At our last meeting we went through the process of converting VHS (analog sources) to Digital Video and DVD. This was a fun topic as pretty much all of us have content that's deteriorating on VHS, 8mm, etc. that could be preserved in digital format on DVD. Brian Stone helped out tremendously by providing his S-VHS deck, Sony Media Converter and Sony mini-DV deck. Although the Library is a mess right now with the construction we had a good turn out and everyone was able to enjoy the meeting. We will continue down this path of creating DVDs next month with a presentation on Apple's DVD Studio Pro 4.

MacGroup Finds A New Home

Yesterday I announced a that starting in October, MacGroup-Detroit will be meeting in a new location. The Birmingham Temple has welcomed us with open arms. This facility is larger than the library and very accommodating for our needs.

• Available on Sundays
• Seats 300 (actually 400, but I'm only counting the chairs that would be able to see the screen)
• Ample free parking
• Very comfortable seats
• We will have our own DSL line in the room and provide Wi-Fi access during our meetings.
• We will be able to accept payments on the premises for dues, tickets, donations, DVDs etc.
• Centrally Located

Our first meeting will be SATURDAY, October 15, 2005 3-5 PM. Although this first meeting will be on a Saturday, the subsequent meetings will return to Sundays.

The Birmingham Temple is located at 28611 W 12 Mile Rd, Farmington Hills MI

After the meeting the Afterglow took place at Panera Bread. We had a good time discussing the Mac, MacGroup and other topics of interest.

New MacGroup Meeting DVD's Now Available!

I wanted to let you know about two new MacGroup iCal Calendars:

MacGroup Birthdays
Michigan Mac Events

This will leave our existing MacGroup iCal to focus on MacGroup meeting & afterglow info, MacNews deadlines and other special dates/anniversaries.

The main reason for separating these items onto 3 different calendars is so that you could subscribe to any one, two or all three, but then only sync the ones you want to your mobile device. This way you won't have hundreds of birthdays on your PDA, cell phone or iPod.

As always you can subscribe to the ones you want as well:
Subscribe to the MacGroup iCal
Subscribe to the Michigan Mac Events iCal
Subscribe to the MacGroup Members Birthday iCal

After subscribing be sure to set your "refresh" for each subscription to daily!

If iCal is not your thang, then please bookmark our upcoming meetings page to keep up with our schedule and to know when and where our upcoming meetings will take place.

By popular DEMAND, the MacGroup Store has been updated with More Meetings on DVD!
http://macgroup.org/store

Members have been requesting a way to buy the meeting presentations on DVD and to buy disc of the months and other items that we can no longer sell on site. So now you have a one stop shop to get those items sent directly to you. The new store is just getting started and will evolve along the way.

Get your door prize ticket when you enter the room

Some members wait til the end of the meeting to realize that they did not pick up their ticket for the door prize drawing. While we are sure that you are all honest people, it causes too much confusion to do it after the meeting has begun. Therefore, the new policy effective at the October meeting is that no tickets will be distributed once the meeting has begun. The only exception will be for those members arriving late. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure you get your ticket when you enter the room. Newsletters and tickets are handed out at the same time.

Special Thanks to Shirley Kussner for being our Camera Operator this month. Also, thanks goes out to Joseph Grey for photographing the meeting and the afterglow.

Q&A from the Meeting

Q. What hardware and software solutions were showcased at this meeting?

A. Several cool products were used/mentioned:

We used a Hitachi S-VHS deck connected to a Sony DCR-TRV950 mini-DV Video Camera. That was then connected to a PowerBook 15" 1.67GHz 2GB RAM, 100GB HD via Firewire. I used Apple's iMovie HD to capture the video and then I used Apple's Soundtrack Pro to remove the "hiss" from the audio. I continued with iMovie HD to do a title and edit the clip down by a couple of seconds. Next I added chapter marks and transferred it over to iDVD 5 which allowed me to add background photos/movies to the menus.

We gave away a GoVideo DVD Recorder!

The other products that were mentioned but not used for the conversion were:

Sony Media Converter
Sony mini-DV deck
Formac Studio tvr
QuickStream DV (DV Capture Drive)
Data Rescue

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I didn't get a chance to ask my question before the time ran out at the meeting!

Ask it on the iBBS! We are answering your questions there 24/7. (members only)

Several New User Group Discounts have been posted to the iBBS. Remember as a MacGroup member you can register for the iBBS at no additional cost.

Missed the meeting?
Don't worry! You can watch it via QuickTime Streaming!

Want to see Previous Meeting Highlights?
Just go to our Meetings Highlights page and see the last 6 months worth of meeting info.

Plan ahead and see what the topics are for the next few months
Simply bookmark the Upcoming page! If you would like to suggest a topic for an upcoming meeting, please do so on our iBBS!

Dates to Remember

• October 15 • 3-PM
  Our first meeting at the Birmingham Temple. Topic: Apple's DVD Studio Pro 4

There are lots of activities happening in our community and most of them are free to attend. Please View and subscribe to the MacGroup iCal to see what's going on!
Michigan Mac Events

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