Windows, MacOS, and editing race cam videos…

Windows 7 solves so many issues

I finally got around to installing Windows 7 on a used Dell Precision 360 w/ 1GB RAM that I bought from work. During installation I somehow fried the AGP video card’s DVI port. I was able to still get the VGA port to work – and was impressed with the graphics and performance.

I went out and bought a new AGP card and am now really impressed with the “Aero” themes and video effects. The system is amazingly fast.

Windows 7 and video editing

I figured I would look at the Microsoft Live extensions including the Movie Maker download. I was able to get the software up, running, and edit one of the MPEG videos from my TraqMate race cam within minutes. This was really interesting to me as everyone says the Mac and Final Cut are the way to go. Movie Maker was FREE – while Final Cut Express was $199.00 at the Apple Store. 🙁

Mac Snow Leopard and Final Cut Express

I recently bought the Snow Leopard upgrade for my Intel based Mac and Final Cut Express 4.0 for editing videos. On Final Cut Express (not sure about Pro), the version of MPEG that the car cam shoots is not recognized. I need to read in the video with the software provided by TraqMate. The “fun” part about MPEG is that the file extension does not say it all.  There are 3 versions of MPEG videos… It seems that the TraqMate shoots MPEG2 and Final Cut only recognizes  versions 1 and 3. TraqMate makes a video conversion utility that I have not tried yet. http://traqmate.com/downloads/videoconverter/TQConvertInstall.exe.  There are several other free utilities out there as well.

A pay program from Apple should have at least the minimum features of the FREE program from Microsoft…

And a Ted Cahall Racing Video is Born!

When I was done, I went to post the video to YouTube.  But – YouTube was down! I first tried at 11:15AM ET today.   It was down for a while. It was back up when I checked back at 11:30AM. Movie Maker posts directly to YouTube. So here it is.

Ted Cahall

Author: Ted Cahall

Ted Cahall is an executive, engineer, entrepreneur as well as amateur race car driver. He combined his skills as an engineer and passion for racing by developing the marrspoints.com points tracking website for the Washington DC region of the SCCA.