24 hours with the mac mini, returning it

[JosephEsquivel]

We just cant get it to work right for us. My girlfriend has an JVC everio HDD camcorder, and the video files are .mod and wont work in iMovie. Her photos got saved about 8 folders into the pictures folder. Safari keeps freezing upwhen she plays her games on pogo.com.

I got this for her cause everything you read about Mac's make them seem like they are so easy to work. I am now seriously reconsidering getting an iMac next month.

 

[ravenvii]

Can't you just stream the movies off the camera into iMovie? That's the way you're supposed to do it... Just connect it and switch that switch thingy to the left so the screen shows what's on the camera, and you can record it.

As for the photos, yeah that's iPhoto. A lot of people don't like it for that reason. You can export the photos from your camera via Image Capture, and organize them the way you want. You can view the images with Finder itself (for thumbnails, go to View - Options and it's in there. For sideshows, just select all, then right-click and click "Slideshow"). That's not a great solution, but that's all I can think of (other than telling Google to hurry up and release Picasa for the Mac!).

As for Safari+Pogo, I dunno. If you don't like the way it behaves with Pogo, just install Firefox. It's the browser you (ought to) use on the PC, so it'll behave the same.

 

[mkrishnan]

If you want to return the Mac, and/or not get one yourself, by all means, feel free.

While it's in your hands, if you want to actually try the camera, then look at this:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/222268/

or this:

http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/16965p1.html

It seems that camera does not implement a very standard video format or uplink process with the computer. Sorry you're having trouble with it. Most firewire DV cams work without any special considerations. This is the first time I've ever even heard of the .mod video format, and I use Windows, MacOS, and various Unix/Linux flavors.

 

[zephead]

A Google search on the JVC Everio issue pulled up this, so I hope that helps.

 

[CanadaRAM]

We just cant get it to work right for us. My girlfriend has an JVC everio HDD camcorder, and the video files are .mod and wont work in iMovie. Her photos got saved about 8 folders into the pictures folder. Safari keeps freezing upwhen she plays her games on pogo.com.

I got this for her cause everything you read about Mac's make them seem like they are so easy to work. I am now seriously reconsidering getting an iMac next month.

The problem is the camera, not the Mac.

The camera creates files that are computer editing unfriendly - they are not standard DV format files, which iMovie (a free application, I note) is based around. Please google for solutions for Mac editing of HDD camcorder files. You may need probably Quicktime Pro and Streamclip or another translation solution.

A solution was posted fright here on MacRumors

http://www.gadgetspage.com/audio-video/jvc-everio-hard-disk-camcorder-gz-mg30u.html


At the risk of being blunt here, the Mac's ease of use is not a free ticket that absolves the user from doing any research or learning.

 

[urbanskywalker]

Try using the utility MPEG StreamClip to change the MOD file into a DV stream and then drag it into imovie. Unfortunately you probably cannot capture with a firewire cable from a HD camcorder, that's why tape is still the best way to go for editing in imovie.

iPhoto, well it's free.