[Jeff Carpenter]

Well, what’s the goal here? For someone else to edit it? Re-use it by compressing it for the web? Or just view it on different computers?

I’d give different answers to each of these situations.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Kind of off-topic, but I noticed you said 10 GB of RAM.

That doesn’t match any of the suggested Final Cut setups:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304492

10 GB will work on the system overall, but Final Cut’s requirements are a little pickier. I’d use something off that list.

There’s 2 different methods of getting 8 GB on that list. I’d just go with one of those.

[Jeff Carpenter]

On your desktop, go to the “File” menu and pick “New Smart Folder.”

Set it to search “This Mac” and make sure “Contents” is turned on.

Then hit the + button to add a new rule:
Created Date is within last 50 years

Then hit the + button again and add:
Size is greater than 25 MB

Ok, now you’re looking at every file on your computer that’s over 25 MB. I really wish you could then rank by size, putting the largest ones first, but you can’t.

So here’s what you can do. Keep playing with that size filter. Change it to 100 MB. Then 200. Keep raising it until you get a manageable list. Then go through that list Let’s say you stop at 200 and go through every file and you feel satisfied that you’re done with that list.

Then add another + and make a “size less than” range. So you could then focus on files that are larger than 100 MB but smaller than 200 MB, thus excluding the ones you’ve just looked at.

Using this you can look around at different size “slices” on your computer.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Generally, free programs from the internet (like MPEG Streamclip or Google Earth) CAN be copied in this way. They’re made to be small and stand-alone since that’s the best way to transfer them over the internet.

So this would work with some of those programs. Heck, you could even run some of them right off the DVD! But the larger ones like Final Cut Pro and Photoshop tend to install other files on the system that they use later. So Photoshop might run for a bit after doing this, but you’d eventually run into problems.

Just wanted to clarify because it’s likely you’ve heard of someone else doing this before. That’s the difference, though. Small apps designed to be transported vs. large apps that aren’t.

[Jeff Carpenter]

With software encoding you basically have 3 desires:

1) Fast compression
2) Small file
3) High quality video

You can pick 2 of the 3. Right now you’re picking the best two, size and quality. I suggest sticking with that plan rather than compromising just to be done quicker.

The only way to speed things up is with a faster computer or a dedicated hardware encoder. Other than that, we’re all stuck making this choice.

[Jeff Carpenter]

So iMovie ONLY uses AIC?

I had thought that it used HDV too, so he would be able to play it, but I guess it transcodes everything it captures?

Thanks for the info.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I don’t know anything about this in particular, but a lot of alternate format specs are designed and then no cameras or VTRs are ever made to record in that variation of the format.

I suspect this is something that was invented at some point but no one ever put it in a camera. I guess someone, somewhere might find it useful in Final Cut, or perhaps they’re just being safe on the theory that someone MIGHT put that into some equipment some day.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Have you done much with this account yet? Honestly it’s probably easier to just start a new admin account with your name and switch to using that from now on.

[Jeff Carpenter]

Well, Simon, I agree that he should have more than 2 GB of RAM in general, but I’d think that 2 GB would be enough to view a web page properly.

Marc, download Firefox, Camino, and Opera. Try that site in all 3 browsers and see what happens. This may be a computer hardware problem or it may be a Safari problem. It will help us to try and narrow the cause down before suggesting all sorts of fixes.

[Jeff Carpenter]

I’m wondering if your bit-rate is still too high and is creating an unstable disk.

1) What setting is your MPEG II file being made at?

2) Are you compressing the audio using the Dolby setting? (In other words, not using AIF or PCM audio on the DVD.)