N.K.Love

answer: Jets !

One group who ought to be giving a real good Grandpa Spaulding rant right about now are Senior Citizens, over the whole Medicare/Medicaid shakeup.

The way my situation looks now, to get this new browser I need I gotta upgrade my system. Then I have to install and update all kinds of software to do this other project I want. By the time all that's on my computer, I probably won't have the Hard Drive space left to actually DO the length of project I have in mind, so (as I understand) I gotta buy an external drive or else a whole new computer.

Life is SO unfair....

God is in the machine --- and He commands that we serve Him.

Uhmmm...I hope God enters into this somewhere. It's the true story of what's occupied my time and mind lately, "submitted for your approval"--no, really, just posted as an example of how a simple nice thought can degenerate into a strangling tangle of technology! Ray Bradbury could get at least one great story out of this; I can only present the facts:

It started out as a simple amateur videotape...I just wanted to add a few "nice touches"....

I've had so many questions, many of which have been answered by kind souls online. Those which remain are marked "Question" and numbered.

Long, long background explanation of my project:

My video camera is a Sony Handycam Video Hi8 CCD-TRV138 which shoots 8mm cassette tape.  It came with all sorts of "simple, easy" instructions on connecting to a computer and getting material in and out which made me all hopeful, until alas!  I read the fine print and found they had made the manual with instructions for both models, and those applied only to the digital model, which I didn't get!

By the time I figured this out, we'd shot nine hours' worth of footage of a number of different rehearsals and performances of a three-hour theatrical production. I aimed to have a finished product four hours long, being the best segments edited together into the complete three-hour performance, plus an hour of highlights and extras, which I intended to put on two two-hour VHS tapes which I would then give to a friend to duplicate for whoever wants them.  I bought the highest-quality videotape I could find anywhere.

THEN (perhaps the fatal step!) I decided to make titles (Showing off! As no tapes of any of our previous productions had titles or even editing!), which I created on iMovie. Then I found my camera DIDN'T connect to my Macintosh after all, which is a Mac G4 using OSX Version 10.2.8. What's more, my disk drive did not respond to the blank DVD I got from my friend, as it's only a Combo Drive, not a SuperDrive, meaning it plays DVDs but won't burn them.

"No problem." I purchased a Canopus ADVC 110 converter and a LaCie DVD +/- RW 16x4x16x Double Layer FireWire DVD burner. Now that I had the Canopus, I could also import clips to iMovie, have music on my titles, and do some fancy editing on my outtakes, but--

I STILL can't do the "simple job" of exporting the finished project to my video camera because it won't connect to the Canopus!

"No problem." I figure, I have the DVD burner now, when I'm done with all this fancy editing I'll export the whole thing to DVD.

The player on which I hope to play any eventual DVDs and record the VHS tape is a Philips Digital Video Disc Player and Video Cassette Recorder #DVP620VR/17.  It will record from DVD to VHS but not the other way around.  Now, I haven't read the instructions (one struggle at a time!) but I *assume* that you press "Play" on the DVD player, then "Record" on the VCR at the point where you want to start recording, and it records what you're playing--I HOPE!  I'm not up for any more complicated surprises! So my PLAN was to make this DVD (of the titles and other complicated stuff, perhaps amounting to 10-15 minutes' worth of a four-hour project), play it on the DVD player, and record it on the VCR portion of the same machine in the appropriate portions of each tape, dubbing the rest of the material directly onto the tape from the video camera.

I was temporarily thrown by learning that you CAN'T just play the material in iMovie and record it to DVD--there has to be an intermediate step such as iDVD or Toast. I had iDVD 2.1 on my Mac but it wouldn't work without the SuperDrive. Then someone told me to check whether the LaCie DVD burner came with Toast. I looked and IT DOES have Toast! Toast 6.0 Lite came included with the DVD burner! HALLELUJAH for ONE PIECE of good news!

Problem over? Not quite! For one, all the people who helped me even reach this stage (which has STILL not resulted in ANY DVD) are now urging me to put the WHOLE PROJECT on DVD and I'm starting to listen to them, as I've had a bit of a change of heart. Not about making the VHS tapes, but about using them as the Master, because the friend to whom I'm giving the project to duplicate has to make at least 40 copies, which means running my originals through his equipment at least that many times in real time, which I'm thinking could be a real wear on VHS tapes which I've been through two months of agony to produce, and still don't have.

So I ask:

1. Even with iDVD and/or Toast, is there NO WAY to get around running all the video through iMovie?

2.  Since iMovie gives out before two hours is up, (I don't have near that much in there but other users assure me it does) MUST I divide EVERY PROJECT into (at least) two (sections or parts), and then use iDVD and/or Toast to reassemble the material into one two-hour block? The reason I ask is that even for the end result of this project, let alone many I plan to do after this, (I want to transfer a whole bunch of home movies from 8mm videocassette tape and VHS tape to DVD) I will NEED to make DVDs two hours in length! So, one continuous session of video is necessary as it's been said that DVDs are NOT multi-session, so the whole thing has to be done in one go? Did I correctly understand the nature of this ordeal?

I don't want to lose the work I already put into the titles and editing (which, be well assured, is FAR LESS than the time I've spent online at forums asking all these questions) but WITH ALL MY HEART I DON'T WANT TO RUN THE WHOLE DARN FOUR HOURS THROUGH iMOVIE! Here I received a second bit of good news...up to a point: I can (with the equipment I have!) proceed with my original plan to make the SHORT DVD and use it, the VCR/DVD combo, and my video camera to produce the four hours of video. AND I can use the VCR/DVD combo, connected to my Canopus ADVC 110 Digital Video Converter (remember that?), to run the whole thing STRAIGHT TO TOAST to make to DVD, do not pass iMovie, do not collect $200.00.

The people I was asking said if I don't have sufficient empty Hard Drive space I can't make a two-hour DVD anyway. So I found this information on my Hard Drive:

Hard Drive Info
Kind:  Volume
Format:  Mac OS Extended
Capacity:  57.26 GB
Available:  36.3 GB
Used:  20.96 GB on disk (22,508,593,152 bytes)

So they told me I BARELY have room to run a two-hour project as it is.

"No problem." I thought, I will toss all the garbage off my Hard Drive and have all sorts of space!

This is what it read after I threw out every possible thing I thought I could spare and that it would let me discard:

Available: 36.32 GB
Used: 20.94 GB on disk (22,486,904,832 bytes)

That's not much of a difference, is it? Rats.

What's more, I have ordered Mac OSX 10.3 software with which I will upgrade to 10.3.9 to put in all this high-tech stuff I need.  But, as that's more advanced, I assume it will take up MORE Hard Drive space than I'm using now?  (As I'll be upgrading to a higher version of Mac OSX, and adding a browser without removing my current browsers)? Not to mention, to make a two-hour DVD I will need Toast 7, so that will have to be upgraded, as will my version of Quicktime to run with Toast 7. My version of iMovie is 3.0.3 and SO FAR I have not heard that that has to upgraded.

Question: (Actual Question #1): DOES iMovie need to be at a higher number than 3.0.3 to work with Toast 7? Since once I change to Toast 7 I won't be going back, and I don't need any more surprises, please lay all the bad news on me now so when I place my order for equipment, software, or whatnot I can get it ALL OVER WITH AT ONE FELL BLOW!

I'm asking advice at every forum for every product involved in this process that I can find.

LaCie doesn't have message boards, but Roxio, the company which makes Toast, has a Discussion Forum. They let me register all right but are putting me through the Seven Tortures of Hades trying to log in. I have emailed every administrator listed on the board, maybe I'll get an answer from a human being.

Question (Actual Question #2): Since Toast 6.0 Lite came with my LaCie DVD burner, do I (once I register it) qualify for the same rebate as a previous Toast user when I buy Toast 7 as if I had bought Toast 6 by itself? Or does this way "not count" and I have to pay full price for Toast 7?

(Right now it's beginning to look as if I do qualify for the rebate. So I can get a lousy 20 bucks back after spending $300 or $400 or whatever it ends up being.)

Question (Actual Question #3): How best can I enhance my Hard Drive space? I understand there are internal and external drives available. I'd love an internal one as every single USB and FireWire port on my Mac are taken up with all these devices, not to mention all the space around my Mac is being used up housing them--with all the cubbyholes I am having to build it's reminding me of "Why I Built the Boogle House," if you're familiar with that classic children's book by Helen Palmer--but if for some reason an external drive is better I am open to that.

Thanks for any advice and help you may come up with while I am:

1. Doing the rest of the editing in iMovie and
2. Doing my best to connect, upgrade, etc., etc., all these necessary hardware and software devices!

(It was such a beautiful idea....)

I can only imagine your pain, dandelion. One happy thought though. As Ray has no interest in computers, he will probably never have to worry about this sort of thing.

Him and my mom. She says, "I don't wanna mess with that stuff." (She is glad of the interesting items I find online, though.)

“’Tis a puzzlement.”

Glad news! The old car is no more, at least, I don't know what's to become of it. I released it with no qualms. Got a $750.00 trade-in on it, way more than it was worth, for a new car, a sleek and shiny frequenter of the future. My friend and I achieved great results through torturing a car salesman for three days. Most fun I've had in ever so long.

Things that should be thrown into the ravine: the first gas station where I stopped with my BRAND NEW SHINY CAR had this pillar made out of really rough jagged faux brick concrete blocks RIGHT between the pumps! I had to be REALLY careful opening the door. Wonder if whoever built it was paid off by auto body shops, to repair all the scratched and dented car doors?

Surest sign "it's comin'" (advertising everywhere, as in "Fahrenheit 451"): the window that usually just gives how much gas you're putting in had a window next to it showing ads while you're there pumping gas! They were moving, but at least silent...for now.

Any other ominous signs that the future is upon us, post below.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,