Imovie for Windows and... new video camera

[ElDiabloConCaca]

I just don't see Apple taking a piece of software that works with dozens of cameras and, all of a sudden, allowing to only work with one camera.

[sinclair_tm]

and where is imovie for windows? if it was trying to be a fools joke, check your cal, your a day late.

[JetwingX]

My question is, has mi5moav ever made a response to anyone? I honestly don't ever remember seeing one.

[fryke]

I'm not really a fan of mi5moav's wild guesses either, but he's right about there not being any more Sony products in Apple's online store. At least for some countries, that seems to be true. I've just checked Switzerland's Apple Online Store, and sure enough, there's only Canon digital video cameras. However: The _reasons_ for that could be manifold, and those named by mi5moav are so far out that it makes me chuckle. And I think that's how one should take mi5moav's suggestions...

However: Let's just take this as a discussion on whether it would make _sense_ for Apple to create a digital video camera. Well, they've already _done_ the iSight, of course, but that's not the same thing. An Apple-designed video camera? Sounds good to me. Leveraging features off the camera and into iMovie? That's _quite_ surely how *I*'d do it if i were Apple. Apple's great with doing the good stuff in software and only the practical stuff in hardware. See iPod for reference. So the Apple "iCam HD" (or whatever) would basically just let you record (and play) video in HD quality. Not many settings etc. - you'd do the rest in software with iMovie or Final Cut.
I'd say Apple can only do this once HD becomes much cheaper, though. Video pros are not afraid of having a couple of features on their camera and certainly want to have a lot of control over the picture etc. They also want to be able to connect a lot of stuff to the cam while filming (I've just had one of my short stories turned into a short film and have seen what wonders a good camera-man does with his stuff, and he'd have _no_ fun using a white camera with only 4 buttons and a menu button...). So it's consumers. Therefore, the HD cam would have to be inexpensive. Cheap enough to lure at least 80% of those who actually _do_ make those family movies with video-cams now. Sure enough, Sony, Canon etc. will have similarly priced cameras - maybe even cheaper. But if Apple can produce a camera with an interface as easy as the iPod's, I'm pretty sure Apple could use the momentum of the iPod to create quite a few new customers for such an iCam HD and iMovie. I'd make it Mac-compatible only. And sell it with a Mac mini as a bundle to Windows users.

Of course, as I've said: I think it's not the time for inexpensive HD cams just _yet_. (And 1 MP is far from enough for HD, mi5moav.)

[Quietly]

Of course it could be thst Apple are clearing out all their camera stock before the launch of the 4k Red Camera later in the year

[Shookster]

Originally Posted by fryke

I'd say Apple can only do this once HD becomes much cheaper, though. Video pros are not afraid of having a couple of features on their camera and certainly want to have a lot of control over the picture etc. They also want to be able to connect a lot of stuff to the cam while filming (I've just had one of my short stories turned into a short film and have seen what wonders a good camera-man does with his stuff, and he'd have _no_ fun using a white camera with only 4 buttons and a menu button...). So it's consumers. Therefore, the HD cam would have to be inexpensive. Cheap enough to lure at least 80% of those who actually _do_ make those family movies with video-cams now. Sure enough, Sony, Canon etc. will have similarly priced cameras - maybe even cheaper. But if Apple can produce a camera with an interface as easy as the iPod's, I'm pretty sure Apple could use the momentum of the iPod to create quite a few new customers for such an iCam HD and iMovie. I'd make it Mac-compatible only. And sell it with a Mac mini as a bundle to Windows users.

Pros don't use iMovie anyway, so it would definitely be a consumer camera.

Originally Posted by fryke

Of course, as I've said: I think it's not the time for inexpensive HD cams just _yet_. (And 1 MP is far from enough for HD, mi5moav.)

1 MP would be enough for HD. 720p = 1280 x 720 = 921,600 ~ 1 MP. I think there's also a 1080x960 (or something like that) HD resolution available as well.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Eh, I just don't see Apple making a video camera.

The iPod came along to fill a gap -- the crop of MP3 players at the time the iPod was introduced was wide and varied, but none of them were very good at anything. The iPod came along to fill that niche -- we needed a good, high-quality MP3 player, and the iPod was the answer.

Video cameras, however, are a different story -- there are plenty of great video cameras out there, in a number of different price ranges. If Apple were to release a video camera, I would think it would be in answer to the fact that there weren't any good cameras out there -- which just isn't the case. Both Canon and Sony make excellent cameras, and there's enough of them to satisfy everyone from the novice to the professional.

I just don't see it happening... too many excellent cameras out there already.

[mi5moav]

Available in 6-8 weeks the new Quicktake will be priced about 699.99 and 999.99 1MB CCD with a 30GB HD or 60GB HD and 512 MB buffer memory. Works with Apple remote, cell phone sized flip forward screen, with image rotation, innovative tag film or film tag w/tagged search functionality.

No, I think there are only 7... so, a lot less than the 20 MP3 players they need to deal with. Yeh, I guess they could probably create a nice one for $299 that records to H.264. My Aiptek was only like $129 and records to MP4.

JVC
Sony
Samsung
Hitachi
Cannon
Sanyo
Panasonic