Macvide VideoFlash Converter

"MLMUGers subject their Macs to mysterious code"

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A Software Review
by Moe Comeau

Product: Macvide VideoFlash Converter 2.0

Company: Macvide
URL: http://www.macvide.com/

Price: $99.95

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 (Universal Binary), 12.4 MB Hard Drive space

Test System: 15" Aluminum PowerBook G4; 1.5 GHz; 2 GB RAM

Reviewer's Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Apples

When a User Group discount for this product was announced on the MLMUG List, it sounded like a great missing link: "A Flash to video conversion utility for Mac OS X. With a focus on ease-of-use, FlashVideo Converter allows conversion of Adobe (Macromedia) Flash SWF and FLV files to video." About time someone offered a utility to do that, thought I. Sounded too good to be true. It was.

On the plus side, installation was a snap. It appeared not to require a reboot, but things were so flakey, I decided I'd better both reboot and repair permissions before going on. After that, the program loaded fine but gave me a warning that I was using a DEMO version, and that I'd need to register it. But HOW? There was NO menu structure, just the warning. Finally, out of frustration, I just clicked on "Run Demo. Once running, I played Find-the-hidden-Registration-Command. File Menu? Nope. Control? Nah-uh. Parameters? No way. Windows? Nada. Help? Finally. Registration was buried in the middle of the Help Menu.

MLMUG member Jim W. had sent me a couple of German cartoons in Flash Video which he wanted me to try converting. I loaded his Movie1 and it played fine in the accompanying flash player. That was promising. Now to convert it. Jim had asked for MP4, so I picked that. But what to use for settings for the gaggle of OTHER parameters it wants? Not a clue. What the heck; just leave them set at where the software defaulted them to, I guess. Click on "Start Conversion." Next appeared a display showing Elapsed Time. Elapsed Time? How useless is THAT? I want remaining time. Duh! At least it appeared accurate, if useless.

So I let it sit there and churn. And churn. And churn. One hour...two hours...three...four. Finally, at the 4 hour 4 minute mark, I aborted it. It gave me the choices of "Cancel" or "Stop." I chose stop, hoping that I'd have at least a partial movie. What appeared next was the dreaded spinning beach ball. Ten minutes of that, and Force Quit was my only recourse.

So I relaunched the program. Once again, it warned I was using an unregistered copy. Re-register. Load Flash movie. This time the Loading Progress Display never moved until the whole movie was loaded. Then, to play the movie, I had to click "play" twice. When it played, there was no sound. I had to go to System Prefs, and select Internal Sound instead of Macvide Audio Connector. Why was sound okay the first time, but not the second?

The parameters it wants you to set (and their settings) are these Codec parameters:

Video resolution
- Width (640)
- Height (480)
- Proportional (Checked)
Video Quality
- Quality (20)
- Bitrate (1200)
- FPS (15)
Audio Settings
- Enabled (Checked)
- Samples per second (44100 Hertz)
- Bitrate (256000 Kbps)
- Stereo (Checked)

My second attempt to convert Jim's Movie1 also failed, so I decided to try Jim's Movie2, to save it as .mov instead of .mp4, and to tweak the parameters way down. The 60-second movie converted in 2 minutes and 59 seconds, then the Export Media process took another 1:30. Amazingly, the software just keeps churning after it reaches the end of the movie. You have to manually stop it. But it DID successfully convert. Whew. I retried Movie1 with the tweaked-down parameters, but, no-go. All in all, not a very happy experience.

I decided maybe the problem was mine, due to unfamiliarity with the settings needed, so I visited their site, and started reading the postings in their forums. Many of the problems reported there were far worse than mine. But one thing looked promising: In response to one posting Macvide promised to publish tutorials in 1-2 weeks. That promise was posted April 23. On October 7, I emailed the company to ask the status. Another plus: They respond to emails within hours. But with empty promises: "Manuals and tutorials will be available for FlashVideo and VideoFlash Converter after 20 Oct. just now our techwriter work for it." My review is overdue; I ask for, and Maria grants, a month extension. Come Oct 20? Nothing. On Nov 13th I ask again, saying:

I need the tutorials and manuals you promised by 20 October; that was three weeks ago. Are they done? My review is now overdue by a month, as we delayed it to give you a chance to provide them. I MUST get a link to them within 24 hours.

Again a very fast response: Draft versions are online, with a link, and a promise that final versions will be posted by Monday (Nov 17). I open the draft. There are large areas with incomplete sections highlighted in yellow, and numerous missing items labelled "<<ITBA>>". Are there explanations for all those parameters listed above? Not really; just a regurgitation of what you see in the screen menus. A week after the promised Monday, I check again. Updates! No yellow! Does it explain the parameters? Sorta. Does it tell you what the settings MEAN in terms of the effect on the output? Not really. Back to Square One.

I can only conclude that with a success rate of 50% and lack of meaningful documentation, this product is not yet ready for prime time. At $100, when much of the competition is freeware, I recommend you seek other solutions to your video conversion needs.

Moe Comeau
Reviewer:
Moe Comeau

Moe still plods along on G4 vintage Mac hardware, which still can handle video needs, albeit in somewhat less that real time.

Moe was once the prolific author of a monthly column of rants and rambles entitled In Moe's Humble Opinion (IMHO).

This site has many more reviews, all written by MLMUG members.
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