Grrr... not as easy as it should be

The reasons we bought a Mac were three-fold:

1) Mary first learned computers on a Mac and really likes them

2) Macs are easy to use and configure

3) Macs are supposed to be wonderful for creative arts - such as drawing/photoshoping/editing movies/etc.

Well, I beg to differ with #3. For one simple reason - the Mac doesn't natively grok MPEG2 format. Huh??? That just happens to be the encoding of all video on DVDs - and it's been a standard since 1994. Oh, and when you go to Apple's web site asking for information on how to deal with video in that format, they just say that iMovie can only edit video and audio streams when they are in different streams (i.e. not interlaced, as is done in mpeg2).

Fine... Great... Just give me the option to import it. But no... you have to find some 2nd party utility to do the job. It turns out, the software they sort of recommend also requires a $20 plugin for Quicktime. Fine, an extra $20, not a big deal, but you're still have to convert the movies outside of iMove and then import them.

Come on, what a crok. Maybe they don't support the mpeg2 b/c of licencing issues or they're afraid of the MPAA. But that doesn't make sense because you can buy the plugin that plays mpeg2... So why? And why not have a very simple guide as to how to do the conversion.

Anyway, the Mac is pissing me off right now.