Movie Tips on Mac

By all accounts, Nikon has a great year in 2011, topping both the DSLR and compact camera charts. After launching two new models at the very top of its line-up already this year, Nikon has now refreshed its beginner offering with the D3200. There’s lots of interesting technology crammed into the relatively small body of the D3200, including things which have trickled down from its more expensive bodies. Those include features such as the Expeed 3 processing engine, which promises to deliver quicker processing times, low noise and different frame rates for the full HD video recording.

As yous see, the Nikon D3200 is great for us to take high quality images and record full HD videos. it can help us record vivid high-definition videos in H.264 .mov format. MOV files is widely used in Nikon (Nikon D7000, Nikon D800), Panasonic and Canon (like the Canon 5D Mark series) high-end DSLR cameras, it is good to record videos, but MOV files are not easy to use because many editing software and devices can’t read MOV videos, such as Apple Final Cut Pro X, iMovie, etc. continue reading…

As you see, the Samsung Galaxy Note is able to playback HD video in 1080p. It is really a tiny entertainment device to watch movies on the go. Of course, most of you are not pay ridiculous prices to watch the movies and TV shows we already own on Blu-ray. Instead, we can rip those Blu-ray discs to a Galaxy Note friendly format along with some help from some help a 3rd-party tool. Here I am sharing my experience to help those who wanna download and put Blu-ray movies onto Samsung Galaxy Note via Mac OS X.

First, the most important piece of the equation is that you have a Blu-ray Ripping tool hooked to your Mac. Most of you are likely familiar with the excellent Handbrake, however, it cannot yet decrypt the Blu-Ray discs the way it can with regular DVDs, so you’ll need to add an intermediate step. If you’re looking for ease of use, and don’t mind spending $40 (they currently have a sale), I’ve had success using Pavtube’s Blu-ray Ripper for Mac to convert Blu-Ray discs to a format playable by Samsung Galaxy Note. I’ve found the quality to be excellent, and see almost no difference when compared to playing the discs themselves. Below is a brief guide for you better convert and play Blu-ray movies on Samsung Galaxy Note. continue reading…

Ostensibly designed to appeal to first-time DSLR buyers and enthusiasts, the Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i / Kiss X4 Digital) offers a lot more technology. Central to the impressive specification of the EOS 550D is a high-spec movie mode which offers full HD capture at up to 30 fps, manual control over exposure, and the option to use an external stereo microphone. Video is an absolute highlight of the EOS 550D / T2i and it’s wonderful to have this degree of control in a camera.

All of these are great, till you find it is a problem importing the recorded H.264 MOV footages to Final Cut Pro for editing. Even the raw video could be successfully loaded to FCP, the film will looks quite jumpy. Generally the H.264 is a delivery codec rather than editing code. To get those Canon 550D/T2i videos work flawlessly in Final Cut Pro without rendering time, you need to transcode the video to a format more friendly for FCP, for instance, Apple ProRes 422 codec.

If you have used your Canon 550D / T2i recorded many MOV videos and wanna transfer them into Final Cut Pro for editing smoothly on Mac, it’s good to convert the H.264 to QuickTime MOV, but the best choice is to encode Canon Canon 550D / T2i video to Apple ProRes format, beacause Apple ProRes codec is best supported by Final Cut Pro on Mac. If you’re looking for ease of use yet professional tool, I’ve had success using Pavtube’s Video Converter for Mac to convert Canon T2i mov to FCP native format – Apple ProRes 422. If you’re interested in doing likewise, check out the Mac MOV to ProRes Transcoder for Final Cut Pro. continue reading…

Canon always gives us surprises with its great and creative camera or camcorder products. Among all the products of Canon, the EOS C300 seems to be the most attractive one. The C300 can help us record vivid high-definition videos in MXF format which is often used in Sony, Panasonic and canon high-end cameras and camcorders. The MXF format is good to record videos, but MXF files are not easy to use because many editing software and devices can’t read MXF format videos, such as Apple’s Final Cut Pro 6 or 7 or above. So how to solve the problem and make Final Cut Pro support Canon C300 MXF videos for editing?

The Final Cut Pro (FCP) is announced to support many video formats including AVCHD (MTS/M2TS), MOV, MP4, etc. However, the MXF video format is not included, as a result of which, we can not directly load Canon C300 MXF recordings to FCP 6/7 for editing. Since the Final Cut Pro does not read C300 files natively, the best solution is to encode MXF files to Apple ProRes 422 for Final Cut Pro.

If you have the same problem about editing C300 MXF Videos in Final Cut Pro 6/7, you may follow the step-by-step guide. continue reading…

The Android-powered jumbo phone Samsung Galaxy Note has gained a lot of attention for its 5.3-inch display and a stylus, making it look more like a tablet than a phone. With a high resolution (up to 1080p) and a long battery life, the android-based tabletphone is really amazing for watching movies on the go. However, things turn to be different if you ever tried to sync and play iTunes purchased contents on Galaxy Note. Then how to download iTunes videos, movies and TV shows to Galaxy Note via Mac so that you can enjoy the videos on the go? Don’t fret! Here I am sharing my experience to help those who feel like transferring iTunes videos to Samsung Galaxy Note from Mac.

As you see, the M4V movies/TV shows/videos purchased from iTunes store are protected by using Apple’s FairPlay DRM copyright protection which prevents you from playing the videos on non-Apple products. Unfortunately the Android based devices have not get a license to play DRM contentets, which means iTunes movies will not even play on Galaxy Note.

To have the full access and control of your iTunes movies, you need to get rid of DRM and convert iTunes movies to a Galaxy Note friendly format along with some help from a mac DRM Removal Software. If you’re looking for ease of use, and don’t mind spending $29, I’ve had success using Pavtube’s ChewTune for Mac to convert iTunes m4v to a format playable by Samsung Galaxy Note. I’ve found the quality to be excellent, and see no difference when compared to playing the iTunes videos themselves. Just download it and follow the step-by-step guide below to learn how to convert iTunes purchased movies to Samsung Galaxy Note. continue reading…

As the successor to the enormously popular EOS 5D Mark II, Canon’s EOS 5D Mark III has a lot to live up to. For a start, the Canon EOS 5D builds on the success of this full-frame DSLR. Then came its replacement, the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which kick-started the current trend for shooting video on a DSLR. But most users will bothered by one problem. When they want to ingest Canon EOS 5D Mark III 1080p MOV files to Final Cut Pro for editing on Mac, they will hit a snag in the form of a “contains unsupported media… invalid directory” error. You can import your files with Log and Transfer but you have to back up the ENTIRE CARD STRUCTURE from the beginning.

So how to import Canon 5D Mark III video into Final Cut Pro without crashing problem and avoid rendering? If you looking for a solution for this problem likewise, check out Pavtube’s Video Converter for Mac, a top Mac Canon MOV to FCP Converter. It supports converting Canon 5DM3 1080p MOV files to Apple ProRes 422(HQ) (*mov) so that you can easily import the converted ProRes to Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Pro 6, Final Cut Pro 7 and new Final Cut Pro X for editing on Mac. This will help you import the file correctly and saving the rendering time. Below is how.

Steps – Convert/Transcode Canon EOS 5D Mark III MOV footages to Apple ProRes for FCP on Mac OS X continue reading…

The lastest iteration of Apple TV 2012 (Apple TV 3rd generation) looks and acts exactly like the previous model. That difference is its support for native 1080p video which makes you get the capacity that streaming 1080p HD movies and TV shows your buy on the iTunes store for enjoying on your 65-inch HDTV. With prorer DVD Ripping software, you can even back up DVDs into Apple TV 3 optimized HD videos without much quality loss. While enjoying DVD rips on Apple TV 3 with stunning HD image quality, many folks are having problem with audio, in specific, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. Don’t fret! The following guide aims to guide you through DVD to Apple TV 3 conversion with Dolby Digital AC3 5.1 sounds.

There are many programs out there that allow you to make copies of your DVDs and let you watch them the way you want to view them. If you’re looking for ease of use, and don’t mind spending $30 (they currently have a sale), I’ve had success using Pavtube’s Mac DVD Ripper for Apple TV to convert DVD discs to a format playable by Apple TV 3 and iTunes. I’ve found the quality to be excellent, and see no difference when compared to playing the discs themselves.

The app is a tool which makes you easy to either watch or encode DVD, DVD ISO/IFO to Apple TV format in an Apple-like way. It can help you rip and convert DVD to Apple TV 3 720p M4V video while maintaining 5.1 surround on Mac. Better off, the new preset exports HD video with 2 audio tracks- both Dolby Digital 5.1 and AAC stereo audio will be retained, so that Apple TV could pass-through Dolby Digital to A/V receiver for reproduction of surround sound, and export AAC stereo when going without surround sound system. continue reading…

Linking seamlessly with Amazon’s impressive collection of digital music, video, magazine, and book services in one easy-to-use package, the Kindle Fire is a 7-inch Android-based Tablet. If you’ve taken Kindle Fire for a few road trips, you will find it really rocks for watching movies. However, something may come out if you tried to play iTunes purchased contents on Kindle Fire. The problem with iTunes is that DRM attaches to purchased iTunes movies and TV shows doesn’t allow non-authorized devices(Android included) to play. But don’t fret! Here I’m sharing my experience to help those who feel like transferring iTunes videos to Kindle Fire for enjoying as you want.

As you see, most of the TV episodes, movies, and music videos from iTunes are protected by using Apple’s FairPlay DRM copyright protection. So the most important piece of the equation is that you have a DRM removal software hooked to your Mac or Windows which strips DRM from iTunes. I’m not about to pay ridiculous prices to buy movies and TV shows for Kindle Fire I already own on iTunes. Instead, I’ll just convert these iTunes m4v movies to a Kindle Fire-friendly format. If you are interested in doing likewise, check out PavTube’s ChewTune, a top iTunes DRM movie Converter which can easily handle iTunes DRM-protected videos and Windows Media DRM contents included with the Blu-ray/DVD Digital Copies. And the playback of the converted videos is as decent as possible as original. Now follow the steps below to download iTunes videos onto Kindle Fire. continue reading…

The more I use the new Sony NEX-5n, the more I like it. One thing that really makes the NEX-5n stand out among competitors is the ability to capture HD video at 1080/60p. This makes for smooth motion. With the recent update of Final Cut Pro X, I was hoping that Apple would add support for 60P/50P AVCHD; however, seems it did not. As a result, working with video from cameras shooting 60p AVCHD 2.0 footage (like the Sony NEX-5n) brings a bit of a problem when importing the files from your camera.

The quick workaround is to rewrap the Sony NEX-5n AVCHD 1080/60p file to Quicktime files. As to keep the HD video quality and avoid rendering, I prefer the Apple ProRes codec instead of H.264. The ProRes file is not only works well with FCP X, but also works for FCP 7 and 6. So how to convert and transcode Sony NEX-5n AVCHD MTS/M2TS video files to Apple RroRes format on mac?

So to make FCP compatible with Sony NEX 5n videos, a third party converting tool is needed. If you’re interested in doing likewise, check out Pavtube’s Video Converter for Mac, a top Mac AVCHD to Final Cut Pro Converter for mac which is the good choice for you to convert 1080 60p and 50p AVCHD file to Final Cut Pro 6/7 Apple ProRes. continue reading…

TiVo is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. That way we could record what we was already paying for and watch shows when we had the time to watch them. Yeah Tivo has a monthly fee but it’s the principle of the thing! Besides, a new toy is cool and fun to play with. The biggest problem with Tivo was working out how to get the shows from the Tivo box to Apple TV 3 where I could watch them the way I wanted to.

The standard application for moving recordings from the Tivo box to the Mac is Roxio Toast. It’s what Tivo recommends and it’s what Hollywood has blessed. The problem with Toast is that DRM Tivo attaches to all recorded shows doesn’t allow any editing or transcoding of your recorded Tivo file. That’s when I started looking around for another way. What I found that worked best was an application called Pavtube Video Converter, a top Mac TiVo Converter for Apple TV 3.

The program packs perfect support for TiVo recordings as well as HD footages, Flash videos, General Video, QuickTime video(*.mov), etc. With the application, you can easily convert TiVo HD shows to iTunes compatible formats without quality loss for smoothly streaming with Apple TV 3, iPad/iPad 3, new iPad 3, iPhone 4S and other iOS devices. Follow the steps below to transfer TiVo recordings to Apple TV 3 with original HD quality under Mac. continue reading…