Random Video Question of the Day:

This was sent to me by email from a fellow co-worker,
who knows I'm a mac guy and a video enthusiast:

"I have a non-work related question for you when you 
have time.  
My niece has a Mac at home and is trying to the get videos
off of her Sony video camera.  
It came with Windows software but not Mac software.  
She wants to be able to get the videos off the camera onto
her Mac and then probably put them onto DVDs.  
The camera records to internal memory or a hard drive, 
so there are no tapes or  CD/DVD on the camera itself.  
It is a Sony model DCR-SX63.  
I was able to plug a USB cable from the camera to the Mac 
and get access to the videos.  
It looks like it records them in .mpg files.


Do you have any ideas of what would be easiest way for her 
to get the videos off?  She is willing to buy software 
or something if she needs to."

Here's my answer:

" Yes, the DCR-SX63 Sony Camera records to internal flash memory,
as many post 2008 model cameras do.

It allows the camera to be mounted like a USB drive, as you have found out,
& from there, the videos can be extracted
( copied ) to the Computer's HD ( desktop).

http://guide.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/mac/ms/us/

This often happens with manufacturers like Sony and Coby who cater
to only Windows and not to Mac.
( Mac friendly camera makers are JVC, Samsung, Canon, and Panasonic)

They tie everything proprietary to two technologies : Windows and USB 2.0.

Mac Friendly Camera makers will have FW ports on their cameras,
and will work with Apple on driver Specs.

But to answer your question, yes you are doing everything "right" so far with this camera.

Your steps in using video recorded with this camera are going to be as follows:

1. Attach the Camera to the mac via USB, thus mounting it like a MS-DOS external HD.

2. Copy off the videos recorded to it to the Mac's desktop.

3. Go to the Apple Website and buy this $20 plug in:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D2187Z/A?mco= MTY3ODQ5OTY

4. Install as it says to do so after purchase.

5. Go to this website and then download this software: http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/MPEG_Streamclip_1.9.2. dmg

6. Install it after downloading.

7. Use the application (MpegSteamclip) which will now work
because you bought the $20 plugin to open the files from
the camcorder copied to the Mac Desktop.

The files will now open, and you can then edit them and
then export them to .DV files.

8. Open iDVD, ( Free, came with the Mac) and then drag and drop
the .dv files into iDVD. From there, you can burn them off to DVD."

Monday Mac App Toolbox: MKVTools

MKV, or Mastroka Video, is a pain for Mac users.
Although the adoption of it has merit :
open-source, ability to contain within it
HD (High Definition) Video and Audio, as well
as subtitles, it is often a piece of work to get it
into a usuable format if you want to use part of it
in an Final Cut Pro or iMovie sequence.
Tried and true converters such as MpegStreamclip
and Quicktime Player often choke
( even with Perian installed on the system),
usually on trying to decode everything that is in the container,
instead of just focusing on what is needed.

Rather than go through the hassle of trying to use MKV as it is,
I find that I'd rather get the video into a format that I use,
and then go from there. To facilitate that, I often turn to
MKVTools.

MKVTools is developed by my good friend
emmgunn, enables you to drag and drop a MKV file onto it,
and from there, you are presented with options to flatten the
file down by embedding subtitles, and even
transcoding the file into another format,
such as XVID for video and mp3 for audio.

This is what I tend to do, by transcoding it to another file,
I get it into a more compatible format like XVID
and the audio into mp3, which makes it less labor
intensive to decode and enable playback in
Quicktime and MpegStreamclip ( but not VLC,
which handles mkvs much easier for playback, but not editing).

Once it is in an .avi container ( or .mp4),
I can then open this file in MpegStreamclip,
and scrub through it pretty easily, getting the
pieces I want here or there, and exporting them
from there to DV stream, for ingestion into iMovie,
FCE or FCP.

Or if I happen to have a file that I'd rather just be able to watch
at my leisure, I'll keep the .avi ( or .mp4) file that is generated
by MKVTools, and watch that on my HTMac, or encode it
for direct watching on my iPod ( or an Apple TV).

It is the #1 tool I turn to for getting mkv files into easier
to handle formats.
But what if you have an .mkv that is stubborn and chokes
MKVTools ability to transcode it into something useful?

Tune in to tomorrow's Tech Tip Tuesday, where I'll talk about
two ways to get around heavy problem mkv's to get something
useful for your video productions.