Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Any woodworker / Mac users out there?


Here's the thing... I am NOT a videographer.

Never studied it, probably never will, other than a short online tutorial that wasn't worth the time it took to watch it. So when I tell you this upcoming Watco video is a labor of love, let me explain...

Mistake #1 - It wasn't too smart on my part to try and film this video on the hottest day (so far) of the year. I put these short clips together over the better part of two days, and at one point, it was 115˚ in my studio.

Think I'm exaggerating?


Sure, I have a pretty decent swamp cooler and some powerful fans. But those make noise, and the noise interfered with the video, so I had to leave them off. Hence... there was a massive sweat/fatigue thing going on.

Mistake #2 - I should have learned by now to leave certain things up to professionals. By this, I mean video editing. OK, maybe I'm just a putz, but I feel like I know my way around my Mac well enough, and Macs are great for things like film editing.

So why was it so hard?

Could it be the heat stroke? (See mistake #1)

So here's the deal - I have a Watco video filmed and somewhat ready to go, but I'm going to have to upload it in three different segments. I'll be damned if I can figure out how to string them together... I did once, but they say your memory fades with age... or with heat exhaustion...

What was I saying?

I have a request- I know that people (not just woodworkers) read this blog, and if anyone out there is a Mac user and has any suggestions for video editing software (hopefully shareware!) can you please send it to me? I'm hoping for something simple, that will allow me to string a few short clips together, edit out my babbling, and perhaps adjust the sound level and contrast levels.

In fact - if anyone gives me a really great software suggestion, I'll mail you a great shirt - better yet... it's brand new.



One of my tool reps gave it to me, it's lightweight denim, embroidered with a their logo. It's a mens - medium.

I'll send it to whoever (or is it whomever?) gives me the best suggestion for Mac software, and I'll give you a shout out on this blog, as well.



As we say here in Las Vegas... Muchas gracias.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't your Mac come with iMovie? That is perfect for everything you are trying to do.

Wood It Is! said...

Yes, my Mac came with iMovie, but because of Apple's proprietary approach, I can't save the film in a format that allows me to upload it here.

Same with iTunes.

I don't get it, if I pay my $.99 and buy a song, shouldn't I be able to export it and use it on all my portable devices? Not just my iPod?

I need to be able to save it in an AVI, MPEG, Real, Windows Media or Quicktime format. I am pretty sure iMovie doesn't allow you to save your clips in any of those formats.

If I'm wrong, someone please help me!

Apple torques me off sometimes with their policies!

Anonymous said...

iMovie HD can save in QuickTime format. It is found under the Share menu, and has compression options for Web, Web Streaming, CD-ROm and Full Quality (uncompressed, probably)

Anonymous said...

iMovie HD can save projects in QuickTime format. It is found under the Share menu, where there are compression options for Web, Streaming, CD-ROM and Full-Quality.