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Digital video editing is an ambitious goal for most desktop computer makers: Turning a system designed for word processing and e-mail into one suited for transforming tape into digital data requires a fast processor, gobs of storage, a high-speed interface, and appropriate software. Apple's latest PowerMac G4 includes all of those elements plus a DVD-Recordable drive so that you can distribute your movie masterpieces to the masses.

We tested a tower system with Apple's fastest processor, a 733-MHz G4, as well as 256MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, an integrated network adapter, integrated IEEE 1394 ports, a modem, and an NVidia GeForce2 MX-based graphics board (Apple has announced an NVidia GeForce3-based card and is taking orders for it at an extra $350, but the company doesn't know when they will be available).

The system also comes with Apple's SuperDrive, an all-in-one, Pioneer-manufactured drive that writes to DVD-R discs at 2X speed, writes to CD-Recordable at 8X, and writes to CD-Rewritable at 4X speed. (Note: The X rating in reference to DVD drives equals 1.38 megabytes per second, while the X rating in reference to CD drives equals 0.15 MBps.) The drive cannot rewrite DVD discs, but it can read DVD-ROM discs at 6X speed and CD-ROMs at 24X speed. Apple sells a five-pack of DVD-R discs for $50.

Apple is one of the first system vendors to offer this drive (Compaq's the other). Until now, the drive has cost between $4000 and $5000 on its own. The drive's main appeal is that it can burn DVD video files that can be read by any stand-alone DVD-ROM player, not just by computers with DVD-ROM drives.

The damage: $3499 for the system alone; a matching 17-inch monitor with an excellent Diamondtron tube costs $499 extra. You don't get any office applications, or even any speakers. You can get the 733-MHz processor with a CD-RW drive instead of the SuperDrive, but that would still come to $2999 without the monitor.

Bring Your Own Popcorn--And Software

After laying out $4000 and getting back a little pocket change, you'd expect to have a system that's ready for heavy-duty video editing and DVD burning. Unfortunately, even though this G4 is Apple's professional model, it comes with Apple's consumer-level video editing and DVD software, IMovie and IDVD. Both applications are extremely easy to use, and they do a very good job for simple tasks. But more-advanced users will chafe at their limited capabilities.

The IMovie application can export edited movies in one of only three formats: back out to a DV camera, from where it came; to a QuickTime file, with various compression options; or to a format that IDVD can read. You can choose from a small selection of themes for the IDVD interface or customize it with an image of your own, but you can't do anything fancy with it.

However, Apple's $999 DVD Studio Pro, a much more sophisticated encoding application, cannot import any of IMovie's formats. If you use IMovie, you must first export a QuickTime file and then convert it to an MPEG-2 file with Apple's downloadable QuickTime Movie Player (the $30 Pro version). To shorten the process, you'll need Apple's more sophisticated $999 Final Cut Pro, or Adobe's $549 Premiere; either will export an MPEG-2 file directly.

Whichever application you use, prepare to wait: While most business applications run very quickly on the G4 (Adobe Photoshop is speedy too), video files still require substantial time investment. For example, when you apply transitions and effects to a video in IMovie, the application begins rendering them on the fly and lets you keep on working, but if you stack up several effects, you'll be able to make a few phone calls before they're finished.

Sending a finished movie back out to a digital video camcorder takes only as long as the film takes to play (a 1:1 ratio), but exporting to the IDVD format takes longer--about 1.5 hours for a 43-minute movie. Burning the result to a DVD-R disc with IDVD took nearly 2 hours more. Converting to an MPEG-2 file for use with DVD Studio Pro took an additional 1.5 hours.

Ironically, those times indicate that the PowerMac G4 is quite fast, and it proved very stable. Even in some hours-long episodes of heavy video crunching, it rarely crashed (but those infrequent bombs were highly discouraging, because they meant starting over from the beginning).

CDs in a Jiffy

Apple integrated CD-R and CD-RW writing functions into its operating system (Mac OS 9.1). When you insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc, the OS prompts you to initialize the disc in one of three formats. You simply drag files to the disc icon and then choose Burn CD-R from a menu option. However, the writing options are very limited. For example, although this system is a video machine, it cannot burn movies onto CD-Video-formatted discs, and to create disc images, you must use another Apple utility. A better option: Roxio's $99 Toast 5 Titanium CD authoring software burns in many different formats, including DVD; Roxio says the latest version supports the SuperDrive.

Other aspects of the PowerMac G4 remain unchanged from previous versions. The case design beats that devised by any other PC maker we've seen. You pull a latch to open the side of the case; the motherboard is attached to the side, making all components very easy to reach. The SuperDrive looks difficult to remove, though, and the case has room for only one externally accessible drive bay and one internal drive bay. On the other hand, the system offers four open PCI slots (thanks to an integrated network adapter and the modem's location in a proprietary slot elsewhere on the motherboard).

The PowerMac G4 does as good a job processing video as we've seen in a desktop system. However, it's still very expensive despite Apple's victory in getting the SuperDrive to market first, and the software needs more flexibility and better integration.

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