Aquafadas announced the first version of iDive sometime in 2004. Back then, it looked like iDive would become a killer-app, with videocasts being hyped as the obligatory content for any type of web site. But while podcasts are more or less mainstream today, videocasts are still a bit too far-fetched for most web masters. 

And so, the announced iDive Professional was put in the freezer, and Aquafadas developed a fun application instead: PulpMotion. iDive was recently updated to version 1.8, is said to include a locked down version of PulpMotion, and still is the amateur’s favourite video cataloguing application. But Pro? I reviewed iDive in 2005, and now I am reviewing version 1.8, and although there are features in there that are promising, they aren’t robust enough to be used by video-editing professionals. 

Integration with Final Cut Pro 6 Broken

There is quite a list of new features in iDive, but it still works as intuitive as before. A number of improvements have been made to the way video is captured. iDive also isn’t just a video tape library manager anymore. You can throw DV, HD and direct capture at it, and it will import all those formats without complaining.

A Pro feature if you like is the ability to add timecode information, so a video clip can be exchanged with Final Cut Pro. I tried this feature again, as well as the export to XML feature, only to see it fail with Final Cut Pro 6. Nevertheless, as iDive is updated frequently, I don’t suppose we’ll have to wait very long for this functionality to work properly with any version of Final Cut after version 4.

The import window allows you to compress video using a number of codecs --those supported by QuickTime-- but when you choose this capability, iDive has the tendency to hang forever, with an application restart required. It’s one of those areas where I don’t think iDive can be used in professional environments--it’s just not robust enough.

However, with the ability to create Tape Groups, easily tag tapes and hook them to locations, people and events, it still is the best solution for amateur video creators. On my test version there was no way I could access PulpMotion, so I can’t report on that feature.

iDive 1.8 is worth the money for fervent amateur video creators, but all in all, my observations from back in 2005 still stand.