LogMeIn Expands Supports for Mac

LogMeIn announces on Tuesday January 22nd, 2007 that LogMeIn Rescue is now available for Mac OS X.

LogMeIn Rescue

From LogMeIn press release:

LogMeIn Rescue is a web-based remote support tool that allows administrators to connect to a remote computer or smartphone, without requiring previously installed software. With this latest release of LogMeIn Rescue, administrators can easily and securely access Apple computers and provide quick resolution of end-user and remote application issues.

With the LogMeIn Rescue support for Mac OS X, LogMeIn is now a few steps ahead of its rival Citrix‘s GoToMyPC. Both LogMeIn and GoToMyPC offers Mac OS X viewer to connect to the host computer. But only LogMeIn provides remote access to both Mac OS X and Windows OS.

AVCHD and Mac OS X

AVCHD

iMovie ‘08 Final Cut Pro Icon

On TWiT 128 (10 minutes and 40 seconds into the show), Patrick Norton asked if AVCHD is natively supported in Final Cut Pro. Alex Lindsay didn’t think so, but Leo Laporte said there is. Leo then pointed out that Final Cut Express and iMovie ’08 support AVCHD.

Now, let’s see where things really are right now for Mac users. Final Cut Pro 6, Final Cut Express 4, and iMovie ’08 do support AVCHD format, but not quite natively. It takes roughly 3 minutes to import a 58-second clip in iMovie ’08 on a 2.0GHz MacBook Pro Core Duo with 2GB RAM and 7200 RPM hard-drive (via USB 2.0). On the same MacBook Pro Final Cut Pro 6 consistently crashes in the middle of importing the same AVCHD video clip. UPDATE: There is an apparent conflict caused by Perian Quicktime Component (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306922). As for Final Cut Express 4, I don’t know because I don’t have it yet.

I installed Sony’s Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition on a Windows XP PC that my friend and I put together. It has Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6550, 4GB of RAM, and Intel® Desktop Board DP35DP. Sony Vegas took a short amount of time to import the same AVCHD video clip. As a matter of fact, Sony Vegas recognize the “.mts” file format. This is no surprise because AVCHD was developed jointly by Sony and Panasonic.

The advantage of using a disk-based camcorder is the ability to transfer the video clip faster than tape-based camcorders. Videos from tapes are transferred in real time to the computer, because of the limitation of the tape medium. Unfortunately for Mac users, AVCHD is a little bit inconvenient; because it takes almost forever to import those video files. AVCHD requires a lot of processing power, but if the system/program natively supports AVCHD, it’d be easier to copy the actual streams to another hard drive and import them later.

Maybe the next updates to iMovie and Final Cut will address this issue. Until then, Mac users has to be patient when dealing with AVCHD camcorders.

I own a Panasonic HDC-SD5, and also use my friend’s Canon HG10.

Canon HG10 AVCHD Camcorder: Video Transfers

In a continuing review of AVCHD Camcorders, let’s take a look at at transferring videos from Canon HG10 to the computer.

AVCHD camcorders are typically equipped with and connect to computers via USB 2.0 port. Canon HG10 is a hard-drive-based AVCHD camcorder, and the only way to transfer the data from the hard drive is to connect it to the computer via USB 2.0 port. That’s excluding the options to open up the camcorder, take out the hard-drive, mount it in an external USB 2.0 (or FireWire; but importing is not supported), and then connect it to the computer. Don’t do that. Just connect the camcorder to the computer via USB 2.0 port.

One other important note is that the camcorder has to be connected to the power source in order to “import” the video clips.

The placement of the USB 2.0 port of Canon HG10 is a little bit awkward. The USB port is located on the inside, covered by the LCD screen. It is not the best place for the USB port.

Canon-HG10-USB-Port

Once the camcorder is connected, turn the camera to “PLAY” mode.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition can natively read movies in AVCHD format, it can directly read the “.mts” files. It takes a relatively short time to import the video clips from the camera to Sony Vegas. Sony Vegas users can copy the AVCHD folder to another hard drive, then import the video clips from the hard drive instead of the camcorder.

Mac users are at a disadvantage, because iMovie ’08, Final Cut Express 4, and Final Cut Pro 6 do not recognize the “.mts” files. Those Mac programs have to convert the AVCHD videos on the fly during imports. Because of this, the import process on the Mac is taking a lot longer in contrast to Sony Vegas. After all, AVCHD is developed by Sony and Panasonic. There are other ways to make the process a little bit easier for Mac users, I will get to that later.

Buy Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 Platinum Edition from Amazon.com
Buy Final Cut Express 4 from Amazon.com

Family Guy: Blue Harvest – Fox Digital Copy

As previously reported, “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” DVD-set includes a second disc that contains a “digital copy” of the feature. The “digital copy” is compatible with iTunes and Windows Media Player. The digital copy then can be played in video-playing-iPods, iPhone, and any compatible PlayForSure device.

Blue Harvest - 2 DVD Discs and the Code

Each DVD package comes with a serial number that can be used once in iTunes or Windows Media Player to decrypt the “digital copy” and apply corresponding DRM on it. For example, if you’re using Windows Media Player to access the “digital copy”, it will extract and decrypt it from the disc and apply PlayForSure DRM on it. The serial number that comes with the DVD package can only be used once for one format only; iTunes or PlayForSure compatible format.

Family Guy - Fox Digital Copy Family Guy blue Harvest iTunes 7.6 - Family Guy: Blue Harvest - Chapters

< ?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>


25491
FAMILYGUY_BLUEHARVEST

244097
268387794


md5=”8b1c8432da51963a2e353a235a0d063a” length=”520081073″/>

Family Guy: Blue Harvest comes in two flavors; Regular and Special Edition. The Special Edition comes with limited edition collectibles:

  • Collector’s T-Shirt (100% cotton, Black, XL)
  • 3D Glasses
  • 12 Collector’s trading cards (in same style as original Star Wars trading cards) that form a 3D scene on the back
  • 20-page “Art of Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest” booklet including sketches, notes and a letter from Seth MacFarlane

Blue Harvest Special Edition

Blue Harvest in Windows

Blue Harvest - Windows Media Player or iTunes

Blue Harvest DRM in Windows

Blue Harvest - iPhone

Blue Harvest - iPhone Chapters

Fox/iTunes Store Blunder on JoinStewiesDarkSide.com

Fox’s “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” DVD pack includes a digital copy of the movie that can be transferred using iTunes or Windows Media Player.

For some reasons, iTunes Store is listing the wrong URL for the DVD Promotional site.

It’s supposed to be http://www.joinstewiesdarkside.com/, instead it’s missing an “s” and you’ll end up in a domain squatter’s heaven.

Family Guy - Join The Empire Sweepstakes

The correct sweepstakes address is http://www.joinstewiesdarkside.com/