MacEdition Pro News : 18th February 2002: CD-to-DVD, short press releases, bye-bye RSI, OS X server tools.

by MacEdition Staff (feedback)

What, you don’t have built-in DVD?

Hands up, those among us who’ve received those delightful “Copy all your DVDs for only $39.95!!!” and similarly entitled spam. If you’ve ever clicked to find out the amazing details on how to “convert all your VHS to DVD without $4000 worth of special equipment,” only to realise they’re foisting some shoddy Windows-only software for making VCDs. It does leave you vaguely curious what these VCDs actually play like, though, doesn’t it?

Fear not, the folks from Mireth Technology (whom we’ve noted in previous segments) have released an update of MacVCD:

Mireth Technology has released version 3.2 of MacVCD. MacVCD is the easy-to-use, full screen, full featured Video CD Player for the Macintosh. VCD movies are frequently stored in multiple files (called tracks) and because of CD storage size limitations, are often stored on more than one disk. MacVCD automatically recognizes this Video CD format, finds, loads and plays the movie for you, automatically chaining the tracks together for you and auto ejecting the disk when it’s done. MacVCD is the easy way to play. It features:

• Full screen display, even on large monitors
• Automatic VCD format recognition and file chaining
• Auto Play and Auto Eject (configurable in preferences)
• Easy to use standard Macintosh Interface with both Movie Controller
• Bar and Keyboard control
• Track and Chapter selection support
• Support for both multi-language and karaoke soundtracks
• Movie file saving

Version 3.2 adds the following features:

• Hands Free speech activated control
• Playback on a second display (like a TV)
• Advanced movie controls including slow motion

MacVCD – the easy way to play™

MacVCD for OS 9 costs $15.00(US) and can be ordered from Mireth’s web site at http://www.mireth.com/. Bulk discounts are available. You can download a copy (free demo included) from http://www.mireth.com/pub/download.html. For more information please see: http://www.mireth.com/pub/mvme.html or contact Mireth Technology at marketing@mireth.com

Okay, MacVCD is only for watching VCDs, but think of the plus side – the product certainly seems to be far from shoddy (regular updates are usually a good sign), you’re less likely to get in trouble from the MPAA (because copying DVDs is bad), this product is cheaper (US$15 – a bargain!) and the folks at Mireth don’t spam you. (Oh, and if you want to make legal VCDs, there is always iMovie.)

Short and sweet

If it hasn’t been mentioned before, at ProNews we really like press releases that are short and to the point. The folks at VVI recently obliged by sending us this short note:

VVI has released two new applications for Mac OS X:

Graph Vvilder™ Version 8.0: a powerful visual layout application. At this time we are beta-testing version 8.0 (for the press release see http://www.vvi.com/news/gv20020212.html)

Computer Monitor™ Version 1.2: an application to display single or dual CPU use. (for the press release see http://www.vvi.com/news/cm20020212.html)

And an upgrade to Vving™ (version 1.2) which is about ten times faster than the previous version. (see http://www.vvi.com/products/vving)

Vving, if you haven’t heard of it before, is a simple-to-use diagnostic tool to look at network performance on Mac OS X.

Scribble that RSI away!

As noted on MacMinute last week, EFI (Electronics for Imaging, Inc.) launched a digital whiteboard system, the eBeam System3. In effect, what it does is allow a person using any whiteboard to capture the penstrokes directly to his or her computer. The USB version is compatible with Mac OS 9 (no news on Mac OS X support yet) and retails for $749.

We only mention it now because we think the idea is damn cool.

Take Helios for a test drive

We’ve covered Helios server software in a previous ProNews , but the folks at Helios Software GmbH are keen for you to take it for a free 30-day test drive:

Supporting more AppleShare servers worldwide than any other UNIX-based server software, HELIOS Software GmbH, announced a free test drive of all of its network server products for Apple Computer’s (Nasdaq:AAPL) Mac OS X.

Further details on the HELIOS Test Drive are available at Apple’s Made4Mac web site: http://guide.apple.com/ and at Apple’s Mac OS X download site:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/networking/ and http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/imaging_3d/

The Test Drive itself can be downloaded at HELIOS’ web site: http://www.helios.de/

Each product enables up to three concurrent Windows or Macintosh users to test-drive HELIOS powerful networking and prepress server software for 30 days free of charge. HELIOS’ leading server products for Mac OS X 10.1 include:

EtherShare 2.6

Highest-Performance server for Mac clients

PCShare 3.0

Highest-Performance server for Windows clients

EtherShare OPI 2.1

Server-based OPI, including Image Replacement with Color Separation And Proof Printing support

PDF Handshake 2.0

PDF Printing - PDF OPI and Imposition - Create PDF Server - PDF Internet Printing

Print Preview 1.1

Convenient & reliable last minute proofing

The HELIOS suite of networking and prepress servers represents the most extensive offering of native Mac OS X server software available today. For a detailed look at HELIOS server features for Mac OS X see: http://www.helios.de/news/news01/ES_PCS-on-MacOSX2.html

Looking for old ProNews segments? Check out our index at http://old.macedition.com/news/. Do you have news releases or tidbits of interest to the Macintosh professional? Send them to pronewsnotes@macedition.com.

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