Using the MBA, the iPhone 13 PM, & QuickTime to Capture Video

I was recording video footage today and decided to do two things that I hadn't ever done.

I wanted some really good detailed footage, but also wanted to be able to zoom in on my subject.  My GoPro is usually my primary camera, but it doesn't zoom like a smartphone or DSLR camera.  

I tried to use my PC's Logitech C922 streaming camera, but that doesn't zoom either.  It only produces 1080p footage, as well, but it's pretty clear and my M1 Macbook Air (MBA) immediately detects it; I'm able to use that camera's microphone, too.  The C922 works far better than the camera that is integrated into the MBA (that's a 720p camera).

I'd forgotten that I can now use my iPhone 13 Pro Max as a desktop camera with recent versions of iOS but hadn't tried it.  I tried it and it captures extremely nice footage!  Not only that, there's NO latency - the MBA connects to the iPhone wirelessly and you'd never know it wasn't a wired connection.

As well, I'd been using Photobooth to collect footage.  While the footage is OK, it's also somewhat limited.  I also lost footage, several times...the recording session sometimes freezes.  So I did some quick research on any native methods of recording footage on a Mac.  I found that I can use Quicktime to record footage.  Not only that, I can point it toward the iPhone and leverage the phone as a camera.  Also, I can record audio only, if I've the need to.  Additionally, I can record the desktop!  I can choose between different cameras and can rely upon their audio hardware, and I can even mix up cameras and mics across different devices when using QuickTime.

So, what I did was use QuickTime to record, using the iPhone 13 PM and using the Logitech C922's mic.  I was also able to hold up the subjects of the recording session to the 13 PM and it would focus on the items while they were close-up to the camera.  I'm not sure how to manipulate the camera's resolution and other recording options when using QuickTime, though.  By default, it recorded at 1080p, and used ProRES.

The resulting footage was great.  It had good detail and was not blurry, nor did the focus hunt and change...it maintained focus on it's own.  The recorded file was on the MBA, as well, which is pretty wild...the footage didn't glitch out or have any artifacts and the recording session didn't lag or appear that it was under any stress.  I'd saved the files to my SanDisk 2TB drive, so none of it consumed system drivespace.

I should've been using my 13PM a long time ago.  I'd been trying to use it as a standalone camera, but found that the resulting video files were huge and I'd have to transfer them to the MBA, which was a PITA.  As well, the large files consumed my phone's storage space, so I was always at the space limit.

Using the 13PM as a camera when using the MBA is the better way, by far!

I'll be attempting to determine how to up the recording resolution when using the 13PM as a MBA camera.

BTW, the resulting video is here:

Davinci Resolve - A Great Experience When Using It With an M1 Mac

I mentioned maybe a month ago that I'm now using Davinci Resolve to manipulate videos to post to YouTube.  I'm still using it.  I don't think I'm going to be able to go back to using iMovie.

Prior to iMovie, I was using Cyberlink PowerDirector, which was OK, but felt a bit bloated and cumbersome to use.  That software as full-featured, though, and much more robust than iMovie.  I used Cyberlink PD on my Del G7 17", and while PD didn't crash, it always caused the cooling fans to kick in.  As well, it would take a while to create videos.  I had bought a one year subscription and let it lapse.  While the software was OK, it wanted something better.

I tried Davinci Resolve because I heard someone mention it on one of the Mac-centric subreddits.  Not only that, I wanted to try to use my M1-powered Mac to crunch video, as I'd only used iMovie.  I knew that Resolve would leverage GPUs (it's probably a requirement) and had heard that M1 Macs were very efficient when compiling video footage.  Yeah, I'd used iMovie, but no real professional is using that to create movies.

When I crunched my first video on my M1 Mac, using Resolve, I was shocked.  Two things were immediately apparent.  One, the M1 Mac didn't studder when editing footage like my Dell G7 does.  Granted, my G7 is only powered by a 5 yr old i5 CPU and is running a mobile version of the RTX 2060.  The system is probably throttling, too (most non-Mac laptops do).  Secondly, the compilation portion is FAST, no matter what configuration you are using.  I crunched some ProRES footage and the M1 positively flew through the process.

Yeah, I'm not going back and will probably purchase a license for Resolve so that I can use some of the features that are locked in the free version.  I may as well pay for a license if I'm going to use it as my primary editor.

Solved - Macbook Would Connect to Wifi but Has No Internet Connection

I'm currently visiting my parents in another state.  I last visited them two weeks ago.  The last visit, I was able to connect all of my Apple devices to their wireless access point (WAP) without issue and have been doing that for years, without issue.

I attempted to connect my Macbook Air to their WAP and it connects but I couldn't browse the web.  The browser client was saying that there was no internet connection, yet my mother's MBP could connect.  My Dell G17 could connect.  My iPhone Pro Max could connect.

My parents' router was working with all electronic appliances, with the exception of my MBA.

I used Google to search for "macbook connected to wifi but no internet".  The search results are here.

I focused on this web page - Solved: Macbook Connects to Wi-Fi but Has no Internet Connection - AppleToolBox.

I tried the steps that were recommended and all failed until I reached Step 4, "Change your Mac's Domain Name System (DNS)".

When I changed the MBA's DNS settings to use the Google DNS IPs, I was immediately able to reach Google.com when testing for connectivity.

I'm still not sure what was causing this issue.  When I checked the MBA's DNS settings (before I changed them), the MBA was pulling the DNS settings from my parents' router without issue.  The DNS IPs weren't resolving names, though, and the issue was only affecting the Macbook Air.  It was a very odd issue.

I thought I'd share this issue and fix so that when folks had this issue, they'd have a potential fix.

Purchased Applecare+ for the Macbook Air

 After seeing a month+ of many folks sharing that they've damaged their Macbooks' screens (either by dropping or neglecting to remember that the notebook is fragile), I decided to purchase Applecare+.

The thing about insurance is that you might not need to use it.  I wanted to have it in case I ever need it.

I think I use my Mac Mini more than I do my MBA, but every time I handle the Macbook, there's this nagging feeling that I'm going to drop it.  Maybe it's that slick feeling case.  Or maybe it's the fact that it feels ultra-light and thin..  The top case is very thin, in fact, to the point that it doesn't take much to damage the screen (evidenced by the high amount of posters at the MacRumors forums and sub-Reddits, sharing the damage they caused).

One thing that I noticed is that when purchasing Applecare+, the owner is given the option of subscribing annually ($99/year) or paying a lump sum of $199 for three years of coverage.  I'm not sure which would've been best for me, but opted for the 3-year plan since I'll have the MBA a while (longer than 3 years, more than likely).  

It just makes sense, to me, to buy the coverage (mainly for the accidental) and not worry so much about display damage.  Note that I'm only interested in entertaining my use case...I've no need to explore any scenarios outside of my own usage patterns.

And, no, I didn't purchase Applecare+ for my Mac Mini M1.  It's not mobile and I have less worry of dropping it than my MBA.

Macbook Air M1 - Anker 7-Port Dock/Hub On The Way

I ordered an Anker 7-port dock/hub from Amazon today, as I've several external hard drives that I plan to use with my Macbook Air M1.  

This dock will allow me to connect drives to the MBA using USB-A connections.

I've also been closely monitoring how my MBA uses memory, just to understand how it performs.  I've yet to see the memory pressure rise to the point where the graph is yellow, but it does use swap (very little, actually - maybe 100 MB, infrequently).  I'm close to not worrying about it any longer.  I'm pretty sure the system will let me know (by throttling down components) if memory usage gets bad.  Life is too short to be constantly worrying on if your Mac MI is swapping...if it is, so be it - I highly doubt swapping is going to cut my drive's life in half.

Macbook Air M1 and RAM/Swap research

 Last night, after 3-4 days of the MBA running (mostly hibernating but I did use it maybe 10 hours or so), I took at look at the kernel_task process and it was at around 16TB of writing. (!!)

I didn't have a ton of apps open but did have 15 tabs in an open Firefox browser.  I'm thinking that was the culprit...many days of running without killing the process, when Firefox is notorious for memory leaks.

I shut it down then decided to remove the whole program since it was migrated from my old iMac.  It was almost certainly running an Intel version, which meant that it was being translated by Rosetta2 before being used by the M1's ARM chipset.  

I installed the Mac version but decided to also look into Microsoft Edge, which has some memory leak protections built-in (it hibernates inactive tabs, I believe).  I initially looked for it at the App Store but it wasn't there.  It was the same for FF for Mac - had to go to the FF page and download it, so I went to Microsoft's page, found the Mac M1 version, downloaded and installed it.

The plan is to start using Edge in place of FF so that I can take advantage of it's anti-leak properties, but still have FF on-hand in case I need it.  Yeah, I can use Safari, as well, but I've grown used to FF and Safari doesn't have the anti-leak protection.

I also ensured that the other software I migrated from the iMac (GarageBand, iMovie, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, etc) was using versions native to Apple silicon.  They are all running versions designed for the M1 chipset.

I then restarted the MBA so that the kernel_task writes could be watched after my changes.

So far, my kernel_task writes are low (437 MB) and I'm not swapping (I'm at 2 GB of unused RAM currently).

As well, I've researched the RAM and swap issue.  Even if I start swapping, even if it was heavy swapping, the life of my SSD should last well over 10 years.

I've also thought of creating extra swap files/partitions to a 2nd SSD I have, and redirecting the swapping to those locations (if possible for the latter).  I can always replace the 2nd SSD since it's not embedded into the MBA.  This may be an option later on, but I'll not worry about it now.

Had to Rearrange My Desk

 I've rearranged my desk so that I can use the Macs at one end of the (long) desk.  

This resulted in moving my 27" iMac, placing it next to my Mac Mini.  The enables me to use the iMac as a monitor for my Mini, using Target Display Mode (TDM).  I had to buy a USB-C to mini-Displayport cable and use the one of the Thunderbolt slots to connect to the iMac.

Even though I can use TDM, there's the issue of having two sets of keyboard and mice between both systems.  I don't think there's a worthwhile way around that issue.

I'm also using a bluetooth mouse and keyboard with the Mini.  The mouse is a Corsair Harpoon that has a bluetooth mode.  I'd been using that mouse with my work laptop until I found that it had BT functionality, then I repurposed it for use with my Mini.  The keyboard is a Seenda ISJ-ZXKB01.  It has mapped controls for MacOS.  It works well, but tends to take a few seconds to reconnect when it is hibernating (I've to tap a button and wait maybe a second or two for it to awaken before I can use it).

Since I took the iMac from my work setup, I am mow using my Dell 27" monitor as my second screen for work.  I'd previously been using it as a second monitor for use when I'm streaming gameplay, but since that system has a 34" UW display, I really didn't have an excuse to use an additional monitor.  It did make things a bit more simple, as I could use OBS on that screen while the main screen was outputting gameplay.  I may buy another 27" screen from Dell if I want to go back to that setup, but I'd have to rearrange the desk or get a wallmount for it (or the iMac).  We'll see.

The Macbook Air (MBA) is doing well.  I've been using it to do light things such as blog posts, research, and note-taking (using OneNote).  I'd heard folks with M1 Macs using the MS Edge browser because it's less resource-intensive than Firefox and Chrome.  I've been using Firefox as my main browser, but I've to watch it closely because it tends to consume lots of memory.  I might try Edge soon.

Macbook Air Cracked in Minutes

http://blogs.computerworld.com/macbook_pwned_in_two_minutes_and_fly_me

Apparently, there's an issue with Safari...another reason yet again to use Firefox, especially since there is now the Firekeeper plugin.