Yes! I love it. Nice work, Ray. Should Macs still be running Jaguar when you get one, you’ll love the option of the Jaguar fur desktop pattern! It’s pretty distracting to have on there all the time but fun to pull up every once in a while. People walking by the monitor do a double take! Panther fur would be pretty dull, huh?
It is, Ray. Panther <http://www.apple.com/macosx/panther> is the next one. And apple has registered lynx, tiger, etc. so the cats may keep coming for a while.
to transfer them onto DVDs. That’s where the Mac will come in handy
Well, as much as I think everyone should have a mac, Ray, I don’t want to mislead you there. You need some way to make the analog>digital conversion, like a camcorder or a Dazzle bridge or something. The mac is great for burning the dvds, but the expensive part is getting the video in.
I’m sure there must be at least one capture card for the Mac (PowerMac) or a USB/Firewire device to do the job? These things are pretty standard for the PC world.
Ehh… I have a camcorder with Firewire! But I fail to see how this could help… I will watch the movies through the input jacks of the camcorder, then reroute the output to the mac ? Or record everything on MiniDV tape and output this to the Mac, firewirely (humm… new adverd!)
Last minute : Thunder is striking here. If I disapear, it’s gonna be because of that. With the humidity level we have, we could be facing a major storm!
Ray, you might want to read this <http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?50@@.effc4c3/0>, They thrash the subject out pretty thoroughly, including prices. But yes, the miniDv tape is probably the most popular method.
Barbara and I are still users of the original OS X. I was inspired to make this <http://home.earthlink.net/~imacbarb/osx.html> months ago. It now symbolizes my files flying out of my stuffed hard drive, although with the new external drive up and running things should be a bit smoother. Time to unload and defrag…
Barbara, one more question if I may. The external drive comes on when I wake up my iMac, so I’ve unplugged the firewire cable to disable it for now. The drive also has an on/off button…doesn’t even need one. Do you know if there is any place in the OS that I can to set this external drive to come on by my choice?
You have to have a camcorder that’ll convert the analog to digital as Barb said and not all do (the camcorder has to have the right ports as well). I just bought one that does that and here is how I do it. The camcorder is connected to the vcr with special cable that coverts the Audio & Video plug’s to a single mini plug that connects to the camcorder. Then I connect the camcorder to my Mac via the Firewire port/cable. I Insert the tape I want to convert to digital into the VCR and press play. I don’t actually have to be recording (on the miniDV tape), I just need the above connection and then open iMovie. iMovie automatically senses that my camcorder’s connected and starts importing the video. It’s pretty slick. If your VCR has an S-Video port you can also use that as well (for some camcorders).
If you don’t plan on shooting video, or if you already have a camcorder, Formac Studio and Dazzle are probably better options. Instead of being out $750, which is what my Sony camcorder cost, you’re only out a couple of hundred. It would probably be much more convenient and less hassle to buy something actually meant for that purpose as well. I only had 4 or 5 old analog tapes of my kids that I wanted to convert and of course I need to take new video of the boys so the camcorder was the best/cheapest (if you consider $750 cheap) solution for me.
Barb, I don’t know if this would be more or less convenient, but I leave the firewire cable hooked up and just use the on/off button on the external. For me it’s easier than working with the cable. Not to mention the fact I always hate to "overwork" any cable by plugging it in and taking it out often. They look pretty tough, but I’m the cautious type. I also know that the ports are capable of being damaged, too, under some circumstances. That on/off switch just looks so safe! 🙂
Hi, Barb. Yes this is an issue in 10.1.5, unfortunately. Some drives can still cause problems in jaguar, but not as often. I would suggest posting over at apple and asking someone who has the same drive.
Barbara, thanks for investigating and finding this is an issue. I’ll head over to Apple when I get some free time later this week and ask. It’s not a big deal because I’m not planning on using this drive all the time, just for iPhoto archiving. I thought if there was something simple I was missing, you would know. I must remember to unmount it prior to the iMac sleeping…almost forgot earlier. The icon for the ext. drive is not on the desktop, maybe I should put it there. I don’t need any extra clutter on this 15" screen.
Ray, I have a power bar with a surge protector. I hit the switch on that by accident the other day when I unplugged my scanner. That was not too nice…especially with the computer on while doing it. Why is it all this stuff is always way under the desk?
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