We covered iDive once before, but found we didn’t do it justice. So, here is a second review of the newest version of iDive. This version should offer better interoperability with iMovie and Final Cut Pro. In a next version update, Aquafadas has promised to include the much awaited capability to import existing footage on your hard disk.

First of all, iDive captures footage much more efficiently than in previous versions. You get a lot of control over the process, including the ability to capture raw video and then compress that later on. Footage can be captured at full resolution and compressed using any available QuickTime codec. This means that QuickTime Pro users and users of (paid!) Sorensen codecs can use those codecs to compress their footage in iDive.

But this capability isn’t the biggest improvement over the version that I tested a couple of months ago. Back then I said iDive could do with more functionality with regards to footage already on your disk. I also thought it was a bit useless to have iDive and then not being able to get that footage in Final Cut Pro easily. This made iDive only suitable for amateur use.

However, iDive 1.2.1 has improved considerably in these areas. Final Cut Pro support has expanded to include the ability to export clip sequences to the Final Cut Pro XML file format, so that sequences are immediately recognized by this application and clips connected if you want that to happen.

This makes iDive a lot more efficient and flexible. With this capability and the raw digital video capturing capability, it now becomes feasible to use iDive as the cataloguing application that is used to capture clips, load them with meta data, and then export the captured clip sequences into a Final Cut Pro XML file, so they can be loaded after having been indexed and commented.

iDive now also has the capability to export to Avid Log Exchange format files, the standard used by Avid DV systems to exchange clip information.

This doesn’t mean iDive shouldn’t be capable of just importing already captured clips and sequences, of course, but it is a huge improvement in terms of workflow enhancement.

iDive also shines when it comes to searching for sequences and clips. Once you have done your basic home work, which is to attach meta data --persons, places, events-- to each captured clip, it is easy to find the right clip even in large collections of tapes. The interface is helpful in that it provides for visual clues as to which meta data narrows down your search so far. For example, if you have thirty clips with the same Person meta data attached to, but some of which have different events and locations meta data attached to them, the interface will give visual clues that will help you narrow down your search to the right locations and events.

Another nice feature is the clip Inspector. It took me a few seconds to work out that the Inspector is not activated by any menu option, but just by double-clicking a clip, but then again, I didn’t take the time to read through the excellent manual.

The clip Inspector allows you to split clips. If you do so, the clip segments that can run from 1 to several seconds will split over the now multiple clips and precisely in the location where you performed the split.

There are a number of other features in iDive which are not present in competing products, or at least not as easy to use. The current version is already very feature-rich. If Aquafadas keeps its promise and adds footage import capability with the next version, my personal opinion is that it will be hard to beat this product.