Advances in Video at Macworld

by Connie Fillippelli
Published on Jan 19, 2003 12:00 AM



Tuesday, January 7, 2003 is a day that will be relived in my mind forever. It was my last day of vacation from school. That excitement made my heart beat with anticipation of my new students, new minds to manipulate. I rubbed my hands gleefully with glint in my left eye at the prospect. The clock struck the hour. It was 6 am. I started to dance in my living room before I even had coffee. Correction. I usually have a mug of espresso. None of the above is the reasons I was having a happy feet day. Tuesday was Steve Jobs Keynote speech at MacWorld in San Francisco. MacWorld is the Holy Grail event for the Apple enthusiast. If you haven't guessed I am a hardcore Mac user. But I will work on any platform to get the job done.

Since school started the next day I did the next best thing to being at the MacWorld San Francisco Expo I went to my local Apple retail store located in Schaumberg, IL. I even wore my Apple t- shirt I have kept in the plastic tube since the day the store opened over a year ago.

Steve Jobs keynote speech has always streamed. Normally I make my students watch this event on an LCD projector in class. Hooking up all the equipment and making sure the video stream worked and the audio can be heard in the back of the room leaves me exhausted, but not this year. For some odd reason class was stating on Wednesday.

Worried that the store would be crowed, I left early, carrying my canvas folding chair, a bottle of water, and my G 4 Titanium PowerBook. I never leave home with out it. Preparation is important when going to an Apple event even one at the local store. I have stood in line on several occasions for hours. The line would snake around the shopping mall. Mac people are friendly and all events are fun. They bring their iBooks or PowerBooks and see who can connect to the Internet using the Apple store's wireless Airport connection. I never thought I would need the wireless connection until recently.

Let's get back to the Keynote speech.

Steve Jobs lead his congregation down the software path. First, iMovie 3.0, iDvd 3, iPhoto 2.0, iTunes 3, have all been upgraded and integrated to complete a multimedia package that is as easy as it is fun. Alleluia. Now you can click and drag your music files to you iPhoto images, you can adjust the music in iMovie and click on a button to send your video to iDVD. iPhoto allows you to fix your image with a mouse click. Do I hear teeth chattering from Adobe. The Retouch wand tool destroys blemishes. Alleluia, iDVD has cool looking DVD menu templates that made me jealous. I particularly liked the Sports template, which by dragging your video clip in the window it becomes synched to the built-in music. Too Cool. So easy. To top this off the 3 of the programs are free downloads, iPhoto, iMovie, and iTunes. The last app, iDVD will coast 49.00. However, you can get all of the software in the package. Of course, the name for these multimedia applications is iLife. People with slow connections don't have to be frustrated when trying to download.

Steve with his usual enthusiasm unveiled a new browser called Safari for OS 10. (Operating system called Jaguar, browser Safari. Hmm I see a pattern.) Safari is a browser in development. I downloaded it and found it was twice as fast as Internet explorer but I got an error asking me to enable JavaScript when I tried to check my email on Hotmail.com. When I checked Preferences, JavaScript was enabled. Apple provides a bug button that sends the web address immediately to Apple. I would like to see other companies use this logical feature.

Keynote, named after Steve Job's keynote addresses, is a presentation software program. The text has antialiasing. Clean sharp text and resizing is a breeze. Keynote can create charts and tables, layer images or the text and change the opacity, which creates dazzling slides. You can use Keynote templates, or, create your own. My nickname is PowerPoint Queen at school. I take a lot of ribbing for this. In fact, recently I read in my local Sunday newspaper that PowerPoint Presentations are destroying our language and could be the reincarnation of Satan himself. I can't wait for Keynote especially because I can import all my PowerPoint Presentations into Keynote. Then, I can be called Keynote Connie. The best part-$99.00 cost.

We are getting down to the best part of Steve Jobs presentation. Final Cut Express. A trimmed down cheaper version of Final Cut Pro that is comparable to Adobe Premiere. Do I hear shaking in boots? Final Cut Express can create professional looking videos for a fraction of the cost of its Granddaddy. It can even do Real-Time preview effects, import layers from PhotoShop, Real-Time audio mixing and audio effects, Voice Over video clips, exports to DVD Studio Pro and makes iDVD chapter markers. Final Cut Express looks like a winner to me.

Where would the MacWorld Expo be with out introducing a new computer? Introducing the PowerBook G4 12 inch 4.6 lbs. active matrix screen encased in an aluminum case instead of the Titanium. Souped up like a hot rod, the PowerBook can use the new Airport Extreme that moves data 5 times faster than the old Airport, has a built in Bluetooth connection that connects digital devices seamlessly, a 867 MHz processor named Velocity Engine, 40GB Hard Drive, 5 hour battery life, Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go graphics processor with 32MB of DDR SDRAM that makes 3D graphics move into high gear, built in VGA, S-Video and composite video signals. That means dual monitor capabilities. Also, you can connect your TV and watch your favorite programs on the PowerBook. Its size is perfect to carry in a backpack. Price $1799, $1999 if you include the Superdrive.

If this PowerBook is David, the next one is Goliath. That's right it is huge, 17 "1440-by-900 pixels screen, weighing in at 6.8 pounds, thin, light, 4.5 hours of battery life, Superdirve burns CD's and DVD's, Firewire 800 that moves data at twice bandwidth of Firewire 400, two Firewire connections, built in 54Mbps AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth Sync, 1GHz processor, 256K level 2 cache, 60 GB Hard Drive, 512 MB memory which can be upgraded to 1GB, same Nvidia GeForce4 440 GO Processor same as the 12 inch Powerbook and audio in. It is priced at $3299. Did I mention the keyboard? It lights up. In fact it is light sensor controlled.

While I was at the Apple store several PowerBook owners downloaded Safari from the wireless Airports all over the store. I knew at that moment my next toy would be the airport card. Apple started a ergonomical and 'rejection of the grey box' revolution in computers - and now their begining to take back the multimedia industry. The recent news out of Macworld is only the latest developments in the huge effort - Apple is making to make it easier and easier for the home consumer to do video.