XLR8 InterView 2 and Global Village VideoFX

By: Kirk Hiner and Bill Stiteler

InterView 2

Developer: XLR8 by Interex

Minimum Requirements: 233MHz G3, 100MB free hard drive space (estimated for video capture), 20MB free RAM, USB compatibility (a USB/PCI model is available), Mac OS 8.6, QuickTime 3.0, latest firmware updates for iMacs and translucent G3s.

Retail Price: $99.00

Availability: Now

VideoFX

Developer: Global Village

Minimum Requirements: Any new Power Macintosh G3 or G4, iMac, iBook or Macintosh with an available USB port, 15MB free hard drive space (plus up to 4MB per minute of recorded video), 32MB free RAM, Mac OS 8.6 or later, 800 x 600 monitor supporting 16-bit color, and 16-bit sound capability. Some third party software included may have different system requirements

Retail Price: $119.00

Availability: Now

Ever since Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he's been taking flak for some of his decisions. Getting rid of ADB ports, causing Mac owners to buy USB gear or converters. Scratching the floppy drive, causing people to buy Zip drives and such. Making long term Mac users actually pay money for products, instead of giving them away as a treat for buying Macs during the Dark Days; "Dark Days" being defined as the period when people bought Macs out of loyalty, by gum, in addition to the fact that they were elegant, reliable, intuitive pieces of equipment.

It's a conspiracy, you see.

Another one of Steve-o's (we can call him that, we're pretty tight) criticized calls was the that the use of iMovie be restricted to digital video cameras equipped with FireWire (both very expensive options), instead of utilizing the much, much cheaper option of VHS video cameras and USB.

Fortunately, XLR8 and Global Village now allow you to do just that with their InterView 2 and VideoFX Capture Suite, respectively. Fortunately for Steve Jobs, that is, as one of these is a really, really bad product. The other? Well, it's no FireWire.

We don't like giving bad reviews, but really, Global Village left us no choice. To begin with, our review copy didn't come with a USB cable. That's right, we were unable to use the product out of the box. We thought it was a mistake, but now we realize it was a not-so-subtle attempt to keep us from actually using the product. Perhaps, they thought, we were like music reviewers for one of those one-word Bob Guiccione Jr. magazines ("Spin," "Maxim," "Gear," "Crotch") and we'd review the product after simply looking at the package and reading the liner notes. Too bad for them, because the product does look good.

No wait, let me rewrite that sentence...

The product's packaging is not repugnant to the human soul.

There. We just don't want a pull-quote with the Applelinks logo splashed on this thing.

Anyway, for your $120 you get several cables, a CD with editing software and the VideoFX Connection hub, a piece of plastic about the size of a credit card, which you use to connect your VHS video camera to the Mac's USB port. It's really amazing to think that this little piece of plastic can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on a digital video camera. It was also really amazing to think that tying a tablecloth around your neck would allow you to fly. Live and learn.

XLR8's InterView 2.0, although not scoring as highly on appearance, fared well with accessories. The product ships with only two cables. The first is the video capture cable, USB on one end and both S-video and composite video on the other, giving you the option for video input (especially nice for DVD players). The other cable is the stereo audio adapter which plugs directly into the sound input jack in the back of your Mac. The problem with this is that the RCA component plugs are both female. Every component source we connected to the InterView, a Sony Hi-8 camcorder, Magnavox HiFi VCR and Sony DVD player all had female ends as well, meaning we had to connect the devices with a separate patch cable. If you don't have one handy, that's an unnecessary trip to Radio Shack (of course, aren't all trips to Radio Shack unnecessary?).

Back to VideoFX. You hook everything up, install the software, hit "play" on your camcorder, and begin to import your magnum opus, "A Bunch of My Friends at the Park Telling Me How Much They Don't Want Their Picture Taken." Calling the import "lossy" would be like saying the Titanic experienced "leakage" or that Star Wars Episode I was "disappointing." Trying to import a prerecorded segment, the on-screen playback spent more time in a blurry freeze-frame than actually playing at the 320x240 maximum import resolution. After failing to get any sort of acceptable results with a prerecorded segment, we set the camera to live broadcasting and aimed it at a wall while making sounds in the background...it still froze!

InterView had its share of troubles as well, but in a different area. Hooking up the equipment and installing the software (Interview 2 and Strata VideoShop 4.5) was quite simple, and the computer had no trouble finding the video signal. It did, however, have trouble finding the sound. When the computer was booted with the InterView USB chord plugged in, the Sound Control Panel got whacked out, leaving us with no input options. At XLR8's suggestion, we trashed all related files and preferences (including the Sound Control Panel's) and reinstalled. This time we were able to access the input section of the Control Panel, but we still couldn't change the setting. Therefore, we were forced to preview and digitize the clips in silence, but the audio was present when editing...only not through USB speakers. Quite simply, and annoyingly, if the InterView was plugged in, the speakers wouldn't work. If we rebooted without the InterView plugged in, they did.

Neither product allows you to import directly to the desktop, where you might have some hope of working with it in iMovie. With VideoFX, you have to use the Video Capture Suite. And given the choice between trying to edit a movie in VideoImpression or say, trying to install Windows 2000 with a network printer on an Apple IIe, we'd have to think about it for a while. VideoImpression is to desktop film editing what, say, Moses is to desktop film editing. We've never had so much trouble navigating an interface with only three buttons.

XLR8, on the other hand, licensed Strata VideoShop 4.5 for InterView 2. So although you're forced to use it to capture the video (also at a maximum resolution of 320x240), it's not nearly as abrasive as VideoImpression. Sadly, for ease of use, it's no iMovie. Happily, for capabilities, it's no iMovie. VideoShop is a quite powerful program that is far too complex to get into here, but we will say this; if you purchase InterView, purchase plenty of paper as well. This package contains only a PDF manual for VideoShop, and you're going to need it. All of it.

Of course, should you want to, you can still use iMovie to edit video captured with either device. Simply save the movie in a format that can be viewed by QuickTime Pro, then use it to export the movie to DV. Open iMovie and create a new project, then save it and close iMovie. Copy your newly digitized movie into the Media folder in the iMovie project folder, then open the iMovie project. iMovie will find the "stray clip" and tell you that it will load it on the shelf. And there you have it.

VideoFX also tries to push itself as a tool for organizing and editing your photos (which can imported at a maximum resolution of 1600x1200), and indeed, this is the only bright spot in the whole debacle, if only because these two pieces of software actually do what they say they will. PhotoStudio includes several Photoshop-like tools to help you crop and clean up your pictures, but for every nice thing you get in PhotoStudio, shareware like Graphic Converter offers you about ten more, and costs a lot less.

Although InterView offers still capture capabilities (up to 640x480 24 Bit on NTSC and 768x576 24 Bit PAL, both lagging tremendously behind VideoFX's capabilities), the goodies instead focus on the video. Included with the package is XLR8 WebCleaner which automatically optimizes your videos for web use, in theory. We wouldn't know, because every time we tried to switch the compression method to Motion JPEG A for web streaming, it froze the system. Also included is XLR8 Theater, a program that basically turns your monitor into a TV. With it, you can watch video from your input source, whether it be video tape, television, camcorder, etc. at full resolution. Well, provided you don't have the audio problems we did. Otherwise, better stick with the Keystone Cops or Mariah Carey videos, which are actually much better without sound.

And finally, we'll now take this opportunity point out that neither device allows you to export the video back to tape. Nope, that's not what these programs were designed to do, and that's not what USB was designed to do. Instead, InterView and VideoFX were made as low cost methods of getting video off an analog device and onto the web or a CD. InterView does a decent enough job, despite some major sound glitches and bus errors. The VideoShop software is powerful, but complicated, and suffers from the lack of a printed manual. Heck, we could have also used a tutorial on the various compression methods and other intricacies of working with video. The WebCleaner is nice for automating this, but we're the type who like to know what's happening behind the scenes.

VideoFX, on the other hand...frankly, we're stunned. Global Village was for us the Cadillac of computer peripheral makers, if only because we knew we could depend on them to make quality Macintosh merchandise. Now this. If you want a conspiracy theory, check this out: One of the most trusted names in Mac manufacturing makes an absolutely wretched combination of hardware and software to demonstrate to the world that Steve Jobs was right, and that while USB may be nice for keyboards and Zips, if you want real video, manly video, you have to go FireWire. Or at least wait for the next major upgrade to VideoFX. Certainly Global Village can't make this mistake twice.

And as for giving away free computers to reward loyalty; Bill here bought a 5200 on an Apple Computer Loan. The line forms behind him.

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