Thinking about switching back

[Actor]

After hearing a lot of good things about Final Cut Pro, I broke down about a year ago and bought a Mac. Its warranty expires later this month and I am seriously thinking about selling it and going back to a PC.

A Mac geek friend of mine, who for years had been urging me to get a Mac, promised to help me through the "period of adjustment." He was soon sorry he made that promise. Shortly after getting the thing set up it crashed. So much for the myth that Macs don't crash. The reason they don't crash is that they have "kernal panics" instead. Kernal panic is an Apple euphemism for CRASH. Ever since then Panic Room has been my wife's name for the room where we have the Mac.

After re-loading OS-X everything seemed to be all right except: 1)the Mac did not see the printer, 2)the disk diagnostic reported an error on the hard drive which it could not fix and 3)iMovie could not see my camera. This last really bites since iMovie is the main reason I bought the Mac.

Meanwhile my Mac geek friend has stopped answering my eMails.

Along about November another Mac geek at work told me that what was needed was a complete wipe of the disk before re-installing everything. After backing up as much as I could on CDs I turned the machine over to him. When I got it back OS-9 was gone but the printer worked. Everything worked, EXCEPT iMovie.

OK! Like I said my only reason for going with Mac was iMovie. Now the word I have is that Apple does not support iMovie. They are going with the "you get what you pay for" philosophy. Since iMovie is free (supposedly I did not pay for iMovie when I coughed up the dough for the Mac) you get no support for iMovie.

The precise nature of the problem is an error message "CAMERA NOT CONNECTED." Users on the iMovie forum (which you can reach through Apple's web site) report that the fault is widespread and seem to concur that the error message itself is in error and that it is a bug in iMovie. However, it could be a fault in my FireWire hardware. What to do:
<ul type="square">[*]Option 1: Sell the Mac and buy a PC. Use Microsoft MovieMaker and later upgrade to Premiere or some other editor besides FCP. This option would make my wife happy.[*]Option 2: Get iMovie 3 and hope that the bug, if it is a bug, has been fixed. If that's not it, I'm out $50. One theory is that the bug is specific to OS-X but iMovie 3 is supposed to be specific to OS-X so this could be the answer.[*]Option 3: Get an external FireWire drive and try installing OS-9 and iMovie on it. This would at least answer the question of whether the FireWire works. If it doesn't then hopefully I could make the drive work with a PC.[*]Option 4: Upgrade to Final Cut Pro now (I had intended to eventually upgrade to FCP anyway) and hope that the problem is specific to iMovie. If it's not then I'm out $300 (price of FCP3 w/education discount).[/list]

[Actor]

Since posting earlier this evening I've found that iMovie3 is a free download. So I've downloaded and installed iMovie3. No change. So option 2 has been tried and found wanting.

[phantom 309]

Finally someone with horrorstories about a Mac. I just couldn't believe all those endless positive tales about never ever crashing and plug and play ideals...

About your trouble - I don't know anything about Mac's, but hardware is hardware - with Imovie not finding your camera:

* Check if Imovie is compatible with your specific camera. They probably have a list on their website.

* Check if your firewirecard is working by sticking it in some other computer (maybe the one of your macgeekfriend, he owes you that much) and connecting your camera. Also try to connect another DV-camera, cause maybe the problem is with the output of your camera.

* Get FCP with some peer 2 peer program (for windows that would be KazaaLite, for mac I don't know. just Google around). I know it is illegal and the programs are cracked, but that way you could just test if FCP recognizes your camera without spending a lot of money. If it works, buy it. If not...

* Update all your drivers. That's always a good thing to do. Go to the websites of all your hardware parts and download the latest drivers, maybe they fixed some bugs.

* I don't know if Macs also work with IRQ adresses for assigning hardware. If so, check if maybe some irq addresses are conflicting. Stick your Firewire card in different PCI-slots.

Actually this sounds a lot like helping someone with a PC [img]wink.gif[/img]

Laterz

[ickle_jim]

since i upgrading to XP ive had no problems with windows at all. The only problem is XP is a ram monster, and no matter how much i switch off the **** thats running that i dont need (eg. active desktops, fancy effects, all other programs etc etc) it still has only just enough power to run my home recording studio software (Cakewalk Sonar 2 XL). Where as before on 98 it ran a treat, even if it did crash from time to time. Ive even doubled the ram and it still seems to struggle abit to keep up :\

ANyways... if you switched to mac cos you were sick of windows 9X then fear not cos XP runs rock solid

[Dr.Von. F.]

What is your system percentages?

Usually they run at about 73% this is not good.

You should try to get them to the mid 90's at least.

Do you know how to do this?

If not I can walk you through it. Or contact you computer company and they can help if you get the right rep on the right day.

[machead]

You've had your Mac nearly a year. I'll deduce that at some stage the system worked.

I'd check to see if your cables have been damaged, or the camera Firewire port may hace been damaged, they are quite delicate.

go here for more solid advice
http://www.postforum.com/forums/list.php?f=38

I don't use iMovie so can't offer much advice.
(when you installed iMovie did you have the camera on and connected to the Mac, this can resolve this problem)

What's your Mac?
What's your Camera?

[Dr.Von. F.]

kernal panicks

[Yammeryammeryammer]

Hmm. I switched to a mac about a year ago for iMovie specifically. I used and still use it all the time, although now I have just purchased Final Cut Express. I haven't ever had any problems with it using my camera, but we did plug my friends JVC into the compter at one point and iMovie wouldn't recognize it, so we concluded it was the model because my camera worked. See if you can get ahold of another camera and try it. Apple also has a toll free customer service number which I just used for the first time the other day for some Final Cut Xpress difficulties, which were quickly remedied.

[Alex]

Triple Y with an ammer...that is excellent advice.

First see if all cameras are not recognized, or was it just the luck of the draw and only your camera.

Let us know. By the way, you should go for it and final cut pro 3...it has many more features than I-movie and the support is probably better than for I-movie, because I-movie was set-up for the absolute beginner.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ February 07, 2003 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Super-8mm in the DigitalAge ]</font>

[jeromecain]

Sound like a lemon to me. I got two mac. They are wonderful to me. I used imovie with www.geethree.com and virtix.com completed also premiere 6.0 and FCP3. I got jvc, sony, and canon camcorders. They are fine. I used adobe effect as well. It is fine. I update to osx and now it is osx jaguar and fine with find printer. I am feeling bad for your mac really. It is up to your heart and go head find somehow to make your movie with good feel. Sorry. Jerome, deaf filmmaker and videomaker