After years of trying to do my own home movie production (burning DVD's of my ever increasing numbers of camcorder tapes) on windows based machines, I finally took the leap and purchased an Apple. I discovered the ease of the apple interface when I purchased my first iPod. How easy to use iTunes, hence did some research into Apple and video editing then took the plunge. Have had the imac G5 now for 8 months and absolutely love it. It takes a little while to get used to how to do things, but what I found is that tasks are far simpler than using the windows platform. The OSX system is excellent and comes complete with all the tools I need. I have never had to reboot, reload the software and no blue screen! All regular experiences on my windows machines.
Safari: Excellent web browser.
Itunes: The simplest and most effective music management software I have used to date. Want to burn a compilation CD, no problem. All very easy to follow and to manage.
Iphoto: Again a very simple system for managing your digital photos, and so easy to email large size files of my many photos, so the inlaws don't complain about long down load times of the mails I send!
Mail: A breeze.
Imovie: what I bought it for. This must be the simplest piece of video editing software I have ever used. Just plug in your DV camera upload the film and edit. I can edit a 20-minute film in less than 20 minutes, with great titles, sound tracks, still photos and special effects. The software is very easy to follow and click and drag is the name of the game. You can produce a very high quality home video in next to no time and with your editing skills can be far more interesting than watching an hour of uncut footage straight from your camera. Response from people who have shown an interest in watching on of my movies has been one of amazement.
IDVD: Burns your production from straight onto DVD. Again it's a breeze.
I purchased the G5 with 512 RAM and a larger hard drive of 160GB. This is plenty powerful enough for my needs. To summarise, if you want to make the most of your CD collection, your digital camera, and your DV Video camera. This piece of kit will definitely enhance your digital lifestyle. Since purchasing I have taken more video and photos than ever. It is so easy to make the change, so much so my retired parents (60+) have just purchased an iBook and even they love its simplicity! Secondly it looks really cool, I even have it in my main living area and it is now a piece of the furniture. No sneaking off to the spare room hunched over a beige box anymore. I would advise you purchase a guidebook though to se you through your first couple of months. You some times have to refer how to do thing the easier way!
More details
Reliability
Excellent
Memory / capacity
Excellent
Range of Extra Features
Excellent
Instruction manual
Good
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
