox
iMovie 2
- DV Video Editing
References
(See Apple's
DVD Answer: DVD Playback and Recording Under Mac OS X)
Just as Apple established the graphical personal computer with the
Macintosh, and then helped create the desktop publishing revolution, now
Apple is driving to become the "hub" of the digital media
experience with new Macintosh computers and applications. With the
iMovie video editor, plus support for video capture from DV camcorders,
and now the iDVD authoring tool with the ability to burn to both CD and
DVD discs, the Macintosh platform offers all the necessary components
for convenient desktop video production and even DVD authoring. The
recent introduction of Apple's next-generation operating system, Mac OS
X, has provided a powerful platform for enhancing and optimizing digital
media applications.
In this article, we will explore the out of the box experience with
the Power Mac G4 to explore the Mac OS X the digital media experience.
The new iMac line, introduced in January 2002, now offers the same range
of digital media capabilities. The Macintosh system includes a full set
of built-in digital media applications, including iTunes for ripping and
playing CDs, iMovie for video editing, and iDVD for DVD authoring. So,
let's get started ...
The entire Power Mac G4 system is shipped in only two boxes,
one for the system unit and peripherals, and the other for the display.
But the box for the Apple Studio Display actually was smaller and
lighter. Welcome to the wonderful future of flat-screen displays, and
the end of the huge, clumsy, heavy CRT monitors.
In the boxes were the top-of the line Power Mac G4, as introduced at
MacWorld New York in July 2001, and the Apple 17-inch Studio Display.
The Power Mac G4 line was designed with a rounded
"quicksilver" enclosure, with a side door that swings open for
easy access to expansion slots and memory. The case does not even have
an eject button for the CD/DVD drive; instead you use an eject key on
the keyboard (Apple provides a little sticker to remind you about this).
For interfacing to DV camcorders and other peripherals, the Power Mac
G4 systems include two 400 MHz FireWire (IEEE 1394) ports and two 12
Mbps USB ports. For communications, they provide 10/100/1000BASE-T
Ethernet networking and a built-in 56K V.90 modem. The systems have four
33 MHz PCI slots and one 4X AGP slot for a NVIDIA GeForce2 graphics
card. They are expandable with up 1.5 GB or memory, up to 72 GB SCSI
hard disks, AirPort wireless networking, and three disk expansion bays
for hard drives and CD and DVD drives.
The system Apple kindly provided for evaluation is powered by dual
800 MHz PowerPC processors with 2 MB cache, 256 MB built-in memory, and
80 GB hard disk. Plus, it skips past boring old CD drives and even DVD
players to the new DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive, with reads - and records -
both CD and DVD discs.
There is not much to unpacking and hooking up the Mac. You just chain
it all together: plug the power cord to the system unit, plug the
display into the system, the keyboard into the USB port on the display,
and the mouse to the USB port on the keyboard. No more collection of
wires running from every component back to the system unit.
And the display is beautiful! The 17-inch Apple Studio Display stands
about 17 inches wide and 17 inches tall off the desk surface, and
requires only seven inches of desk space front to back. And it's so
bright and colorful, even when viewed from the side or in brighter
light. It supports 800 x 600, 1024 x 768, and 1280 x 1024 resolutions,
all in full color (although 800 x 600 is really too small for working
with full-size video). It's a full-color display; you do not run in
256-color mode on this system.
After sitting unused, the Mac automatically turns off the monitor,
and after a while longer it spins down the disks and goes to sleep. Only
the power lights on the system unit and the display show that the system
is sleeping. In a very cool design concept, the power light on the
display pulses quietly from dim to brighter, as a subtle reminder of how
to turn the system on again. Press the button (which is actually
embossed on the display front surface), and the system is up and running
within five seconds.
As Apple made the transition from Mac OS 9 to the next-generation Mac
OS X in 2001, it shipped systems with both operating system installed.
This allowed customers to continue working with their existing
applications in the familiar OS 9 environment, and then step up to the
new OS X to use new applications designed to take advantage of the new
operating system features, and to work with the new interface.
When first powered on, the Power Mac G4 starts up in OS 9. It steps
through set-up and registration screens for specifying your country and
hooking up to the Internet, and then you are up and running. The Apple
media applications like iTunes, iMovie, and iDVD are pre-installed, but
you really need to switch to OS X for the full experience.
Unlike the difficulty of managing multiple versions of Windows with
dual-boot modes on the PC, the Macintosh can quickly switch between
operating systems by using the Startup Disk control panel to select the
appropriate System Folder. Just select OS X, and restart.
The Power Mac G4 starts up again, this time in Mac OS X,
version 10.1. Again, you step through a set of setup screens, and then
you are up and running in OS X with the new Aqua interface. Aqua has a
new look, with larger and expressive icons, bright color, and fluid
motion. Background windows turn translucent, and objects have drop
shadows. OS X also includes a new Finder with a customizable toolbar for
navigating folders, and the Dock area which is designed to help you
navigate and organize your system, and gives you instant access to your
most frequently used applications, folders, and minimized windows. And
application launch times are not just quick, or fast, they really are
instant -- click on the icon for an application, it animates by bouncing
while the application is launching, and within a few seconds you are up
and running in the application.
Mac OS X is intended to combine the simplicity and elegance of the
Macintosh with the power and stability of a new underlying foundation,
the UNIX operating system. The UNIX-based core operating system, called
Darwin, provides Mac OS X with powerful, advanced features such as
protected memory, preemptive multitasking, advanced memory management,
and symmetric multiprocessing. The result in better performance, as when
iDVD 2 can compress your video clips in the background while you
continue to work on authoring your DVD menus and navigation.
The graphics and media capabilities of OS X are built on three
graphics technologies: the Apple Quartz 2D graphics engine with build-in
PDF and PostScript support, the OpenGL standard for 3D graphics drawing
and effects, and Apple QuickTime 5 for image and digital media playback.
The Power Mac G4 system and OS X also come bundled with a full
complement of digital media tools, for images, audio, and video. For
processing images, use Image Capture for importing photos from digital
cameras, and Preview to view and export images in a variety of formats.
For digital audio, you can use iTunes to record, organize, and play
music. iTunes can also burn music to CD or transfer to the iPod portable
player. You can also burn data files to CD or DVD; just drag and drop to
the disk and then press Burn.
For digital video, you can start with the QuickTime Player to display
and play a wide range of still image and motion video and audio file
formats. You also can step up to the QuickTime Pro upgrade to add the
ability to convert and export in a variety of file formats.
Apple also provides the iMovie video editor for capturing clips from
a DV camcorder and editing video and audio, complete with transitions,
titles, and effects. You can then save and share your video productions
as digital files or share them on your personal Web page with iTools.
You also can use iDVD to author video productions to DVD.
Mac OS X -- Digital Media Applications
iTunes is the Macintosh audio jukebox, for importing music CDs
to MP3 files, creating playlists, and burning your own mixes as music
CDs. The new version, iTunes 2, is available as a free download for both
Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. iTunes 2 adds a 10-band equalizer, sound
enhancer, cross-fader, faster CD recording, burning of MP3 CDs, and
automatic synchronization with the new Apple iPod portable music player.
When you first run iTunes 2, it displays the Library window with an
eclectic list of pre-loaded music across a variety of genres (although
K.D. Lang is listed as "Unclassifiable"). If you are connected
to the Internet, you can also click on the Radio Tuner to access
Internet radio stations around the world.
To import your own music, simply insert a CD and iTunes will show it
in the Library. If you are connected to the Internet, iTunes will look
it up in the CDDB database and download the artist and track
information. You can then import the music to your hard disk as MP3
audio files.
As you add more music, you can view more information about each track
and click on the columns to sort the list in different ways, or click
the Browse button to select an artist and album. Or use the Search
function to enter the first few letters of the song or album title, or
artist name, and iTunes will instantly display only matching entries.
To organize your music library, you can create new playlists and drag
and drop to arrange your songs. You also can use the playlists to burn
your collections to CD or download to a portable player.
To entertain your eyes, iTunes provides a visualizer with onscreen
graphics that pulse to the beat of your music. You can even display them
full-screen, and in three different sizes.
For your ears, iTunes 2 adds a new multiband 10-band Equalizer with
22 EQ presets that can be applied to individual songs. It also includes
two new Effects: Sound Enhancer to add life and richness to your music,
and Crossfade Playback to smooth transitions between songs on your
playlists.
You can then have your music to go by burning it to CD. iTunes 2 can
burn Audio CDs twice as fast on the new CD burners. It can also record
compressed MP3 files to CD, with up to 150 songs.
iTunes 2 also can automatically synchronize with the iPod portable
player, using the FireWire interface for fast transfers. The iPod is
small and light (around 2.4 by 4 by 7/8 inches, and 6.5 ounces), and yet
includes a 5 GB hard drive that can store up to 1000 songs, and can run
up to 10 hours on the rechargeable battery. You also can use iTunes with
other third-party MP3 players.
iMovie is designed to quickly and easily capture, edit,
enhance, and share desktop movies. Version 2 adds significant new video
and audio editing tools and effects, but without damaging the simplicity
of the user interface. You can use it to quickly capture clips from a DV
camcorder, arrange them in a storyboard, and export the final movie back
out to DV tape. Or you can import a variety of clips, and use then use
the Timeline display to edit them together and add transitions, titles,
effects, and audio. Then you can export to QuickTime files, or direct to
iDVD format.
To start with iMovie, you just plug in a DV camcorder to Mac using a
FireWire cable. iMovie automatically recognizes that the camera is
attached. Then you can watch the tape in the Monitor window while using
the play controls under the window to play and scan through the tape.
When you have positioned the tape and are ready to start capturing, just
click the Import button (or you can switch from tape to editing by using
the Camera Mode / Edit Mode toggle at the bottom left of the Monitor
window). iMovie will immediately start importing the video and audio to
clips on your hard disk, in full-resolution DV format.
As it captures, iMovie adds clips to the Clip storage shelf on the
right side of the display, each marked with their name and duration. You
can click the Import button to start and stop capturing each clip, or
iMovie can automatically start a new clip each time there is a scene
change in the input videotape.
You can also import clip files from hard disk, in DV stream format
(as captured from DV tape), or in a variety of still image formats.
iMovie does not import arbitrary QuickTime video files in any
compression format or at any resolution. However, you can use the
QuickTime Player Pro to convert full-resolution full-rate video files
into streaming DV format.
To make a quick movie from your clips, simply drag and drop them into
the Clip Viewer storyboard at the bottom of the display, and arrange
them in the order that you like. You can preview the clips and trim
their ends, and you can also split a clip into two.
Then you can export your movie, back to DV tape, to a QuickTime file,
or in iDVD-ready (DV) format. For exporting to a QuickTime file, iMovie
provides presets for small Web formats, medium-size CD-ROM formats, and
full-quality DV format, or you can select any supported QuickTime video
and audio formats.
When you want to enhance your movie with more sophisticated effects,
you can click the Timeline Viewer tab below the Monitor window to switch
to a timeline view. Then click through the design panel tabs to the
right of the Monitor window to select Transitions, Titles, Effects, and
additional Audio tracks or effects.
iMovie 2 adds a number of more sophisticated features, especially for
editing with the Timeline view. You can store more clips in the
scrolling shelf. You can change the playback speed of clips, or reverse
their direction. You can extract the audio from clips, or lock audio to
a specific clip. You can control the direction of transitions, and the
speed of effects. You can also adjust the level of detail in the
Timeline, and place audio precisely.
Beyond iMovie, you can step up to Apple's Final Cut Pro
professional video editing software, for sophisticated editing,
compositing and special effects.
Macintosh Digital Media
So there you have it, the quick tour of how Apple has developed the
Macintosh to become the hub of your digital media lifestyle. With all
the different built-in tools like iTunes and iMovie, you can be up and
going quickly, and still have room to grow as you create your own music
mixes and edit your own movies. Be sure to check the Apple Web site (www.apple.com)
periodically for updated information and application upgrades that you
can download.
While Apple likes to claim that Mac applications are so intuitive
that they do not need a manual, sometime having some extra help is
useful. The Help Viewer does provide short items of useful information,
but some of the most interesting topics need to be accessed over the
Internet.
For more in-depth coverage, try "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual"
and "iMovie 2: The Missing Manual," both by David Pogue
from O'Reilly. The iMovie book takes you step by step through using the
software, and also provides a reference section for each menu and
command.
Order iMovie 2: The Missing Manual
here
Apple Computer
www.apple.com
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